Hello, I have been freelancing as an illustrator for about a year now and want some critiques on my Halloween piece.

I know there are definitely areas where I can improve. I will start by admitting that I sort of rushed myself on this piece. It took me about a week to finish. I wanted to make sure I could publish this on Halloween.

The description of this piece is what would 'Halloween look like in the Philippines?'. It depicts Filipino children of all colors and sizes walking among monsters of Philippine mythology on Halloween night during the Covid-19 2020 pandemic.

I tried my best to make every character's gestures be expressive. This is meant to be a busy piece intentionally, so I'd like to know if I executed that aspect well enough to be justified. This piece is also formatted to fit on Instagram, so it's split in half. I was hoping that formatting it like this would not have disrupted the flow of the drawing.

If you need full descriptions of what is going on:

1. A tiyanak is hung over a window grossly gobbling down candy while wearing a mask.
2. A sirena is wearing a scuba mask, as people dive into a minipool to grab some apples. She's standing next to a 'siyokoy' with more 'cthulu' features and there is a female berberoka hiding in the pool.
3. An aeta person dressed as an American soldier receives candy from a wak-wak, while berbalang grabs a piece with their tail while she's not looking.
4. The 'white lady ghost' drops ghost candy to three 'kumakatok' children.
5. A Filipino girl dressed as a Filipina suffragette 'Josefa Llanes Oscoda' walks by with a duwende.
6. A pugot hides in the background in the middle of the picture, lit only by a candle.
7. A bungisngis hands out candy to very young Filipino children dressed as nurses.
8. A mestizo pinoy boy helps a sigbin how to sanitize their paws.
9. A kapre blows away one of the corona viruses that he sees while sitting on the roof of a house.
10. A religious Filipino boy dressed as a pari prays to a cross with a rosary necklace on it, next to candles and a haunted framed photograph of the virgin Mary.
11. A brunette Chinay Anggitay helps pull the tartanilla of a tikbalang dressed in a barong-tagalog.
12. Black butterflies represent death in the Philippines.
13. Various manananggals fly in the sky, some are holding pumpkins, one young one is peering over by a palm tree.
14. An amomongo passes by carrying too much candy than he can carry.
15. The covid-19 is inspired by Filipino symbols such as the sun of the Philippine flag.

Hello, I am a freelance children's book illustrator on Upwork, and I use Paint Tool Sai to illustrate my children's books. I have been illustrating for almost two years, and I recently got new digital brushes.

I am drawing this ghost, and I realized that as I was compositing her, I gave her dress a very specific texture and her hair, but the face's texture is rather smooth in shape. Is this considered an undesirable technique?

I also realized that I drew two other background characters, with less textured and smoother outlines. Should I redo these characters before moving forward?

Hello! This isn't my first post, but I thought I should make an official introduction.

My name is Michael Angelo Go and I am from California, USA. I was born in the Philippines in the Mindanao region and my family's main language is Cebuano/Visaya. We moved to the states when I was only 1 years old.

I am a freelance illustrator and hobbyist in digital art, writing, and toy customizing. I have a 5-year degree in architecture that I earned just this year. When I was young I wanted to be an animator and become a show-runner but when I graduated from high school and wanted to apply for college, my father would not let me pick animation as my major, so I thought architecture was a reasonable alternative, because I loved visiting Los Angeles and played Mirror's Edge as a kid.

I chose to become a freelance illustrator when I first heard an ad on the radio for Upwork. I had never freelance before but I was really interested in putting my art skills to use. I started freelancing a year ago, and earned a job helping someone make a custom children's book for their friend's firstborn child. I don't get job offers on that site often and only seem to get successful snatches only once a year

Hey everybody, I am thinking about writing my own children's books for sale. I want to hear what people think about how I draw characters, and what direction (or directions) I should progress towards to having presentable pieces of work.

My main art program is Paint Tool Sai Ver. 2. I make my files compatible with Adobe Photoshop to utilize certain features (puppet warping, liquifying, specific blurs, etc.). I have been currently experimenting with my brushes. When I considered children's book illustration, I took inspiration from graphic designer Gabi Tozati's techniques and I have recently found a liking to Kim Smith's (Quirkbooks) and Stevie Mahardhika's (Prince & Knight) work just last month.

