A redraw from last year
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@lizardillo This is fantastic. Massive improvement in rendering and storytelling since the January version!! Can't wait to see what you do next.
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@lizardillo such a big improvement! The lighting and textures look so good
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@lizardillo Hello!
I think your touch ups are a great improvement. I really like all the additional environment elements around in the foreground and background and the lighting. It feels like it's a real place now, a lived and worked in space! Texture is a bonus. I don't find it gruesome. I do like the reality that the crabs are bit afraid that they might be next. There's a nice tension but the main focus isn't on them, so I think it's okay.
Thanks for sharing,
Heather
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@lizardillo This is amazing!! I feel like it went form good to Pro-level!
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@lizardillo I think the atmosphere in this piece just keeps getting better! And though I'm not British, I figured out the meaning pretty quickly. It's kinda funny how I don't know whether the crabs are for sale or just wandering away--or maybe both. And who's that under the rock? Maybe he doesn't want to wind up in the bin?
Where are you doing a mentorship?
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@Pamela-Fraley Ditto, this looks fantastic!
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Hiya all.
Apologies about the late reply @von_Nimmermehr @KatrinaF @amandalo @Valerie-Light @Griffin @Heather-Boyd @Pamela-Fraley @LauraA @Jeremiahbrown, it's a long 4-day bank holiday weekend over here in the UK and the weather has been great (
for once!) so I have not really been online to look on the forum. It was truly amazing logging on to see comments like this.Thank you everyone for such kind and constructive feedback. It's truly appreciated, especially when I really wasn't confident that I should have committed any more time to this piece to start with. Thank you for the help and encouragement. I'm glad I persevered now and I think I will add it to my portfolio website. I keep looking and thinking 'I could change this, and that... and that... and that...' I know there is more I could do but I think it's time to just stop! My next learning project is FOCAL POINTS!!
@LauraA said in A redraw from last year:
Where are you doing a mentorship?
Laura, I'm doing a 3-month mentorship with Giuseppe Castellano. Am I right in thinking you did one with him a while ago? How did you find it if you did? I'm finding it really good but I don't feel I have made the most of it somehow. Giuseppe has been great but I seem to have been a lot slower creating work than I expected. With my free time available and some mental health issues I ground to a halt for a couple of weeks unfortunately. I wish I had took out the 6-month one now! I have my last session on April 28th so I would love to have 10 solid portfolio pieces ready to pitch to agents/art directors. I've not had the confidence to send anything out to anyone yet
I hope you all have had a great weekend.
Thanks again,
Liz (a happy SVS/Easter bunny!
)Website: lizardillo.co.uk
IG: instagram.com/lizardillo -
@lizardillo Yes, I both have done mentorship sessions with Giuseppe (and continue to do so) and I understand exactly what happens with the time (and the extra emotional and logistical demands that life throws us). I thought I was the slow one!
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Can I ask about the mentorship? I looked him up, and the opportunity looks amazing. At what point would you suggest seeking out mentorship? im pretty new to illustration and digital art, but ive been a professional photorealistic artist for many years.
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@lizardillo Liz you should definitely add this to your website, It is such a strong piece of illustration.
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@AngelinaKizz I think he has people on his mentorship at all stages of their career so I think it’s just when you feel you would like that extra bit of support. I took the plunge as I feel I had got to the stage where I just couldn’t get any further on my own. I had been drawing and drawing for a long time with no real direction (apart from the SVS prompts) and I just needed someone to take a look and guide me a little. I had paid for a couple of portfolio reviews with different people (AOI and Inkygoodness in the UK) over the last year or so, which I found helpful before taking the plunge into this.
In the mentoring sessions Giuseppe went through my portfolio website to start with and told me what was good, what was not that good and where the gaps were. He then gave me a series of challenges such as ‘an illustration with 2 or more characters, interacting and showing emotion’ and then we review what I have done in the next session. It’s a bit like a critique, but with a bit more advice, every two weeks. There isn’t any interaction between the hourly face-to-face video sessions, I just get on with it. I do feel like I’ve not took full advantage of the opportunity as I’ve struggled with a piece that I spent far too much time on and didn’t turn out well in the end and also I have been a bit slow from time/emotional issues (not illustration related), but hey, that’s life isn’t it!
