She took her flamingo to dance school to learn to dance the flamenco.

I'm trying to get a strong portfolio together. I need to add some spot and vignette illustrations, so this is my latest addition:

My superstition is one that says when you see a cardinal after the death of a loved one, the cardinal is your loved one's spirit letting you know they're OK.

Day 4: Snicker

Howdy everyone. Hey, there's a window up listing other posts, and it's right in front of where I'm typing. Is there a way to get rid of that?

Uh... anyway, I'm working on the October prompt. Does this read OK? Can you tell what's happening? Do you have any suggestions?

The mushrooms are terrified to see that the truffle-hunting pig has found their village, but I think the pig is unnerved by sentient mushrooms.

I decided to do a drawing-a-day challenge for November with the theme "Guinea pigs" (Piigvember). I picked guinea pigs because they're something I like, and I've never done a drawing-a-day challenge before, and I figured I'd be more likely to complete it if I picked something that I liked for the first one.

Critiques are welcome.

Here are my first three days:

Piigvember day 1: Zeus

Piigvember day 2: Apollo

Piigvember day 3: Banzai

I'm open! I'm open!

Guys?

My husband wants me to design a skeleton guy for him, which made me lol because I usually draw cute stuff.

It made me realize that for most of the human form I draw a bit of a skeleton anyway, but to draw skeleton hands I had to draw finished hands and work backwards.

This is a first pass for a more complete figure. I did a bunch of skulls and he picked what he liked best. Then he'll comment on this and we'll go from there.

I finished the bunny. Clover the guinea pig is next.

Can I use black and white ink on toned paper? Purple paper, for instance?

Hi, and welcome!

Welcome, Laura!

There are some other people from the greater Philadelphia area here. I'm from eastern MD, myself, about an hour from Philly.

Your values are pretty good overall. They could be tweaked more in the image with the cabin, but I feel like they're one of your strong areas now, especially in the top image.

Besides perspective, I think you need to work on making your characters' poses more dynamic. There's a class on posing characters here on SVS.

I hope that helps.

@TessaW I didn't think about that. I'm sure it would use it for evil, although perhaps if you set a box out it would get the box stuck on the horn and so be thwarted. At least for a little while.

I want the unicorn giraffe cat as a pet now.

Hi all,

I'm looking for a review of my portfolio to see if I'm on the right track. I want to do picture books. Do my illustrations show that, or do I need to work on redesigning my characters and style? If you don't think it looks like picture book illustration, what area of illustration do you think it would be fit for (if any)?

I haven't won any of the contests, but then again I don't think I've been a subscriber for any of those, so I imagine that has a lot to do with it, but I don't know if I'm on the right track at all. Am I? What do you all think?

Here's a link direct to my portfolio: https://twiggyt.com/lothar/standard/

Hi welcome!

I love Jeff, nice work there.

Oh my goodness, miniature donuts. How? What are they made of?

I've been looking at horror-related children's books illustration. It seems like they're either really cute and rounded (think Will Terry and Bonaparte), or they're out-and-out creepy (like Dean McKean ).

I agree that your niche is out there. My husband does creepy horror work and I don't even like to look at it (because it's so creepy). He puts stuff on shirts and merch and sells it via his website. There's an SVS class on merchandising you might check out. The woman who does it shows how she made one Christmas image and licenses it for a whole host of things. That might be something to look into.

I'm pretty sure there's a class about picture books here.

If you're on Facebook there's a group called KidLit411 that has a lot of informative posts. You might try browsing it for info.

Your mouse illustrations will make an adorable book!