13 Jan 2023, 10:35

@Solomon-Designs Hi Solomon!
It's clear you've worked very hard to create your portfolio! And I can see some great moments there, you definitely have a big potential. 🙂
As other said before me, I'm afraid some of your illustrations would need more clarity - in value and shapes and general composition.
for example: I love the textures in the bird story, but overall, the characters are lost in the background.

Which is easily said but hard to do.
My advice, rather then trying to improve these existing pieces would be - create new ones, more simple and less busy and think about composition first. Maybe I am wrong, but I see a lot of very complicated scenes and complex images in your portfolio. Which is a good thing, but when you are just figuring out the rules of good composition, learning your values and shapes and lighting, you can be easily overwhelmed with all of this, the drawing it self eats up a lot of your time, so you spent less time in sketch and thumbnail phase.
It might be better to start with a simpler images and move towards the complex ones?
(Something like the fox and bird illustration you have on your portfolio - no BG, so you can focus on your figures and the shape of your props more. When you are supper happy with your characters and props, add a simple background and really focus and value grouping, colors and shapes, maintaining strong focus. once you are super confident there, try complicated scene with more characters and busy BG...)

For example. I love your illustrations with the Yeti or Big Foot family, I see you put a lot of effort in that piece. However, it lacks a clear focus and the characters are a bit wonky. I saw your Monkey character sheet (Oskar, I believe?) and I loved that execution! There are some confident lines and shapes. I think it might be because it was easier task overall, so you could spent more time on the drawing it self and really think it through?

Hope it helps a bit! I would love to see more of your stuff, if you'd like to share your progress with us!

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