@Reb-Erlik Thanks Reb! I clearly posted this before I was done listening to the episode haha I've migrated to their new platform now. Hope to see you there!

@willicreate Incredible! You have such an amazing style.

Thanks for all your advice, everyone! I wanted to give a little update because this week has been going well in this sense. The spread I'm working on for my client this sprint is one that I'm actually very happy with and excited about, so it's been a lot easier to get motivation for that. Plus, yesterday I just did a little 2 hour study just for fun of my cat, and I just completely lost myself in it. I was experimenting with new procreate brushes and high contrast lighting from a good reference. It turned out really nice. I think just doing realism studies can help me get in the zone and not think too much about what I'm doing. And I'm sure the practice is good too!

Hopefully I can keep this kind of energy up, because I've actually been feeling very good about drawing after reading all your lovely comments ❤

@Amanda-Bancroft wow sounds way cool! I hope you don't mind me tacking my 3pp guest request onto yours, i havent known where to suggest it, but this is as good a place as any.

GUS GORDON! he is an Australian illustrator, and more recently author-illustrator who works mostly with watercolor and collage and puts things together in photoshop. He has a graphic novel commissions out in 2025 sometime, Into The Bewilderness, (heres a great article that even includes his artwork from his pitch to the publisher)and i think he would be very open to doing a podcast close to release, as he has done 2 or 3 podcasts with Australian podcast “words and nerds” by dani vee. It is his first graphic novel and i think he would have a lot of interesting things to say about the experience as well as more broad topics like illustration careers, living in another country and that experience with publishing, and how he feels about art for children. Idk, reading his book finding francois really unlocked something in me because of how flat the characters are and how three dimensional the backgrounds are and how every bit was so interesting to look at because of the variety of textures and interesting integrated collage elements. He is my hero!
http://www.gusgordon.com/about/

@Lee-White awesome! All I can say is thank you! I do have inspiration for a couple covers with this great style of yours in mind so Ill work my way up the skills until I can get some done

This episode where they discussed @allysa 's work really resonated with me. The advice Jake gave was spot on, and was a similar conclusion I came to about my own work: too dark both subjectively and visually, render less, look at targeting older age demographics for the work.

I got rejections from agents too, and realised that I needed to change things up a bit, but in a way that I would still enjoy the work - e.g. not becoming yet another Klassen clone.

Here's my original dark style compared to the last lighter, pencil and digital style I tried out (for an SVS prompt).
dark-light.jpg

I'm going to use the darker visual style for a video game I'm working on, and the lighter pencil style for any future picture books. I don't think I'll look for an agent and will just self-publish picture books in the future, it just seems too much of a hustle to make money from illustration in any meaningful, sustainable sense. Especially because I take a long time on illustrations. So I'm going to have to keep up the UI design to sustain me.

Looking forward to seeing where Allysa ends up in 6 months. Also, I like the idea Lee suggested about showcasing illustrators, I learn a lot from those little mini-portfolio reviews, I think it's something that can help illustrators.

@Jake-Parker @will-terry-art @AnthonyWheeler

Thanks so much for all the great advice and answering my question ❤️🙏🏻 I took notes and got a lot to work on, starting tomorrow!

@Lee-White Thanks, Lee! This gives me a good direction for some stronger portfolio pieces; I appreciate it.

@Jake-Parker This episode was really helpful to me; I started it over later to take notes. This year, I did the most ambitious art project I've ever done, but I also started a full-time non-art related job and finding the time to make art has been tough. I really appreciate you guys talking about the downs as well as the ups. I really look forward to hearing about your plans for next year in the next episode!

@kayleenartlover A video game action platformer with rhythm elements is the plan. The goal to start with is Steam (PC), then if some kind of miracle occurs and there is demand there would be the option of porting to console.

3pp-ep-185-art.jpeg

Art by Analise B 🙌

Oh hey! It's Tuesday! That means it's time for another episode of 3PP😆 This time we go behind the scenes and talk about the real reason we switched out Critique Arena for How To Fix Your Art.

Also in this episode: the most common art mistakes, and how you can make your art better🤓

Join us on Patreon 👋

Ask a question🤔

Listen to the episode and check out the show notes 🎧 ♥

💵

Great podcast gents!

@dinky When I found myself in the same boat I asked myself what I wanted to be, a social media rockstar or someone who makes great, lasting art. I wanted the latter and my concern about posting regularly on social media plummeted 🙂

@willicreate Thank you for the references! I get what you're saying now.

