Here is my entry for this month. I have been busy with other projects, and didn't get to do the last two months...but I wanted to get at least one Yeti in before the theme changes.

Oh, I think it worked this time.
My submission for the January contest prompt.

BIG TROUBLE!!! The school bus is never the best way to transport your projects to school!
Digital art in Photoshop.

Here is my entry for 'Nightfall'. I decided to keep the canoe. I am not sure if it qualifies, but I was also attempting the "Draw 50 Things" drawing from Will's video. At one point I did count, and had more than 50 items, but I am now sure if 50 of them made it through the final edits. If anyone wants to count, let me know!

Hi Everyone, I am new to to SVS and digital painting. Here is my entry for the February Octopus Contest.
It is my first full digital painting, so I would love someone to critique it.

I have been working for a long time to choose a style for my portfolio, and I think i have finally settled on this. I would love to hear people's opinion. Could you see this type of drawing in a children's book? Is it too simplistic? Does it look too digital?

I had a university professor who told me I should have a whole sketchbook fill of pictures of eyes!
I spent a lot of time worrying about hands and feet (and eyes) in my illustrations...and then one day I was looking at a children's book and noticed how bad the hands were. This led me to look at more hands in more books. They arent good! Noone is good at hands and feet.
Every time I look at a book now, I always check out the hands and feet. Do you know how many 4 and 6 fingered hands are out there. Lots! Dont worry about yours. They cant be any worse. Worry about composition. Light and shaddow. Color choices. Those are the things that matter.

I have done a little more work on this... (a little work that took a long time!) I think some of it will be easier to make out now. I have shaded the foreground section just to visually separate it while I am working.
My biggest question at this point is about the linework on the bear. I have used a solid line to outline everything so far, but a sketchy-furry line for the outline of the bear. Does that look ok? Should I do a solid line?

I hope that a couple of people can see what this is supposed to be, and give me some feedback. I know that it is very rough and scribbly, but I would like a couple of opinions before I move on.
The idea is that the bears have come out after nightfall and are enjoying the campfire, while the people hide in the tent. In the final drawing the bears will have broken up all of the people's things, and made a big mess of the site.
The things I would really like to know, at this point are...

1. How is the composition so far. Does the darker areas around the outside, bring your eye into the center where the bears are?
2. Does the perspective look okay?
3. This is a spread, do you think the fold in the page is going to be too close to the one cub's sandwich? (the tall scribbly thing the cub furthest to the right is holding)
4. The large dark space in the bottom right is allowing space for text. Does that look right? Should it be bigger?
5. Are the raccoons too much?

Thanks!!

@holleywilliamson I think it looks good and it well balanced. I wouldn't try to add any cooking accessories incase you end up ruining that. It does look like he is juggling the food and tossing it into the pot.

1 2 and 7...but you could include them all!

@alicia I am not sure...I am a little up in the air over what qualifies. I have a mountain in the background of mine, but I am worried it will be an issue for judging.

@alicia I think it looks great so far. Just be careful not to add too much background that it doesn't qualify as a spot illustration.

@miranda-hoover I think it looks great. I wouldn't worry about making the wold look concerned, he looks like he is playing with the young yeti and the two of them are having some unsupervised fun.

@Gabby-Correia I didn't do the last two contests, so I had to make it all up for this one. I think I will go back and do 5he other two, just for fun.

Here is my entry for this month. I have been busy with other projects, and didn't get to do the last two months...but I wanted to get at least one Yeti in before the theme changes.

Thanks everyone. I see now that the window perspective is off. I struggled a lot with the sandbox... so it may be that perspective that is off... I am not sure. I played with taking the sandbox out all together, but the things in it are used later in the book, so I was trying to establish their existence earlier on.
I was trying to leave detail out of the top of the page because that is where the text will go, but now that I realize it looks weird, I am thinking maybe I can add more neighboring houses and put the text over the fence area.

Thank you Heather.
The book is called 'William's Winter Stew'. It is about a boy who feels bad for the skinny, raggedy looking snowman he builds. Thinking the snowman is hungry, he makes the snowman a bucket of "Winter Stew". Through the story more and more snowmen show up at Williams house, and he tries to feed them all. This is the first page, where William has just made his first snowman, and is noticing something doesn't look right.

This is the first page of a new book project. I am hoping some of you wonderful people can share a bit of expertise on it before I continue with the rest of the book.