Having agent trouble

[Jose A Nieto]

Great advice over here

[hannahmarie]

@Corlette-Douglas Just checked out your website I really love your vibrant work! You have tons and tons which is great and you have done some really tricky things which show off your skill, so much variety!!! You have loads of great work I think it's a case of refining it more. I think we can sometimes feel pressured to have this perfect portfolio and to get an agent before we are ready. (I did a few years ago, but after taking a long break I've come to terms with the fact that it's going to take me a lot more time, it really is a long game) I mean sometimes we try stuff out and think it's great but then we come back to it and find an even better way of doing things which we prefer! Maybe you could try out some different ways of drawing faces and eyes, it's weird how that can make such a difference. I think some of the faces look very on the side of realism which is in contrast with your simplified backgrounds, something slightly simpler might gel more. Although saying that the witch in yellow looks perfect for a middle grade fiction cover, and would look really marketable if you had some black and white spreads to go in the book.

I choose some screenshots of images that stood out to me as really strong pieces. (Ask me to explain if my annotations don't make sense)

I can think of a few illustrators who I think you could look at to get an idea of where you could go with your style/ work depending on what type of work you would like to get?

Recently I've been buying picture books and studying them really hard to see what I love about them and how I can get that 'picture book look' in terms of layouts and things like that which @NessIllustration pointed out can give your work a whole new appeal! It's just thinking very literally about how your art would fit into books which is something I am working on myself.

[Corlette Douglas]

@hannahmarie thank you for giving me lots of new notes to consider, I would honestly love to do some cover book designs for older kids even if it's not designing the whole book it would still be something I would like to dive into.

[MirkaH]

i think there is a lot of good stuff in your portfolio, but there is too much and it is too busy. It is overwhelming to scroll though the whole page. Also as a tip I've heard Will/Lee/Jake say multiple times is that your portfolio is only as good as your worst piece, so I would remove a bunch of illustrations, and leave the best 10-15 up. Secondly would you be able to organize the gallery in a way that its in a neater grid, or that there would be some white borders between illustrations? I think that would do a lot to bring some order to everything.

Good luck with your journey! Im back at querying agents too and am trying to find the right home for my work.

[A Former User]

@Corlette-Douglas Your style is so energetic, fun, and joyful I'm wondering if you wouldn't mind sharing some picture books or art YOU enjoy.

[Nyrryl Cadiz]

@Corlette-Douglas hi! Actually after giving it much thought. I’m not really bothered by your character’s body size. What I actually think is the issue is the anotomy. A lot of your characters have disproportionate arm lengths, some have wonky hands, and others, wonky poses.

And though I love the energy in your images, I find the amount of color too busy. There are not that much spaces ni your pieces for the eyes to rest. Normally, publishers look for these details to gauge an illustrator’s skills. These spaces are where text are commonly placed and thinking about text layout beforehand shows skill.

I also think you have too much artworks. Try to boil them down to only THE BEST pieces. If you don’t mind. I’d like share my suggestion of which pieces can go and which could stay. Of course that’s if you’d like me to post it here?

[Corlette Douglas]

@Nyrryl-Cadiz Oh yes that would be alright with me. I'm going to go back today and redo a lot of the outlining of the parker's lemonade and It would be great to to in my portfolio which ones to keep and get take of.

[eriberart]

Hi Corlette! You have some really nice work in your portfolio. It's really fun and bubbly and colourful. There is so much energy There has been some great feedback already on your work, so I would like to comment on how your portfolio is arranged. I would agree that there are maybe too many pieces. I was always taught at uni that 15-20 pieces in your portfolio is the sweet spot. (12 is okay if you are struggling to get that many, but I don't think that will be an issue for you!) Most art directors and agents also don't have a lot of time to look at illustrator websites so they might not click through all your tabs. I don't think this is a major issue as long as you have all your best work on the initial page they see.

I think it is okay to have some pieces which are really busy, but it would be easier on your portfolio if you broke them up a bit, for example you have a full spread or two, and then some spot illustrations with a white background. Then some more full spreads etc. The white space will break up your portfolio a bit more and make it easier to read.
Something I do to help me arrange my portfolio is that I print out lots of little tiny versions of my artwork. Then I can cut them up and arrange them to try and make them 'flow' nicely. This helps for arranging both online and physical portfolios as I can see how the colours and compositions work together. Putting together a portfolio is kinds of similar to making an illustration as things like how the colours and compositions work together is important

[Corlette Douglas]

@eriberart I see. The way I was arranging them was which ever piece I made for my story in the order its in is how I would place it. Does that mean that the pieces that are personal stories dont have to got together in the portfolio and I can put single pieces that are stand alone drawing in between?

And I have so many regular drawings too what do you do with your extra illustrations ? Do you archive them for later use ?

And thank you for pointing that out I havent thought about web/portfolio placement since leaving school.

[eriberart]

@Corlette-Douglas I do try and group images from the same story, but usually I will only put two or so of my favourite images from that project in my portfolio as I want to show a variety of characters/scenarios, and even then some illustrations from the same story are full spreads and others are spot illustration or vignettes. Then I have a separate 'books' tab on my website where if you want to see more from that specific project/request a PDF of the full dummy book then that can be done there.
I'm super picky about my portfolio, and generally I have a 'one in, one out' rule, so if I create a piece I really like and think my portfolio would benefit from it, I replace my current least favourite piece from my portfolio. I might just be too critical of my own work though I would say only a fraction of what I create goes in my portfolio! The rest I post on social media/just treat as practices.

[Corlette Douglas]

@eriberart ok I'm going to go ahead and break things up I can use a little more spot illustartions on the website to go with my already personal stories. Thank you for the advice

[Corlette Douglas]

@MirkaH Thank you for the feed back I just started taking illustrations out this week , the white boarder thing I'm not sure if I can put that in the gallery layout or if its even enabled but I'm going to make spots and white space in a few of my images to give it a breathable look if that makes sense.

[Corlette Douglas]

@eriberart and I just added text to two of my personal book illustrations and I feel so weird about it. I know I'm not a writer so seeing what I think the text would /should be is really odd. I know I have to leave it in so agents can see how I work.

[A Former User]

@Corlette-Douglas do you mean the two lemonade illustrations? I think the text is pretty good and doesn't need to be perfect to really work but we can help you edit it so that you feel more comfortable with it. Although people don't post about this as much on this forum, we can help you clean up the text too to make sure there aren't any mistakes in it that will grab too much attention away from your illustrations.

I know you were interested in Clavis Publishing, so in case you're in the US, I want to mention that there is a picture book contest you can enter up until June 30. If any of yours fit a 12 spread format and have the text sort of worked out you might want to consider entering. https://www.clavis-publishing.com/keycolors

[Corlette Douglas]

@carolinebautista yeah the Clavis Publishing I really wasn't going to enter cause Im really not one for writing but I guess I can if I keep fixing my one story I have and add words to it.

And that would be great but ehh I dont want to be a bother , I've already asked about my work and I'd feel like it's much to ask for text as well.

[MirkaH]

@Corlette-Douglas if your site is on wordpress, you can add borders to images in gallery