As our great teachers at SVS prepares for all the quality vids, podcast, and live classes...I had the idea of still continuing an end of month art piece submission.
Travel prompt was fun and Loved all the pieces. Let’s continue?
Who’s up for a thread as if it WAS a contest?
I do look forward to each Monthly prompt and was anticipating a new theme for this month but wanted to see if you all would still like to do a theme?
Same rules, you have until last day of May. You can post in this thread for your final piece. Start other threads for WIP’s and crits.
Obviously you are not required as with any contest, and I do like seeing everyone’s work and seeing progress not only from myself but others too! I say why not! Call it “personal fulfillment”
call it “lets keep making art.”

If it was alright with you all, I’ll pick a theme...
(Forgive me if this was done in the past)
Since it is suggested to have a black and white piece in your portfolio and that @Lee-White was thrilled to see one in April’s contest, how about anything in
BLACK&WHITE as the theme for May?
So I hope you participate! If not that’s ok! I’ll post here by end of May!
I hope to see your work!

Happy creating,
Todd

Had fun with this one! Hope you can find Mr. Independent! I think it "screams" of Summer! Once the idea came to me , I had to "jump" right in. Okay okay I'm done. Enjoy! #thisislike4picturesinone

I enjoyed making this, after trashing a lot of other ideas. Nice work all! -TRA

I really wanted to loosened up this month. This is looking more like a dark whimsical story! & perhaps needs a bit more before calling it an actual portfolio piece, but I had fun creating! Any crit thoughts on it is greatly appreciated! -Todd

"Candy of the Corn" -pen, sharpie, white-out, acrylic, digital touches. Happy Halloween!

Good to be back! Here's my submission. A bit gloomy one from what I usually do, fitting for January though I think! Digital. -Todd

This started out as a draw 50 things challenge for myself but wanted to connect the story with two other pieces. And to actually finish an idea I had rolling around in my head. So these are: A boy who loves giraffes and aviation, placed in a 1960’s era home watching the launch, then going to sleep upstairs to dream of traveling wonderment. Made digitally with Procreate. I’ll try to post in here more, because 2019 is new and there are more illustrations to do! Onward!

Hidden entry for July "The Burglar's Spa Moment" I was inspired by some bathroom wall art at my parents house, there is was hanging on the wall, a mouse and a shower bucket mechanism. I thought well what if some critter came in and used this nifty hidden shower space! A raccoon immediately came to mind:) Nice job all, some "hidden" talent! -Todd

Here’s mine for this month: Don’t step on a crack or you’ll break your Mothers back! Focused on space for text and being mindful-ish of the gutter. Great work all, once again!

Took advantage of the MDT zone this month! Great work all around again. Here’s mine. I had fun with this one. -Todd

Hi @xin-li Twitter is a wonderfully strange place haha. By thanking someone for retweeting or liking your work, typically I do the same in return, or if I like their timeline, I would follow them with also the hopes of them following me back. It is a great space for artists and writers in my opinion.

Very exciting stuff, curious how will this new space keep existing svslearn subscribers? Will svslearn be for other story genres (graphic novels, YA, MG) then? Either way, am happy for you guys!

@Neha-Rawat Thank you for sharing those exporting details! I always wondered what the last few steps were when using procreate.
I've got my eyes set on Word Travelers, can't wait to own!

@Neha-Rawat Fantastic! Congrats! Would you share any tips for procreate users to start thinking about, if their work goes to print? I already know I don't backup work enough, I need to break that habit!

@Asyas_illos Haha awesome, great start! Some of the text I couldn't make out but I do like what I've read. I think you can play with a lot of the white space like you have here....especially playing with playful puffs of toots haha. Refine, refine...and youll be amazed how those blank areas will be filled with details and more ideas as you keep working on it. I think it has great flow actually, and be mindful of important art not being right in or near the gutter too. The second spread , the first animal could be moved away from the middle. A quick fix is to scale it down a but and see where everything falls. Or opposite, scale it up to see where it is against the gutter. Looking forward to more!

@Asyas_illos of course! Happy to help whenever the story is ready. Good luck

@Asyas_illos Yeah I guess hiring an editor would be a good idea but I did not go this route. I had my mentor do that and also a crit group helped me.
But for my pb it was about breaking it up to see what worked as page turns. Like one line in my book is
"Can you imagine the wonderment of this little shepherd boy as his father and others make haste to see the reason for their joy?"
So what made the pages were "Can you imagine the wonderment of this little shepherd boy" is on the left page and "as his father and others make haste" is on the right page...turn the page and the two page spread reveals the "to see the reason for their joy?" This was after many attempts, and "make haste" were the buzz words that made for a good page turn. Look for words that leave the reader wanting more, think of it as them turning the page to keep the story moving forward, which is all true in reading a book, but I guess treat each right page as leaving subtle cliffhangers and it will keep it exciting.
I'm no official editor but I'd be happy to read it over and space it out for you if you want.

@Asyas_illos I imagine svslearn is working on something like this, or if not we all would appreciate a class on book dummying, that's for sure!
But while we wait for a great class, I can share a few so called standards after just finishing up a PB dummy myself: Establish your books length. Stretch the writing of how long you want your story. If one sentence of the story makes sense to be a spread, than do that. The main goal is to have the book be the standard length, 16, 24, 32, 40 pages. For me content was 32 pages including the 4 endpapers. So 28 pages of work, or 14 spreads. If working in color, change to greyscale and get the lighting down and mood of the book. Two or three spreads can be in color if you wanted. Lock down the text and revise sketches, show a clear understanding of what is happening in the book so that anyone viewing will follow what's going on. 18pt is standard text, and times new roman. For me the toughest part was nailing the body language, and so character turnarounds became important. I am always finding something to tweak whenever I look at mine, and so it really is never done but you want it to be at a point where it can become sharable for querying. For me, I know not to get too attached to what I put down. I know that changes will be made if it gets picked up to go to print. Hope that helps a little! -Todd

@carolinebautista ah ok, ill look out for that email blast. maybe it will come to my inbox a little later since I just signed up like 30min ago. Thanks!

Hi all just signed up also. I checked out the three image form for submitting and saw: "The deadline for submitting your images is Friday, February 12, at 4:00 pm Pacific Time." Maybe they recently updated this. But just so you know! -Todd