@Chip-Valecek okay. Been thinking about it for a little bit I have a few other ideas. I would love to see your art hero’s. I think the project would be the dream portfolio. Who are your art hero’s that are working in the market currently? There is a Skillshare class I watched on licensing. I can’t remember what it is. Go into your hot topic and Spencer’s and look who manufactures that stuff. Scratch that. Just show us who your hero’s are that are similar in style. Maybe do some master studies of their work.

Look outside the svs community to see if there is someone who could be a mentor. I think offering to pay for a portfolio look and a conversation is something that would help. Someone who knows that niche of the industry.

Make a product. Go to a place where they would sell said product. Your horror paintings would make a nice book. Your inktobers. Christmas is cute. I would pass on the Christmas collection. Maybe a compilation of monthly contests? I don’t know. Find who buys your stuff and make stuff. Or something. You need more people looking at your work in your niche. To buy and to give feedback. You base too much of your value on svs monthly contests. Give yourself more table legs!

Your people are there, find them!!!!!!!! You know i love surface design and stationary. My work certainly doesn’t fit into story telling. But These classes still are really well done. I don’t way stop learning from them. I feel last inktober really changed things for me and my direction. Your inktobers would be great for those hydro flask sk sk ssskkk and stickers.

Good luck! But don’t leave us either!

@Chip-Valecek I’m not sure Chip. This one’s pretty strong. It checks all the boxes. The shock factor is there for story telling. Clever with the pigs and wolf. The style is pretty universal on this one. The glowing, almost radioactive bacon is good. I like the coloring and saturation in the front and muted background. It’s strong to me.

Would scbwi be worth checking out? How can you get your work in front of other people’s eyes other than our svs bubble?

Honestly, I think some personal feedback from the big guys would be nice. You show up every time, you are trying hard, you’re active in the forum and help others out. We know who you are as an artist. It would be awesome for some “am I doing it right, and if not, please point me in the right direction.”

Can we do a “if you take so many classes and do the homework and submit to the contest x amount of times” we get an email or something like that? I know they are insanely busy, but that would be one heck of an enrollment perk!

Cake #3.

I think I going to start posting them in color. I’ll probably include the ink only. I think they pop and look complete once I’ve added the color.

See, like this one that I will post next week for my beach-y Christmas.

I didn’t take note of the one with the girl bringing the squirrel to obedience school, but I LOVE it! It’s perfect for the “moment before” concept. I love the texture and simplification of the figures as well. Well done. Totally made an impression. So so so good. Just love it.

Thanks @kanari-illust and @chrisaakins

I do like the idea of doing warm colors for two of the designs and cool for the other two. That sounds cool!

And pink and green are always a good choice

Card #2
Yay! What colors do you see? I need to find a good color palette for this set?

I feel like I just ate my whole bag of Halloween candy. I’ve already inked 10 drawings. I wanted to be prepared, but I think sketching ahead just made it impossible to stop once I started inking. They are just my 5x7 spot illustrations for my cards. They aren’t super involved, so it’s just addicting to and impossible to stop. Ahhhh. I’ll can drag out the posts though. I can pretend it took days. I took it to gymnastics yesterday and dance today. I’m like, what else am I going to do? Watch my kid. Okay, I would but I can’t see them when they are in certain parts of their practices.

Happy inktober guys! You’re already killing it! @Braden-Hallett get that poor boy a kick stand!

@Heather-Boyd said in INKTOBER!!! Week 1: Prompts 1-5:

My mother's passion flower plant -it rings up and around and it also has these adorable squiggly kinks that extend in ringlets. Though I could not decide with or without the shadow. What do you like better?

Day 1 -Ring

I like it with. Cute plant!

@whitneysimmsstudio
WhitneySimmsStudio.com

I use my oven timer! It came with my house. Ha. But seriously, the blocks of time have helped when i need to focus and clean. I can’t paint till i get some of my chores done. Putting the phone down while I paint helps too. It’s so hard to break the habit. I remember you mentioning these ideas with a third Thursday or class a while ago. Totally helped! Now, how to not over book those time blocks. It seems like the computer layouts take so much longer than they should. For editing and formatting my cards I just block out the day for it. I don’t usually need breaks from my computer. I loose time when I’m working. I look up and it’s been three hours. Ah!