I am writing a book called "I am Gwapa" which tells a story of an African-Amerasian Filipina girl who wants to join her school's beauty pageant, but is being constantly told she won't win because she doesn't fit Filipino beauty standards. For this concept art, I tried drawing the character slightly different compared to my previous work, and as a practice to draw my characters consistently. She's very different from my usual style. Her head is a lot bigger and her face is more oblong then my usually artwork. I've been experimenting with perspective, making the bodies small and stick-like, noodle-arms.

Below is my usual art style:

@Nyrryl-Cadiz Hello Nyrryl, I'm sorry it's been more than a week and I have made no progress on this book idea (I was sick with the flu and was worried it might've been COVID). What do you believe could be improved about her hands. I know that in one of the panels I presented where she wins her waving hand is rather sloppy.

I spoke to some of my Filipino friends, and I realized that for my story that I had to change her name. Amerasians in the Philippines born from the Mt. Pinatubo incident were in the northern region of the country where the main language is Tagalog. Unfortunately, I had to change her name Gwapa to Maganda, and the 'Bati ka' would be inaccurate to that region's native tongue. Sorry Cebuanos and Visayans!

Is that better?

Are you scrambling for work too?

@Nyrryl-Cadiz Hello Cadiz, it's nice to see you here. I'm not sure what you mean? Are you referring to the trick-or-treater or the ghost? She's supposed to be an adult ghost that looks skinny and the torso sort of pronounces that. The trick-or-treater girl is doing a pose where her spine is slightly slung back. I derived this pose from movies like Cinderella's evil-step sisters.

I just recently finished the entire painting and completely missed your comment. You can see and critique my complete piece in the forums

@Annaaronson said in Need advice on using textured brushes:

@Michael-Angelo-Go I agree with the previous two posts. I think because the rest of your painting is smooth the more subtle texture you have in the staff and in the lights on the windows works a bit better than the dress. I really like the pumpkin bucket the little girl is holding!

I have tried unsuccessfully to get work on Upwork, so good for you for making that work! Have fun experimenting with your new brushes!

@Annaaronson thank you for the support! I completely agree getting work on Upwork is completley hard. It seems like the jobs have to come to you rather than you coming to them. All my clients have approached me asking me to draw their books or logos. Although I haven't been getting any new jobs or job offers lately, so I've been drawing this entire month to build up my online profile.

@NessIllustration Oh I just subscribed to you now. It's called 'GO MAD! Cartoons'

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG40Zvea1z9YYKJOXQy-ujg?view_as=subscriber

I've been working on coloring. What do you think of the styles? What do you think might work for my book and what might not? Do you see all styles being a possibility in the book or perhaps other book ideas under another tone?

I haven't work on color scheme ideas, but if you think her current colors work let me know!

Awesome, I just made a Youtube channel recently as well. But it's about speedpaints and observing my process. Right now I'm doing a Christmas Speedpaint series, and I have one video up there already.

I hope we can be mutuals on Youtube!

Progress. Have to turn in for the night.

Progress with the helpful advice of @Nyrryl-Cadiz

I'll fix some of the noticeable issues on this piece later. Just wanted to show the flats.

@Nyrryl-Cadiz OMG That's practically the same pose I gave that character in her original 2018 design.

Well for the most part.

Also, feel comfortable making your own suggestions on how I can improve a piece during a process. That way I can improve and deliver art you want to see.

Progress on my next speedpaint. I am featuring an entire Filipino family making Ube Roll Cakes together.

Final Image.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ61vdbYHPY&list=TLPQMjgxMTIwMjCtEehhkwWdqw&index=1&ab_channel=GOMAD!Cartoons

@NessIllustration Oh I just subscribed to you now. It's called 'GO MAD! Cartoons'

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG40Zvea1z9YYKJOXQy-ujg?view_as=subscriber

Awesome, I just made a Youtube channel recently as well. But it's about speedpaints and observing my process. Right now I'm doing a Christmas Speedpaint series, and I have one video up there already.

I hope we can be mutuals on Youtube!

Progress on my next speedpaint video.