PRO PORTFOLIO CRITS

Lee White

Hey guys, I just wanted to make a quick announcement. We are finally unveiling our new Live Portfolio Crits! We have a great selection of pros to choose from. We will be formally announcing this in the coming weeks, but I wanted to prep you for it here. THERE WILL BE EXTREMELY LIMITED SEATS in the beginning. Each instructor is only doing ONE per week for the first month while we get things going.

Here's the details:

Each crit will be $325 and be available to subscribers only (not on free trial).
Crits will be a full hour and be the most in-depth crit you have ever had.
The hour will consist of a 30 min recorded video for you to keep where your instructor goes over your work using a custom built guide for really nailing a portfolio. You will see where you fall in many different categories and it will be unlike anything you have seen before. The other 30 minutes will be a LIVE ZOOM SESSION with your instructor where you go over finer points of your crit and come up with a plan based on all of it.
We will be releasing this on the first week of March with appointment dates starting as early as March 15.

The teachers we have so far:

Lee White (me!)
Jake Parker
David Hohn
Anna Daviscourt
Vesper Stamper
Shane Hunt
Anthony Wheeler
David Szalay
Brooklyn Walker

Again, each teacher will only have 1 spot open each week for the 1st month. Then as much as 3 per week after that. So get ready to sign up quick. They will go fast. We did a test run of this on our patreon and it filled immediately.

Questions I know are coming:
Why is it so expensive? We don't believe in charging a nominal fee and having someone glance at your work and give a quick opinion (like they do at scbwi! lol). This is an in-depth review of your work that the instructor is invested in and asking the tough questions. Our crits SHOULD change your trajectory in your career. We can't do that for anything less than the price we are charging and get the teachers we are having.

Who's this for:
I know it's tough to know if you need a crit. But if you are feeling "stuck" or wanting to change course in some way, this is definitely the fast track to doing that without wasting a bunch of time.

Let me know if you have any questions and I'll try to answer as best I can. : )

-Lee

Katherine

Hi Lee, I'm wondering if we can purchase a slot but set the critique for later in the year? My portfolio right now contains too much old work which I want to replace with new work before getting a critique. October would be perfect for me. I'm also exploring different styles and part of the benefit of getting a critique would be having someone perhaps suggest focusing on one style over the others. Thanks!

KatrinaF

@Lee-White This is awesome! Thx Lee and SVS. Is there going to be a way to select a specific teacher or is it random?

Jeremy Ross

I see a lot of value here @Lee-White!

Lee White

@Katherine You can order slots once they come available. We should be updating each instructors calendar monthly, so just wait until Sept. and jump on it then.

@KatrinaF Yep! you can select the teacher you want to work with : )

Lee White

@Jeremy-Ross We think so too! the first round of portfolio reviews went amazing. One student described as "the most educational thing she has done in her life". That is the goal - give very specific, highly usable feedback. Not just some quick notes, etc.

Katherine

@Lee-White Thanks Lee! Another thing I'd be very interested in is receiving a critique from an art director or agent. Just something to consider with your coterie of critiquers I listened to a Zoom call with an art agent from Jackie Winters and some of the advice was very specific to an art agent's point of view. Some of the advice was also different to what I've heard you guys recommend, so it's really interesting to have that perspective too. It was very much a bussiness-y, prosaic way of looking at illustration, which was actually really stressing me out! But there was some very concrete advice that I don't know that an illustrator would know to give. If that makes sense

Filip Draskovic

Hi Lee, any chance the crits be recorded and available for others subscribers to check them out or its reserved for the portfolio creators only

Lee White

@Katherine funny you should say that. I was just chatting with my agent about coming on board! Will let you know...

Mimi Simon

@Katherine I like this idea for getting feedback on the business side of things but I would be careful about taking too much stock in what agents say is good for an illustration portfolio. I've heard a lot of stuff from literary agents about illustrators flying around the web that isn't really true or helpful. They aren't artists and are not technocrats in the way that we are so they tend to approach art more emotionally which makes it much harder for them to give specific advice. Some agents might be better at it than others but my advice is to take anything you hear about art specifically with several grains of salt.

Lee White

@Mimi-Simon I'm going to push back a little bit on this advice (hope you don't mind! : ). The reasons you listed is exactly why illustrators SHOULD listen to agents. What you mentioned, emotion, is often the exact thing that is lacking from a lot of illustrators work. If you tell a good enough story and can bring in enough emotion from your viewer, all the art techniques don't actually matter that much. Most of the people who didn't make the top 16 in our contests could paint well enough, but the emotion was lacking.

You are right, agents don't care about what brush you used or how you did a certain thing in photoshop. They look at what you are actually saying with those things. And most of the time, us illustrators aren't saying enough. We are trying to impress other illustrators instead of being true to a narrative or emotion.

davidhohn

@Lee-White You raise a good point but I don't think that's what @Mimi-Simon was saying.

Mimi please jump in and let me and Lee know if I've misunderstood you.

What I would say is that literary agents (who started out with a passion for writing) often don't know how to communicate what an illustrated piece is missing or how to correct it, so they respond with personal (aka emotional) feedback. The agent offers random ideas, or suggestions that don't take into account the core of what the illustrator is trying to accomplish.

Now Lee, having said that, you are also correct. The best literary agents DO understand how to communicate with artists. AND they understand that it's the fundamental emotional core of an image that is the most important (as compared to what brush was used to make a cool glow-ey effect)

The trick, as @Mimi-Simon pointed out, is knowing which kind of agent you are talking to* And until you do, I agree, take that feedback with a grain of salt.

*You can be sure any agent SVS teams with will know how to work with an illustrator's goals and guide you in the right direction.

von_Nimmermehr

i wish a had a real portfolio to show already...i'm just so so slow in my progress.

Lee White

@davidhohn David is right here of course, any agent we get would have to be fantastic at seeing the work from an illustrators perspective. The agent we are talking to has over 20 years experience as an illustrator first, then became an agent. He has over 70 published books (some as only illustrator and some as author/illustrator). So we should be good to go - if we can get him to do it! lol! : )

Jeremy Ross

Dang @Lee-White! Now that’s an agent who can “walk the talk”! Shall we refer to this agent as a “Special Agent”?

ArtistErin

I definitely want to be in, where do we sign up? Thank you so much you guys!!!

Lee White

We are getting the final details done now, the crits should be up and avialable soon! Each teacher is only offering ONE crit per week for the first month or so as we get into the program. So be ready! Here's the instructors:

LauraA

@Lee-White So, did this happen yet? And how is the sign up handled? Is it an email, on the site? I assumed I had already missed it, because I didn't see an email or visit the forum for a few days.

I am actually hoping to get in on the second or third round, because I want time to get my portfolio more in line with my current way of illustrating, but I am very interested. Thanks!

Sarah VanDam

@LauraA I also haven’t seen it, and I’ve been checking frequently.

Lee White

@LauraA launches tomorrow!!