Just a summer monster changing style.

I hope the illustration is fit with the topic

My entry for this month contest
The little girl and her buddy just move to their new village.

Hi all! it's my first time join here
Here is my entry : Travel to Fairyland

Here is my day 1. I am not sure will do it for a whole month though :smiling_face_with_open_mouth_closed_eyes:

@lucisaurus here is my Christmas illustration. Happy holidays and merry Christmas everyone!

I knew it's super late for introduction. I joined the forum on April and even have participated the contest. I wanted to introduce myself but wasn't confidence because of my broken english. Anyway, I hope you all don't mind with my broken english and my super late introduction, I really want to learn from this forum and all of you guys.

So, here I am! call me Lenny, I am from Indonesia. I listened to bunch of Will's and Jake's videos on Youtube. I also enjoyed a lot the new podcast.
I draw mainly for children's book (mostly for self published authors) but sometimes also for other stuff like packaging, app, etc. I jumped into fulltime freelancer as illustrator in beginning of 2016. I learn drawing mostly self-taught. I subscribe some courses in schoolism and svs as well. But I am really bad in time management, so it took me so long to even finish one course (lol).
I really love storytelling so most of my works is about that.

Here is some of my works:

You can find more of my works on my website or my Instagram.
If you have thoughts, critics or feedbacks about my works, don't hesitate to tell me. I am very welcome for any feedbacks and critics!

That's all and thank you!

Hi there, everyone!

I am not an active member right now in SVS. I also barely write here, and I only joined SVS for three months after I had won the contest year ago (If I am not wrong) and also bought a class from here. But, I learned A LOT from people here in SVS as I read the threads and discussions. Long story short, I think I should also give some contribution in exchange.

Although I am not a hight profile illustrator, I've been working as a full-time illustrator since 2016. I've got projects mostly from Behance. I used to work for primarily self-published authors and companies in the past years.

Last December, after so many rejections and silent emails from agencies, I've finally signed with Cat Agency. They've rejected my first approach, but they gave me critical feedback. It required me like more than one year to eventually changed my style a little bit and signed with them. After all, it was worth it to tweak my portfolio until I feel comfortable and confident with my works before I've signed with an agent. (So if an agent is now rejecting you, but you have solid feeling and connection to that agent, don't give up yet. There might be second chance).

I am not an expert in this field and agents stuff, but as I've mentioned, I learned a lot from this forum, so I thought this would be a little bit of information to share, and if you've any questions related, don't hesitate to let me know!

@SundayGirl76 I really love your works!
I was planning to do it until my CTS relapsed and still have some works to do
I only managed to do the cover

I actually planned to make my own simple story but after all, I can't manage it:disappointed_but_relieved_face:
Maybe one illustration per day is really not possible for my style though.

Day 2: Tranquil
not really succesful this time:face_with_open_mouth_cold_sweat:

@Johanna-Kim and @rcartwright thank you so much for your advices! both of you are right, I tried to desaturate and lighten the mushrooms in distance. I also changed the mushroom's colors in foreground to a dark blue so it didn't bring too much attention. I hope now the little girl with her companion will draw more attention. But I also want people to see (although not too much) their destination that's the mushroom village. Hopefully now it works.

but don't hesitate to tell if anyone of you have another thoughts! I very appreciate it

@Katie-Kordesh I love your works!the characters are so lovely, and the color palette is fantastic.
When I sent my portfolio to my agent, I was first being rejected. Then it took me more than one year to add and tweak my portfolio again. I think what I did is:

1. Sequential arts, I added some sequential arts to show that I can handle consistency.
2. Environments, I created indoor, outdoor, fantastical scenes.
3. Lighting schemes, I added dusk, evening, fire scenes.
4. More than one spread dummy of a picture book, I made sure that there are spaces for texts and no vital character in the border or more straightforward to say, scenes with texts.
5. Lots of kids! I know some artists only draw animals, but to increase the chances, I added a bunch of kids with various ethnicities, gender, ages, shapes, and personalities.

And the most important is, I've had to feel comfortable with the technic and style I used. I understand that after someone signed with an agent, they still able to change the technic and style depending on the projects, but I didn't want to start with something I didn't feel comfortable or confident in the first place.

I hope it helps and good luck!

@Heather-Boyd thank you, Heather!

I love your works! They are remarkable, soft, and organic. I can imagine them in a picture book already, I think you're ready to go! good luck!!

thanks so much @xin-li , @Jeremy-Ross ,@MissMushy

thank you so much @Nyrryl-Cadiz !
@xin-li don't worry, you will find it sooner or later when you are ready

@Jeremy-Ross @MissMushy good question! So, my old style was exposed more to the animation style (like Pixar, Dreamworks). I uploaded here my past work so you can see. The eyes were enormous with the distorted body proportion (which is fine, but mine is too extreme like the head is huge compared to the body). My agent said it wasn't fit for a trade picture book (at least for the publishers who've worked with them). And this was my personal opinion, but I also thought I tend to render the image too much 3d-ish.

I hope it shows what I meant clearly

@nadyart thank you, Nadya! I love your works too! yes, two weeks after I signed, I got one assignment for children's magazine and so far 2 books deals

Hi there, everyone!

I am not an active member right now in SVS. I also barely write here, and I only joined SVS for three months after I had won the contest year ago (If I am not wrong) and also bought a class from here. But, I learned A LOT from people here in SVS as I read the threads and discussions. Long story short, I think I should also give some contribution in exchange.

Although I am not a hight profile illustrator, I've been working as a full-time illustrator since 2016. I've got projects mostly from Behance. I used to work for primarily self-published authors and companies in the past years.

Last December, after so many rejections and silent emails from agencies, I've finally signed with Cat Agency. They've rejected my first approach, but they gave me critical feedback. It required me like more than one year to eventually changed my style a little bit and signed with them. After all, it was worth it to tweak my portfolio until I feel comfortable and confident with my works before I've signed with an agent. (So if an agent is now rejecting you, but you have solid feeling and connection to that agent, don't give up yet. There might be second chance).

I am not an expert in this field and agents stuff, but as I've mentioned, I learned a lot from this forum, so I thought this would be a little bit of information to share, and if you've any questions related, don't hesitate to let me know!

What I usually do is try to explore the character's stories and personalities. In example, think if the kid is clumsy? nerd? messy? shy? etc and give some hints to their accessories (maybe a ribbon? a pin on their bag? ). Play with the emotions (are they sad? happy? afraid? etc) and shapes (are they tall? thin? small? etc) also help

it's a very sweet illustration! so cozy and warm. I love the second one, I love the night is not totally dark and black and the light area is not oversaturated, it gives the natural and classic feeling

I also have a similar question recently. I tried to search on Youtube and I found this:
https://www.curtisbrowncreative.co.uk/course/writing-and-illustrating-a-childrens-picture-book/
never try it myself but it looks legit (but it's pricey).

I also found this Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEdD2HW2-XI5vSaeOMJkPNw
She shares a little bit about how to write a picture book, try to look at it.

What I am doing now is try to read as many picture books as possible but since I don't have a big budget to buy them and the library here barely has English book, I am searching on Youtube (again). I found this channels quite helpful: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvdUKabPUkx6p-zYlrxmJJw
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEPsNDUhUm-7yZhUjQQNqwQ

Hope it helps!