@eriberart , Have you seen Lee White’s YouTube video on texture? It may be helpful to you in achieving a traditional look to your digital painting.

@neschof & @LauraA , maybe “blended” & “subtle”?

@neschof , I don’t know if it’s of any help, but I was thinking later that the pink color is similar to Magenta in CMYK.
Yes, I think most of us are in the “illustrating people is a weak point” boat! People are hard to get right!

I’m working on a project with people caroling, too.

She looks like a sweet girl to me, & I like her long hair. I think she looks a bit worried, due to the downward slant of her eyebrows. (Somewhat of the same thing with the man in the middle with the plaid scarf.)

You could try moving her eyebrows over her eyes & maybe adding more of a curve or arch to them.

You might also want to experiment with moving some of the cheeks/blush up, since cheeks are pushed up when you smile & that might help convey a happy/joyful mood. Most of these people look fairly somber to me other than the woman with the mink(?) stole. You could also experiment with different mouth shapes, and try giving one or two of them a more smiling mouth.

The knit hat on the guy on the left seems a little small, unless he’s meant to have a pointy head. It also seems a little crooked on his head.

I like how you have people of different sizes with different hairstyles, & dressed them in different patterns. I also like how they are all huddled together. Having the kid hiding behind someone is a nice touch, too. It’s looking good. It will be fun to see the rest of your piece.

I’m not sure what kind of experience you have with vector graphics. In case you are just starting out, there isn’t really “more vector”. You can create digital images with either vector based programs or pixel based programs. It’s possible to create illustrations in that graphic style using either type of program. Pixel based images are created by assigning color to each pixel using programs such as Adobe Photoshop. Vector based images are created with programs such as Adobe Illustrator, which use mathematical calculations to create shapes that you draw with points.

You can find programs similar to Illustrator & Photoshop for free, if you don’t have access to Adobe, and want to try it out first. I’ve used Inkscape (similar to Illustrator) & GIMP (similar to Photoshop).

If you haven’t worked with vector graphics at all, you might want to try getting some free vector graphics & practice “tracing” over shapes, & manipulating the current shapes. Vecteezy.com has some free images, & many of them are vectors. The site even has a simple vector editing tool that can be used on some of the images—I can’t remember exactly how much it lets you do, though.

If you have a community college where you live, you could see if they have a class on Illustrator. I took a great class at my city college. Or I’m sure you can find plenty of online tutorials for Adobe Illustrator.

No matter what type of medium or programs you use, studying design principles will be applicable & help you create quality art.

I don’t know anything about animation, so I can’t help you out there.

Good luck finding the resources you’re looking for!

At 28:24 (re: stopping to do something else) - Ha, ha! I was in a graphic design class that gave the assignment to combine two words and illustrate it. A classmate did one called Procrasacleaning (procrastinate + cleaning), and drew a comic that said something like: my apartment is never cleaner than when I'm supposed to be studying for finals.

@neschof said:

after some brutal culling

Ha, ha! That's a great description!

@neschof said):

colour....? I'd love some help with this

I don't know much about color, but I am noticing a lot of bright colors, with somewhat subdued saturation. I especially notice the same Pink! in several of these images.

I'm also seeing that most of the images have people or buildings or other human objects. Only a few of them have only animals/nature.

@Meta, I just took a look at your Instagram, and your illustrations are really good! I don't know anything about the children's book industry, other than books I've seen, but your art looks like it would be great for children's literature to me.

@burvantill said in Discovering our style - Who's in?:

If I see something out in the world I try and find it online and then add it in to the dream board.

In case you haven't seen this--for the things you find in the real world, you can take a photo & upload it to Pinterest.
Click the circular "+" button at the lower right of the screen (not sure if this is the same for mobile) & click "create a pin" (I don't know why they make you click twice--there aren't any other options!), and you can upload a photo from your computer to pin on a board.