@Susan-Marks A pleasure Susan! What you're saying has a lot of sense. I wasn't thinking smart enough! Great love and respect!

@demotlj Thank you for the feedback! I've changed Lucy's face, not only in terms of shadows and cheeks, but also the eyes, which I've decided would look better if they were closed. I think it's a lot better like this now. Thank you all for the feedback! It helped me understand some notions about shadows, focus of the illustration and illustrating the faces better

Decided to try a comic page this time, too!

Thank you to everyone that posted last month! It has been wonderful seeing all of your great images. If you are interested I posted the Q&A with the featured student for April today. Also, if you would like to share your work again for a chance to be considered for May you can go to this forum post. I understand that we are all busy so if you need to share the same images as last month there is nothing wrong with that, but if you can use this as a challenge to create something new then go for it (I know I need to do this)!

@Gary-Wilkinson For what it's worth, Gary, I modified her pose a bit before posting it on Instagram. Hope it's less teapot-ish!

I love this one. I’m excited to see how you finish it.

@leontine This is charming!

You've already had some great suggestions, but for me the number 1 thing I'd do is flip the image! The action is from right to left which feels very unnatural and against the flow. The eye is used to reading an image from left to right, and so the action should flow in that direction as well P.S I really like the little plants cut out of the bottom edge, very effective and creative!

@Sas I am! Thank U! @aska Thanks!

I have two guinea pigs myself, glad to see them get a little attention! They are so cute when they're eating, which is pretty much all the time. Great expression.

@carriecopa Thank you Carrie! I appreciate the support

Hi! I am in love with the designs of your mushroom people - I think the idea of putting their face at the very base of the shroom with these big floppy heads/foreheads is adorable and funny and something I haven't seen before. My critique is in a place where I'm just starting to learn from - but it looks like with your comp that you could benefit from finding the big shapes forms and doing value on those. Your woman has a lot of different values in her which makes it hard for her to stand out - but maybe if her value and the cat and the mushroom people can all be of a lighter value, where the whole middle ground is the darkness of that grass. This would allow her to pop out more and be the true focus.

I have been working my new original comic book, Battle Chronicles for a few months and just recently purchased and created my website through SquareSpace. Currently, I upload 2 pages every Friday, but I am wondering if I should change my strategy? Here is a little background information on what I have done so far: Issue I (34 Pages+Cover) - All pages available for free since I started my website in June. Issue II (22 Pages+Cover) - Finished and currently being uploaded two pages at a time every Friday. Issue III (24 Pages+Cover) - Drawn and inked, need to be colored and lettered. Issue IV (24 Pages+Cover) - Currently writing and working on thumbnails. Should I change things up, or just stay the course? I am still new to this, but I just want to make sure that I am constantly self-evaluating and pushing myself for the best results! Here are the covers for Issue I and II: If you would like to read more here is the link: https://www.tylerjhallstrom.com/ Thank you for taking a look!

@gary-wilkinson Thanks so much!

Hi, I'd like some help with a personal illustration! So aside from the fact that I want the background to be a dark room, I don't have much else planned. Should the background be simple or busy? And should it be structured or more organic? I'd be so grateful if you gave me your opinions on my piece. Thanks so much. Oh, and I'd love to get some advice about colour, contrast, and depth! I've been struggling with those. (https://erin-chan-art.deviantart.com/art/WIP-Illustration-731872315) Sorry it's a link - my photo wouldn't upload for some strange reason

Hi, I like the drawing in the sense that you have nice line work and shapes but from a composition standpoint I'm not sure what the story is because the girl seems to just be standing there looking into the sky. Is the monster dangerous? If yes then the sheep would be very noisy and active and that would make the girl take notice. Right now it looks like they are waiting for something to happen but I would consider drawing the moment when something is happening

Amazing stuff, welcome!

Ahhhh I've missed these forums! I'm venturing into new territory: printables! I grew up homeschooled, and I'm around a lot of homeschoolers where I live. It's a largely Christian group, and lots of people have told me how hard it is to find high-quality coloring pages (of religious-specific stuff) to print. I've hesitated getting into it myself because spending a few hours on nice linework, only to sell it for a buck or two sounds like a bad idea. But I've been doing more research into people who sell printables on Etsy, and it looks like it's "a thing." Not like a "quit your day job" thing (because art), but a decent market. While I could only sell my images for like $3, I would only do the work once. No printing, no shipping, no stocking. If I could sell a $3 drawing of a cute angel 15 times in a month, I'd be pretty pleased, to be honest. In addition to the printables, I want my store to carry the original ink line art (significantly more expensive) as well as watercolor paintings based on the image. It's a weird new direction for me, but I'm pretty pumped about the support and interest I've received from various Christian/homeschool groups. Fingers crossed! This is a sample of what I'll be selling. After I draw the lineart, I clean it up in Photoshop, and then livetrace it in Adobe Illustrator, so I have a resizable vector file. To be honest, this looks like the first page of a 'guardian angel' comic, which I kinda want to do now XD Still some tweaking to do, but overall, this is what I'm going for. Does my study of vintage book illustration show? Anyways, I just wanted to share in case anybody else might be interested. I'm hoping to launch my store Dec 3, so I'll let you know how I fare! I also started a separate Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/littlebeadsillustration/

@smceccarelli I haven’t done the ‘Draw 50 Things’ course yet so I’ll have to check it out. Lots of things to experiment with, thanks for the advice!

Hi all! Sorry I'm in and out so much but the full-time job + misc freelance can really swallow me whole sometimes. Here's a quick illustration I did for the new studio though. This one has some pretty personal metaphors buried in it which I don't usually tend toward in stuff I show to the public, but I'm multi-tasking these days. I'm stoked to see what SVS does with that space!