Here's my entry for the Mermay contest! There so many awesome mermaids here, so great to scroll through and get inspired Good luck everyone!

Here is my entry, had to make it a little bit Christmas themed also took a "Together in isolation" approach. Hope you all like it, and good luck everyone!

Happy Halloween everybody! Here’s my entry for this month, such a fun topic and so many great illustrations!

Hi everyone!
I'm new here on SVS and the forum but I'm really liking this place a lot! Great people and amazing art! Can't wait to take one of the courses
Here is my Misunderstood monster for the October challenge, hope you'll like it!

"The big Forest Monster's main task was to scare everybody away, including small creatures, so he just couldn't understand what he was doing wrong. They just kept climbing on to him, nesting and falling asleep and stuff. Couldn't they see how big and dangerous he was!?"

Please come with constructive criticism and tips! I'm new with digital painting but really wanna learn more!

SVS name: @kajsah
Instagram: @kajsah.art
Twitter: @kajsahart

Here's my entry for the September contest - Everyone was shocked to see her show up to school with...A DRAGON!!!

Hope you like it! Great as always to see everybody's entries, so much creativity here! Good luck everyone!

Hi guys!

I'm trying to make it in time for this months theme, because I really want to do a mermaid before May is over haha. And also I'm now finally subscribing to SVS and an offical member! Feels so exciting to take this step and invest in myself and my art! I've been wanting to do it for a long time So I'm celebrating with this mermaid illustration

What do you think about it? Composition, colors etc. Is she too creepy looking? As you can see I have a bit left to paint and will add more details to the water. Maybe some fish as well... Hopefully I will make it in time...

All input welcome!

Thanks!

So many amazing entries!
Here is mine, a spread from a picture book I illustrated last year. I really wanted to make something new for this prompt but there were just not enough time this month but I hope you like this one and good luck everyone!

Here I go!

Hi again!

So now I've changed the wings and added more muscles where they are attached to the body. I think it looks more realistic? I intend to make them semi-transparent, and the light will come from behind and shine through the wings where they are not shadowed by the body.
Also made the people on the ground smaller as well as the bus. How about the basket ball court now? Not super realistic proportions but maybe good enough for this type of illustration?

Thanks a lot guys!

@EliaMurrayArt I'm doing a challenge called #100moods right now, which have really fun prompts! It's created by Simona Ceccarelli who is (or was, she's really busy with work now) a SVS student as well. You don't have to do them in a certain time period, just anytime you want and in any medium/style you'd like. I'm finding it being a great way to practise expressing emotions with my characters and I'm also getting so much inspiration and hopefully some nice portolio pieces along the way

You could make up your own moods or follow Simona's list, I'll attach it. Another amazing illustrator who is also doing the challenge, Noemi Gionet Landry, has a modified list. But really you can just pick and choose and switch out any moods you'd like

Here is my entry, had to make it a little bit Christmas themed also took a "Together in isolation" approach. Hope you all like it, and good luck everyone!

@Heather-Boyd Thank you!!!

Happy Halloween everybody! Here’s my entry for this month, such a fun topic and so many great illustrations!

@Annabishop thank you so much! Congrats again!

Congratulations! So awesome that so many SVS members are being signed by them
I've had my eyes on them for a good while now but haven't had the guts to submit my portfolio yet haha

Don't feel bad for giving up on pieces, I give up on illustrations all the time I feel it's part of the process of learning and experimenting. Usually if I don't feel anything special from the beginning of a piece, if I never get into a good flow and feel excited about a piece, that usually means I'm going to struggle a lot with it. Those pieces never turn out as good, even if I spend 80 hours on them.

There's always a hard part during every illustration, at least to me, where I just have to push through it, but if I still believe in the core idea it usually turns out the way I want it. I've learnt spending a lot more time in the sketch phase and doing thumbnails help with this! And sometimes I leave a piece for a long time, and if I still like the idea after a couple of weeks/months I can look at it with fresh eyes and make changes to it.

I'm all for the Ipad Pro 12,9 inch with 250G storage, got it a couple of months ago and I'm loving it! I do almost all my illustration work on it now, only do final touches in Photoshop. (But I'm currently going back and forth between two places every week so the Ipad is a lot more convinient than a Cintiq or other stationary display tablets, maybe that will change in the future. I still feel that Photoshop is better than Procreate, although Procreate is very good!). I think you will be very happy with it!

Another Ipad related tip for illustrators - even though it's really nice to be able to draw digital while watching Netflix on the sofa (right!?), I started to feel it in my neck and wrist. And even though the Smart Folio (which I have) is good I didn't feel it was enough for longer periods of working on it. So I got this stand - Parblo adjustable tablet stand :

https://www.parblo.com/collections/accessory/products/pr100-universal-adjustable-tablet-stand

I'm sure there are a lot of other good stands out there but I'm really happy with it. Feels sturdy (even when putting your hand on it while drawing) and offers many options for the incline and it's rather small and foldable when not using it! Sorry, a little bit of a shameless plug, but I was just so happy when I found it ;P

@Miriam thank you!

@Heather-Boyd I'm so happy that my illustration inspired you to do a piece of your own! Zoe Persico's work is amazing and she really is a master of atmosphere and mood, I love it my biggest challenge when I did mine was to stay loose with my brushstrokes. I tend to get too much into details and overwork things and I really like how interesting textures Zoe has in her work. And the colors of course!

I like your concept a lot, I think it will tell a dramatic story with the storm clouds coming in and the worried girl looking out for her sheep. Maybe you could turn her face just a little bit towards the camera, so we're able to see her facial expression? I think that would help tell what's going on.

I'm looking forward to seeing your process!

@Coley I think these prompts will take me at least 2 years too, haha! But you could combine them too, draw several characters with different emotions in one pic