Mocking up middle grade illustrations with text. Good idea? Bad idea?

[braden H]

Hi guys! I'm trying to get more middle grade BW illustrations into my portfolio, but I've found if they're presented without context they lose a bit of impact. Do you think these kinda of illustrations can be in a portfolio with surrounding text?

[Melissa_Bailey]

Love your storytelling! Great expressions and really well rendered.

For me, the text in the speech bubbles was all I needed to get a gist of what's happening in the scene. Your art is strong enough to stand on its own without surrounding text.

Putting myself in the shoes of an art director or someone looking to hire an illustrator, having to scroll past lines of story might be more annoying than helpful. If it were me in that situation, I probably wouldn't read it (though I did read through all of it just now).

Just my two cents: let your art stand on its own. Your storytelling skills carry the art.

[K.Flagg]

I honestly can't see how you could go wrong by doing this. These are great and it shows exactly what you could be doing for those publishers.

[braden H]

@Melissa-Bailey-0 Good to know! I suppose I'm worried about it coming off as too 'graphic-novelly' with the speech bubbles and no surrounding text.

Thanks

[braden H]

@K-Flagg Cool cool! Thanks for the feedback

[Jeremy Ross]

Very nice @Braden-Hallett!

[braden H]

@Jeremy-Ross Thanks man