@StudioHannah to be honest with you, I wouldn’t have guessed that this was done on a 4x5 paper given how detailed everything else. But this is your piece, so do what you think is best.

@Ryan
Hi Ryan and welcome. You'll find lots of support here. I too am thinking about creating art to put on various things to sell. There are ALOT of resourses on you tube where fellow artists can tell you how to do it, what products etc....here you'll learn how to create your best art to support that dream.Good luck and we're all looking forward to seeing what you can do!

@TheresaMuth Yes, good point. Full disclosure I normally use perspective lines (the Procreate perspective drawing guide drawing assist layer is a great help) but I thought I could be clever and wing it this time around. I obviously ran into problems. The original point of view was going to be from the floor up but as I struggled I decided I'd just change it to have the mouse sitting on a table. 🙈 Oh my gosh, how lazy was that?! Anyway, I'll make the changes @Kevin-Longueil mentioned and I should probably draw in the table edge that he's sitting on so that it's clear. Lesson learned! I'm not at the point in my journey to be winging my perspectives just yet!

Your concept art's amazing- I loved looking at your portfolio! I'm new to illustration myself, and don't have any more advice to offer than you've gotten already. For my own portfolio, I only have children's book illustrations, because that's what I want to be hired for. But I've seen illustrators who have multiple skill sets use separate tabs to show each of them, like Nyrryl suggested.
Hopefully other illustrators can chime in with more advice. Good luck and congrats on your book!!

@kayleenartlover Super fun piece, and it’s great to see you working so hard on it.

To me, the dresser does not read as white. I think there are two things that might be working together against you here:

One is that the cats and bed in the foreground do not have the same value or hue of shadow placed on them (i.e. the cats are still pretty bright orange and the bed is very blue compared to the dark greenish shadow in the BG.) I think the left thumbnail above you have is better at making the characters fit into the scene overall.
(This one seems like a stretch but I thought I’d throw it out there.)

The other (probably more prominent) is that the value of the dresser is lower than the value of the wall behind it. I know the lamp is casting some light on the wall, but the way it’s framed, most of the wall we see is quite light and to me, it makes the dresser appear dark.

Ways to help might be:

The lamp light could be dimmer, making the wall darker. I think that the main light source seems to be coming from the moon outside and this is really pretty. Maybe the lamp light being dimmer could even help the mood of the piece somewhat.

Try to lighten the value of the dresser.

Try to darken the foreground characters some. (This would be my last resort.)

Just to be clear, I do not think these “issues” take away from the piece at all - just addressing the dresser problem. The piece seems really nice and cohesive already and I like the colors you’ve chosen.

@Larue Thank you so much 😊

@kayleenartlover I vote for gold. It's got more depth and variety. 😃

@Kristen-Lango Hi, Thank you!
Yup, I have been working on it...endlessly...but I'm finding this a really great piece for lots of trial and error. In fact, I'm even considering changing it into an internal illustration and then being able to make the cover more figurative. That way this one can be more literal, without the many-seasons and tree-wolves.

The colour palette thing is a very good point... I love using many colours, or variations on a bunch of colours, but then I feel like I have to hold myself back and limit it because that's what so many illustrators say to do. So it's really helpful to know what your reaction was to those limited colours on the girls' clothes.

Right, I'll keep going...

@mag @willicreate thanks for the reply 🙂
funny I had a few agents say to me say that I would do well in middle grade but I always assume a children's book agent would get that kind of work for me maybe I need to apply to a different type of agency?

Yeah, that sounds like a good idea to me, I'm so bad though cause Im like but what if they wanna see that one picture of this or that and I get a bloated portfolio XD so that sounds like a great but scary exercise haha.

I will check out those books to sounds like a really good idea. gotta admit i don't have a lot of heart-warming stuff so this could be a great help .

also just typed in middle-grade art agent and there are so many agents and publishers I had no idea! wish me luck

thanksssss 🙂

@Griffin-McPherson I think you have the right amount of bricks. They don't take away the focus from the most important details of the spread, which is what you ant.

@Laura-Hunt My pleasure! Can't wait to see your work in the future. Best of luck with the picture book dummy submission. 🙂

@Asyas_illos thank you!

@Griffin-McPherson I like the very faded lines!

@kirsten-mcg Thank you!

I love the idea, the warped perspective is a really cool idea. One thing I'd work on is sketching in a perspective grid so that each item on the wall follows that warping perspective as it goes down the hallway. Even though the perspective is intentionally wacky, the items still need to follow the overall warped lines for it to look right.

Such a cool idea! Can't wait to see it.

@Griffin-McPherson He looks great to me! Easily recognizable as the same character throughout, and with a lot of fun variation in poses and facial expressions. I really like @ajillustrates 's idea to have him wear the aviation goggles in the bottom middle pose.

Yeah, what @kirsten-mcg said is along the lines of what I would comment: I think the saliva could add a lot if you refine the gesture and shape of it. But then, I also think you might want to knock back the value of the monster and saliva in general so that it doesn’t compete as much with the type. I also notice there’s a bit of a tangent with the monster’s tongue and the bottoms of the the “G” that you might want to break up. I DO, however, like the general translucency of the saliva. How lovely to be in a professional field where you can debate this type of thing. 🙂

@Anna-Lindsay said in Do character pose sheets belong in portfolios?:

This is just me musing... I'm thinking there's probably two different ways to approach a character design sheet. The animation geared ones often include a turnaround and a few up-close expressions. I'm thinking a children's book one should look more like a collection of spot illustrations. Mostly active full body poses and different expressions? I don't know if that helps at all?

I think this is very sound advice! Especially coupled with @Nyrryl-Cadiz's note about adding story.

@kirsten-mcg Thanks so much for your input on this, Kirsten, I appreciate it! 💐 I’ve added the three you suggested to the portfolio, and will try to crank out a few more tomorrow in a slightly brighter colour scheme to avoid the portfolio feeling too doom and gloomy.

It seems like this would be the perfect opportunity to let loose and just see what happens. Maybe it's a case of wanting and being able to do both? Looking at Matt Rockefeller's instagram page, I would say that he could easily do either MG or PB projects. He seems to just prefer MG subject matter, but his style could work for either. If I was in your situation, I think I would include both PB pieces and MG/YA art as well. That way the person doing your portfolio review will have a range of what you are truly capable of.