So I guess my take on your last paragraph question, which was "best approach for critiquing...when their body of work opposes your own artistic values."

#1 We all can't control people's responses, even with good intentions of growth, sometimes people take it the wrong way, misinterpret it, etc. So positive or negative, you have to tread through their response with patients. I've given critique to my wife, and friends with good intentions and it was misinterpreted. And I have to evaluate how I communicated. Which is just a life long skill in it of itself.

#2 Once you've critiqued, for any skill level, remembering there's the chance the person will not to be receptive or regard your values to the degree that you perceive. Meaning, we might think, "dude, this is helpful! Here's my two cents!", but they could like, "Mm, sure ya...whatever..." and not accept it. You can agree to disagree with them, and vice versa with you.
Unless you feel like their artwork is legitimately bad, you can argue why you think they need improvement, change or whatever. You can humbly submit the critique to them, while keeping in mind the principle I noted in #1 about their response.

The term constructive is to build up in my own funky definition. And not every building is built up the same in the world. So you might think your words of encouragement (the critique itself) will build them up, but they might disregard it. OR they might think, "Oh my gosh! I did not see that! Thank you!" 🙂

So TL;DR version is, you should still bring out the critique, with confidence and a defense, but remember to humbly submit it and accept their response of whatever it may be. If you feel like they're going down a bad path you can nudge them a little more, because your heart intention is "I want you to succeed, here's what I think might be the solution."

One more thing! You can think of each of the people you critique as a close friend, if you see your friend going down a path that is not good, and you are a good friend to them and care about them, you're GOING to tell them "bro! Where are you going?! You need to take this better path!" That's an extreme case, but the heart intention behind your statements of encouragement or critique is "I see something wrong, and because I care about you as a person and your work, I think this is better route."

There's also the reality that we all have to face with critiques, in and outside of art creation, is that we have to abide by the words that we say to people. Like a feedback loop of giving critique, and living by it, or realizing our critique was incorrect and then we improve in a different way.

This is in response to the 3 point perspective patreon freebie on "Can I make Money as an Illustrator"

As someone who recently had all their possessions destroyed due to bed bug protocols and I believe crossed wires from "the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing," there is liberation in the knowledge that a lot of theft/destruction is either accidental or inadvertent. And it's never fun to think suspiciously of people. The reason not to hold onto such ideas is healthy mainly for you.

There are times I remember things going missing, the most notable was a Wacom Pen. I swear my then 4-6 year old niece took it..still think so to this day. I never asked about it though. I just got a new Wacom Pro pen. And here's what I like to think happened.

My niece loved spending time with her uncle and loved his art and thought that perhaps that weird pen he drew with had magical qualities, so she swiped it, and in some box somewhere she has it.

More likely though, I inadvertently somehow threw it away.

@Jake-Parker I made an e-book about this topic. hopefully, my book can provide some insights on this topic!
Check it out!
E-Book PDF Download:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Z0A9A1TcslSJ0rRRaUZym3Ijx5ZtN2_l/view?usp=share_link

E-Book Buy Links:
Amazon - https://a.co/d/gtcZur5
SmashWords - https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1363145

Social Media:
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jamii_main/

@ArtistErin Ahh thanks for the kind words Erin! And samee, the covers he did for Fablehaven were the first I saw of his work--so good!

@ksfabian Will talks about his experiences starting up in comic cons in his youtube channel. Take a look! You might find everything you need to know here. But I agree! An SVS class all in one place with step by steps would be amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nti31w0lZw0

Really fun episode so far, certainly took a few things from it I could apply to myself. The discussion of how to grow yourself on social media, specifically Instagram was fun. It is hard to see it as the growth platform it once was without jumping into making reels, or having that one great idea that just takes off. I don't think that means it's not worth doing, but it certainly seems like the input of effort has continued to go up to gain the reward of followers folks used to get years ago.

At the end of the day I think quality creative work will still be any artists best asset in terms of gaining traction of any kind. That and consistency in both posting and what you post. People gravitate toward pages that have a lot of what they saw that got them there. I remember when people were promoting their work through IG a lot more and you would have a lot of instances where they promoted an interesting image only to find that nothing else on their page was of similar quality or style. Unfortunately that tends to lead to not getting a follow, just more likes on that image.

Cheers guys, thanks for the episode.

Love the artwork for this episode. I felt like that rabbit now😅, chasing the next deadline.