continue exploring to develop my style of image making. Trying out hard edges, almost no lighting, and lots of textures, and a bit of patterns.

Love the concept of the flame friend.
I took me the second look to notice the hands - which is the most interesting element of the concept for me once I saw it. I wonder if the hands could be more prominent somehow.

Think of it as immersive research time. I sometime has a piece of paper near by when playing with my toddler. I wrote down a line or two in between, inspired by how she plays, or what she said.

Oslo, Norway.

@Laura-Brown wow. Very interesting observation on the footprints. Thank you for sharing.

"Finding my style" used to be a big frustration for me, and I think Lee's class really changed my perspective, and reduced a lot of pain. I still worry about not having a consistant portfolio yet, and worry about how to present myself to portienal clients, etc. But at least, the process of exploring a new approch to image-making has just been fun and exciting after Lee's class. :-).
Have fun with your writing project, and looking forward to see your piece.

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. And thank you @Lee-White for providing additonal guidences. It is really really helpful advice for me to grow and find my style.

I felt both very happy and very clumcy when making this particular image. But the biggest learning for me with this image is that I think I find something I really like - focusing on design, and less on rendering. This is very valuable information for me. Very excited to find time to redo this piece.

@LauraA My initial thoughts was to use the footstep as a solution to connect the girl and the broken teddy bear. But I see what you mean, the snow scene creates more questions.
@hannahmccaffery I can defintely use a snow scene for something else later

@hannahmccaffery thank you so much. I like the story of this piece, and would really like to develop it further to a portfolio piece. So crits and suggestions are more than welcome.

I also felt there is something not quite right about the main character. My first attempt was to reduce the value of the tree, but I did not get the result I wanted. But I guess making the character pop a bit more is another way to go about. Will definitely try out.

In terms of the composition, I think I will try to move the whole scene to an empty playgroud (slider, bench, etc instead of trees), but keep the lighting and long shadow. I think it will be more fitting to the story. Now I am getting excited to actually redo the image :-).

@Coreyartus Hi Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. Great questions, thank you. The book you mentioned looks really interesting.

Love the drawing, so cute. Keep going

I have been making illustrations in very different styles during the last year or so. I constently change how I make images, because I feel like I have not find "IT" yet. I followed Lee's advice in his dream portfolio lecture, and it was a game changer for me. I have been looking at a lot of defferent artists and trying their styles out in my own images.

But I often get insecure/uncertain when I use other artists solutions to solve the challenges in my own images. I know it is totally fine if I do it just for myself, but once I want to put an image into my portfolio, I feel like there is a fine line between stealing in a good way, and stealing in a bad way. I would like to get your opinion on this particular image: The image to the left is my illustration for Godzilla's challenger. The story is very differnt from my inspirational image, but my composition is very similar to John Klassen's image. I also borrowed texture/rendering techniques from Lee's image. Is this too close to my source of inspiration, if I use this image in my portfolio?