Hi, I'm Dan :)

skillydan

Hi I'm Dan,

I'm an illustrator living in the North East of England. My goal, as I'm sure it is with a lot of people here, is to get into picture books professionally. I'm looking forward to learning as much as I can from this forum, it seems like a great place!

Here are a couple of my latest portfolio pieces. If you want to tell me anything you think I might be doing wrong or right then please feel free!

Thanks a lot,
Daniel Skillcorn

Durrell Odom

Nice work, Dan. Welcome to the forum. I'm here for simply improving on my craft as well.
I think taking a course on "How To Draw Everything" by Jake Parker and Perspective class from CGMA would benefit your portfolio. Again welcome to the forum.

skillydan

Thanks @Durrell-Odom I was just taking a look at your portraits, they're great.

Yup, the "How to Draw Everything" and perspective classes are definitely two courses I want to jump right into.

Coreyartus

Welcome, Dan!! Over and over again I find this forum to be helpful just by reading the different posts and seeing how people offer advice. It's a gold mine. Glad you found it!

Durrell Odom

@skillydan cool. Thanks.

Raymond_Kaselau

Hi Dan, welcome! You're doing great. I think you have great control of color, clear layouts and fun storytelling happening here. Also you have a consistent style and line technique. Keep it up, I can certainly picture your work in bookstores. My personal favorite courses were, Visual Storytelling Techniques with Lee White, and his How to Making Money in Illustration courses. These get into the "why" and "for who" behind a drawing before the process of moving pencil even starts.

braden H

Welcome to the forums! Lookin' forward to seeing more of your art around the forums.

A great way to get feedback is to ask for specific advice on your pieces Such as character design, perspective, composition, etc.

julian beresford

Hey Dan, welcome to the forums, I'm based in England too; South Yorkshire. looking forward to seeing more of your work.

Sas

Hi Dan and welcome to the forums!

Lucelfo

Hi Dan! I'm Lucia and I live on the Isle of Wight. Welcome to the forum!

skillydan

Wow, thank you all so much for the warm welcomes.

@Coreyartus it does feel like an absolute gold mine. I'm glad I found it too.
@Raymond_Kaselau thank you for the kind words about my images and that's really nice to hear that you can see my work in bookstores. Thanks for the huge ego boost :smiling_face_with_open_mouth: lol.
@Braden-Hallett thanks, that's good advice. I'll definitely be looking for colour feedback (it's the main area I want to improve).
Hi @julian-beresford I'm from North Yorkshire (very top of the Moors). Your website says you are from South West London originally, how are you finding life in the North?
Hi @Sas, I'm looking forward to jumping right into the forums.
Thanks @Lucelfo. I used to live in Southampton and spent a fair bit of time on the Isle of Wight. Lovely place The Tiger Sanctuary was a yearly visit.

Heather Boyd

@skillydan Hello and welcome! I have written up some comments below:

Your First Work

an easy edit -would be to remove the bushy tree in the top right corner. I see the shadow of the tree on the ground so I understand what is casting it. Try to avoid putting objects into corners. I can interpret it also as a tree making it because you have another tree on the left with the same shadow pattern so my mind fills in the blank for the right side.
I do really love the contact between the fish and the alligator/croc.
Like how you have rendered the water, the bridge and the alligator/croc. The background field and sky in comparison looks a tad unfinished.
I wish the bridge arch had a bit more height -it feels tight.

The Second Work

Really like your hatching and cross hatching action! Reminds me of my Print Making days .

The Third Work (not to leave any work out lols)

I like the texture hatching of the parrot and his mother's hair -but wished you showed some feet/talons.

Chip Valecek

@skillydan welcome to the forums!

djly

@skillydan welcome! Really fun characters, I especially like the boy with the green goo in the jar. The textures and facial expression are really nice!

As far as improvements, with some of your characters - such as the Mom in the last post or your animal characters in the first post - it might be nice to see some more gesture in those characters. Having some more movement or flow in the characters actions may help them come alive a bit more.

avfarrar

I like your first image and the animals reactions to each other and the outlines on that one as well. Good job.

skillydan

Hi @Heather-Boyd thank you for such a detailed response.

I know what you mean about the bushy tree. The image itself was once bigger and I cropped it down. Most of the top edge of the original image was bushy tree and it just seemed unnecessary and busy.

Your comment about the background being unfinished is completely right. In my original sketch it was filled with stylised trees but again felt distracting. The ginger cat's head got a little lost within it. I feel like my back drops can often let me down. Do you know of any of the svs courses that tackle this kind of thing?

Thanks for the comments about the crosshatching. It's a style that I'm really enjoying exploring at the minute. Although it's quite time consuming, I feel like my technique is speeding up.

skillydan

@Chip-Valecek thank you
@djly thanks! Yeah you're right. The croc could have definitely been more menacing if his back was arched with his hand reaching out for the fish. The cats celebrating catching another fish would have added more story to them.
Thanks @avfarrar. I always think it's funny when the one person in the image who can see the impending doom (the fish in this case) cant do anything about it.

Hi and welcome to the forum! I love the North East, I live in North Wales
Your work looks lovely and I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops!

skillydan

Thanks @hannahmccaffery :). Do you get up to the North East much? I've actually never been to Wales but it's on my list of places to visit!

@skillydan I've been to Durham and I absolutely love Whitby! You definitely should, it's a beautiful place, especially Snowdonia in the North!