Great entries so far, I'm looking forward to seeing more!

Here's my entry! Thank you to everyone who gave feedback and suggestions on the forum!

Meet Cyril the squirrel and Bug the beetle!

Finished this just in the nick of time! Loving everyone's entries

(Sorry I've been a bit quiet on here recently) Thought I'd share the good news with you guys! I signed with Advocate art this month and my portfolio went live on their site this week. https://www.advocate-art.com/anna-bishop I still can't believe it!
I know from personal experience how easy it is to get disheartened with illustration. Hope this might provide a bit of motivation to anyone on here feeling that way. I graduated 3 years ago and beginning of this year I was feeling pretty demotivated with everything and felt like I hadn't got anywhere. But SVS and the forum have helped so much giving me a push to work on my portfolio and the confidence to put myself out there.
Thank you!!

Here's the latest version! I'm at the stage where I'm not sure if it's finished or not. What do you guys think? Are there any adjustments I could make to improve it?

I've been working on some more portfolio pieces this month

updated version, feeling a bit happier with it now... I think

My historically inaccurate representation of The Pony Express. The theme was suggested by my agent, I'd never heard of The Pony Express before!

I would recommend taking the creative composition class to tackle this. I think seeing the examples in the class will help you understand the concept of using value and colour to create a focal point a lot more than if I try to explain it here. You have a beautiful style, like they said on the podcast, learning more about focal points and composition would really take it to the next level. Good luck!

I love your use of limited colour, it works so well in this piece. Even with so many things in the image you managed to keep your frog character as a strong focal point. The only criticism I have is the pose of the frog is maybe a little stiff? I imagine he might be leaning over the table more rather standing straight and looking straight ahead. I think you could make his pose a little more dynamic to better illustrate the movement of sharpening the sword. Also, is that supposed to be a cigarette in his mouth? If so I'd add some smoke to make that more obvious. Overall I think it's a great piece, I am nit-picking really. Makes me want to try the draw 50 things challenge myself.

@NessIllustration I couldn't agree more Ness! I phrased it like that in response to Braden's comment. I suppose what I really mean is - 'historically I haven't marketed myself effectively' I don't really believe that means I'm always doomed to 'suck' at it. Even compared to this time last year I know 100x more about marketing thanks to doing some more research and taking online classes. Your youtube channel is also a great resource

@Braden-Hallett said in Need to vent a bit!:

@Annabishop You can absolutely say "the budget isn't quite right for me" or "I wouldn't be able to make that deadline work".

Be open and communicative with your agent! As much as they want that sweet sweet moolah at the end of the day they're supposed to be on your team!

It's just this last time for me I didn't feel the need to

I hear ya, thank you I'm definitely overthinking this haha.

@Braden-Hallett I SUCK at marketing and networking too! I've been building a mailing list (extremely slowly) but have yet to really go for it with a self-marketing blast. Your plan for tracking where the jobs come from is definitely a good idea!

@Braden-Hallett
I just got a job offer I'm planning to decline (low pay) so I may use a variation on this template - thanks! I'm feeling a little bit conflicted on the 'no explanation, no justification' thing though. Personally, I agree with you that we shouldn't have to justify our reasons if we don't want to. However when I spoke to my agent about declining jobs she said this: 'taking on projects is totally up to you, as long as you explain to the agent the reason why you can't take it on we're understanding'. I'm wondering if it's helpful for them to know the reason especially when it concerns low pay or tight deadlines. Perhaps they might feed this back to their clients if enough illustrators mention it. It could create some positive change? That might be me being overly naive and optimistic though.

@cianamacaroni I'm really glad you found this discussion useful! @NessIllustration and @Braden-Hallett are full of pearls of wisdom! I felt a little bit embarrassed posting about this to be honest but then I realised it's good to have these conversations out in the open where it can (hopefully) benefit others. It seems like there is a huge amount of resources focused on how to get an agent but not so much about the next stage.

@NessIllustration
"We have to get climbing sooner rather than later! And that means saying no to more gigs and that can be scary, but the beauty part is that if the gig is paid 2x better, then you only need half as many gigs like that to pay your bills"

When you say it like this is makes so much sense. I'm feeling a lot clearer about what I need to do moving forward. Thank you so much Ness!

@Braden-Hallett Thank you for your response Braden!
The fear of coming across like a prima-donna is so real lol. I can see now I'm much more in danger of swinging the other way and being a total doormat.

I can see it really makes sense from the agency's perspective to start out new artists on the smaller jobs. This is why I've felt the need to take some of these badly paid jobs because I'm thinking of it as an opportunity to prove myself as reliable and easy to work with. I think I'm hitting my 'crappy job' limit though.

You're so right, I need to practice saying "no thanks" and not feeling guilty about it...The 'Flapping butt-hole' Ska band conjures such a brilliant mental image hahah

@NessIllustration Thank you for such a thoughtful response Ness! I feel like I just got a firm pep talk haha.
I've had a pretty good email exchange with my agent about this over the past couple days and she has indeed reassured me I don't need to take every job that comes my way. I suppose part of the problem is having this scarcity mindset that every job that comes along could be the last (silly I know).

"Put your foot down politely but firmly with clients" - I really struggle with this, fear of being impolite can be crippling sometimes! (Maybe it's a British thing? ) You're absolutely right though. I have let the agent dealing with this particular project know that I can't work with this client again if they don't respect my schedule. I gotta admit that was a tough one write but I feel 100x better for sticking up for myself.
"You do NOT need to let clients walk all over you in order to succeed in this industry." Thank you for saying this! I feel like there's some conflicting advice for creatives floating around out there. I've been told 'just take every job when you're starting out even if it's low paid/crappy, it will lead to more'. I think there's also this common (and awful) belief that art isn't real work so we should be grateful for what we get. I've mentioned my frustrations with clients to people who don't work in a creative field and without fail I always get 'At least you're getting paid to draw, that's amazing!'...that's really so toxic when you stop to think about it huh? I'll stop there before this turns into a therapy session haha! Thanks again for your response