SVS Success Stories

[Will Terry]

Guys, I can't tell you how rewarding it is to hear success stories from our SVS students! I get personal emails and messages from time to time where our students share the books they've sold or the books they are illustrating for clients, or the agents they've picked up, or the personal projects they've launched and funded, or even the epiphanies they've had concerning their work!

Here are a few highlights from the people we know about - if you've had success let us know - we want to brag about you

Simona Ceccarelli - has a book due out in spring 2019 that she illustrated. Check out my interview with her here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdUXXWBQyQo

Joy Heyer - Sold her book and it's now on Amazon! https://amzn.to/2D55Cpz

Charlie Eve Ryan - Just sold her second book!!! You know I'll be interviewing her as well!

Shinji Fujioka - Sold his book and is currently working on the illustrations - not sure when it's due out.

Again - let us know what you have in the works - I realize you can't always talk about it until it's official - but even if you have had inquiries about your work or other illustration work we need to hear about it. It's not bragging unless you follow it with "so there"...

[Eric Castleman]

@will-terry I am so happy for everyone here at SVS. It has been great to see everyone moving forward.

I just did my first professional job with Highlights magazine. They gave me a full spread, which was not stressful at all :-). That will be out in December. The best part was how the Netflix documentary on the inner working of highlights launched the day I started on the final painting, and I got to listen to the AD I was working with stress out while I painted. That was surreal.

I have other things in the works, and will know in early October. I love seeing everyone here have success.

[Jabbernewt]

Svs has helped me realize that one of the biggest problems within my college's struggling student community isn't that the professors are awful (though they need to work on their teaching methods) but that the students hardly interact. Through the forums I've seen that artists/illustrators of wildly different skill levels can interact witch each other and, choosing to be humble and engaging, be mutually beneficial as long as they are competent with reading visual language.

Also learned through my experience with SVS thusfar: Leadership does not have to be charismatic. I mean, you want to be able to articulate your points well as a leader, but if you are motivated to share the joys of being a creative, that is something that naturally attracts other creatives. That is a quality I have observed in much of this forum so far, and it's been enough to convince me to try and nurse the creative community back to health here at my college. We're having an Inktober meeting tomorrow at 2!

I guess Im trying to say that this community is inspiring others, and the knowledge from the educational videos has emboldened me personally to both grow in skill and in competence, to the point that I'm able to lead a small community. So thank you!

[NessIllustration]

That is so awesome! Congratulations to the students and amazing teachers that helped make this a reality!

[Will Terry]

@eric-castleman Might have to interview you as well - keep me posted!

[Jonas Zavacky]

I just finished watching the interview with Simona! Great to see people showing up and taking their steps into the industry. It is awesome to be part of this growing community and I can't wait to see more people succeeding.

[TessaW]

What about Nat Iwata? Wasn't he on Svs? I feel like he might have a book in the works? Thought I saw a post about it on here a while back.

[chrisaakins]

@jabbernewt I am learning the same things. It is important to have a community where you can let your hair down so to speak and get encouragement and healthy criticism from people who genuinely want to see you improve. I think @Will-Terry and all the other guys are doing a great job building this community online. I am trying to find like-minded artists here in ATL as well. So far I have talked with only one other guy, a man at my church. We plan to get together in the near future and discuss art and draw some stuff together. Keep up the good work, man!

[SarahLuAnn]

Well it isn't anything like being published, but this Thursday the Drawing Fundamentals class I'm teaching starts. Only 12 students (thats all the seats they have in the art room of the local community college--I like to tell myself more people would have liked to sign up. ;-). And the person in charge of putting the course list together said they would love to have me teach again next semester, so... thats a good sign. I mean... so there

[chrisaakins]

@sarahluann that's great! I always learn so much by teaching others.

[lmrush]

Congrats everyone, I love hearing all the success stories, plus @Joy-Heyer had a heading in the kirkus review catolog for her book, yay Joy!!! I also just listened to Simona's interview with @Will-Terry, awesome, thanks so much for sharing.
Since joining SVS and being a newbie, I have had two self published picture books commissioned by authors and done in Createspace for sale on Amazon (they found me on childrensillustrators.com , I was picked up by an agent at Storm Literary Agency (she saw my work on twitter, so post your work you guys) and I am on book 3 of a three part Chapter Book series with her, all thanks to SVS....so there! Oh editing....... I thought the so there was to not be bragging whoops, I don't want to brag, just inspire! Happy drawing!

[lmossart]

The single best part of this interview was her answer to your question, "what motivates someone to do the art?", and her response was "if you had to be motivated than maybe this is something that you should not be doing." I literally stopped what i was doing and just stood there and realized how true those words were. brutally honest. I loved it. The interview was enlightening and of course, her work is dope.

[TessaW]

@lmrush Brag all you want! That's amazing news. Congratulations!

[lmrush]

@tessaw Aw thank you!

[Chip Valecek]

The success of SVS for me so far has been meeting like minded people. Feeling welcome in a community environment. Being able to help others within SVS by sharing knowledge and experience. Bottom line, joining SVS and working with you all is success in its own.

[Joy Heyer]

All this success is quite a testament to the quality of SVS, their classes, teachers, and community! I'm forever grateful!

[MOO]

@sarahluann That's awesome!

[tazzyartist]

Great idea for a thread! I am not officially an SVS student (yet) but I have learned so much from Will Terry's videos and from this forum. I just recently finished illustrating my first book for a self-publishing author. If the kickstarter is successful, the book will be out in February. You can check out all the info here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mirkhalidali/the-jiu-jitsu-ponytail?ref=project_tweet

[jasondmcintosh]

@Will-Terry Dear Will, Jake, Lee and all the great folks at SVS...I just want to say 'Thanks'... Today, the FIRST BOOK that I have ever illustrated went LIVE on Amazon, and a bunch of other places. I could not have done this without your guidance and instruction. Over the past 8 months I have had your videos, tutorials, 3rd Thursdays (remember those), podcasts and such all playing in the background as I drew. I gathered much insight and most of all, the right mindset, to finish the project. You guys have done more for me, and many others, than you may ever know. I appreciate you all so very much.

[MOO]

@tazzyartist Looks great! I remember when you showed us your early sketches with the ponytail that had a mind of it's own Congratulations!