Thank you @lmrush!

@alexw Thank you for the amazing advice and taking the time to review my artworks and give your two cents! I feel a little bit more hopeful that I could be on the right track!

I think your advice about arranging my portfolio in a more accessible way is a great idea and I love the example you showed! I will try and arrange things in an easier way that isn’t obstructed by pages. I will also fix the lowercase “kids” I didn’t realize it didn’t match the others. Thanks for catching that! New sections about characters would be very interesting to do! It would be fun to explore more character concepts and villains. I’ll have to look into doing that! I do agree I could give the characters more interest and explore different things about them as they are currently all smiles. It would be interesting to show more emotional moments too.

Thank you again for your advice, it helped me figure out what I need to do next and I feel a bit more motivated! 😃

I'd be interested to know how things have gone over the last couple of years as well. I'm a pretty happy iPad Pro + Procreate user, but always looking to see where things are at with the Cintiq's and Wacom alternatives.

@R-Fey-Realme Good morning!

My color palette is rainbow, I just recently finished the thumbnails. Now I'm going to do some re-draws of the thumbnails to get a clearer direction for each of the pages. It'll be about 12 or 14 pages, and at this rate I don't think I'll be able to have enough time to have refined, printed books. But we'll see.

@NessIllustration it did feel weird to me.

@Michael-Angelo-Go Usually, when an app takes that long, it's an internet issues, which might be a huge downer answer, but usually the case for me when it comes to downloading apps. You might try and turn off and on your ipad too.

@alexw all fixed. Thanks for pointing this out! I'm happy you are enjoying the course and community!

That’s okay, just take it to Final. Some stuff you can’t fix until you get more leg work or pencil mileage. Plus, the point is to submit broken work, so just finish it out and submit it. I think if they talk about it, they would say the story is clear, the emotions are clear, the danger is clear, your composition isn't dead center, and it all makes sense—its just clear you’re new to figure drawing, and thats okay! Take it to finish, learn some stuff there, then do another one and another one and some action poses. Take the figure drawing class, go on Pinterest and learn body construction blocks from artist tutorial posts, and then keep doing more! Youve got a great start.

@tom-barrett Hello, is not the same story, I should have mentioned it, but is similar in many ways. Thanks a lot for your feedback, you mentioned some details that I didnt notice, such as the position of the plant where the frog is. Thank you very very much!

@cory-jensen
Question for you. This is more about the implied narrative.

Some kids, might actually think of their dads as...actual monsters.

Is the narrative a subtle implication that the boy's dad is a "monster" metaphorically? (I wonder if it's worth consider. Some parents might go that route in their minds if this is published)

Not saying you should change the story, more just posing the question to consider.

My thoughts initially went to, if the boy has an imagination about his dad being a monster...why? Is his dad mean?

Although, you definitely have grounds for the narrative to be innocent, and I'd argue that because of your art style. It's very friendly.

Again, you can disregard my posed question if you'd like, just curious mainly.

@Geoffrey-Mégardon
Took your advice! I think I’m happy with where the piece is at now but if you have any other feedback I’d love to hear it.
IMG_2733.jpeg

@allysa the other bit I should add is that while these are not images that I will use in my portfolio (it won’t be possible for me to do this many images in a few weeks given the style I really enjoy working in), I do want to say yes to this project, as they’re my husband’s collaborators and generally seem like cool people, and I’ve already expressed strong interest in working with them. So - I’m in it. I just need to get help finding a compensation strategy that’s fair to them and me. Thanks!

Glad I was wrong about AI! I really like how Procreate put the user’s needs front and center.

I can’t wait to give Dreams a try. What a game changer on all levels in animation. Perhaps also the industry.

Hello! I can't find the August "How to Fix Your Art". When will it post?

@Michael-Angelo-Go Hi! I think @Robyn-Hepburn and @NessIllustration made good points. Here’s my 2 cents. If you’re writing a story about teens, why are you targeting the middle grade market? You should go for the YA market instead. You’ll have more freedom to talk about darker subjects there too.

@kayleenartlover Hmm 🤔 I'm not sure. The monthly themes are posted on SCBWI's Instagram page and so anyone can participate by posting to their instagram and use the hashtag for that month but I'm not sure if the winner's they choose are members only.

Hi everyone,
When you guys send your promo emails to art directors, do you include editors as well? Or not, unless you write as well?
Thank you!
Lea

For the most part I think it's still all about the work so if your work is good none of that other stuff really matters. I did have a friend who fell into a couple of those sought after groups who got picked up by an agent before she was really ready skill wise (in my opinion) However I'm not sure if that was really a good thing or actually ended up being stressful for her. But regardless I wouldn't worry about it to much. (BTW males are probably a minority in children's book illustration so maybe you got something there XD)