It wasn’t cheap so I took advantage of the illustration Department Black Friday sale in November and scheduled my mentor sessions to start in January.
If you are not sure whether you are ready to invest in a mentorship at the moment then I suggest having a portfolio review first. They are very insightful and can help you see where you are at the moment with your art. It’s a one-off thing rather than a long commitment but still very helpful.
Hope this helps, sorry I’m not very good at explaining things clearly.
Website: lizardillo.co.uk
IG: instagram.com/lizardillo -
@PenAndrew thank you. I’ve put it up on my website
Website: lizardillo.co.uk
IG: instagram.com/lizardillo -
@lizardillo Great. I hope you will also sell this as a print later!
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@lizardillo thanks for the thoughtful reply! I’ll hang tight for a bit, keep building my portfolio and see where things are at around Black Friday! I also just started university for illustration, and I’m hopeful to see more growth to come with my upcoming classes.
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@AngelinaKizz no problem, glad to try and help. Starting university for illustration sounds exciting. You should hopefully get lots of feedback and support from your course so perhaps that may work as a kind of mentorship too? Sometimes universities work with mentors so it may be worth asking if they have anything like that you can take advantage of? Don’t get put off thinking ‘I’m not ready yet’ though. You’re always ready to learn new things, it doesn’t matter what point of your career you are at. Your previous work is an advantage to your new direction. I’m still quite new to pure illustration, I’ve been a graphic designer for 20(ish) years so I’m still learning too.
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One more redraw. This time my birdbox/food hut image. The feedback for the original image was that the food hut was ok but the birds were 'disappointing'. I thought it would have been a quick fix to change the birds but it seemed I merged some layers in the original to get over the layer limit in Procreate, so I just did an entire redraw.
My technical style seems to have changed over the past year. Not sure if this is a good thing or not. I was trying to simplify but I have gone the other way it now looks more fussy and rendered. I've spent the past few years working vector in Illustrator so I think I had got used to the 'clean' look if that makes sense. I think I like it but there's nothing really unique in the look and feel of it.
It's my last mentor session on Thursday so the style question is something I am going to ask about.
Any opinions very welcome as I'm in a bit of a transitional period with style direction at the moment (it's going all over the place) and a little unsure about it. I'm sure it will continue to evolve but it's not quite there yet I feel.
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Thanks
LizWebsite: lizardillo.co.uk
IG: instagram.com/lizardillo -
@lizardillo said in A redraw from last year:
I was trying to simplify but I have gone the other way it now looks more fussy and rendered.
Maybe you can be a bit more clear on what you want to simplify. It's kind of funny that you were influenced by vector art but ended up going in the exact opposite direction!
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I’m thinking of trying to simplify my technique so I have a kind of ‘process’ that I follow. I think I am trying to find a style where I’m not spending ages messing about with new texture brushes like I have here but still have a natural textured feel. I keep getting a bit carried away with texture brushes and it’s made the image a bit ‘murky’. As I’ve not really nailed it down yet it means that I keep getting inconsistent results in final images. The latest redraw is my most ‘rendered’ image I have done so far I think so I’m not sure whether to pursue this style or it’s a bit too textured.
This is an example of my vector illustration for merchandising (t-shirts etc.), it’s just line, colour, multiply shadow and overlay highlight layers. I think I’m starting to overwork images when I’m drawing in raster so I’m trying to find a balance between the two.
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d040585d5050e00014cf33b/1582385071135-NDJGI499B52GUE17N891/landrover-tshirt-beach%2Bcopy.jpg?format=2500wI think I would like to be a bit more ‘Cam Kendell’ but with some added texture. But at the moment I’m flitting about between styles and artist influences too much and creating a right mixed bag of stuff.
The more I try to explain it the more it doesn’t make sense!
I think I’m having a mid-life crisis at the moment
Website: lizardillo.co.uk
IG: instagram.com/lizardillo -
@lizardillo Yes much better.
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@lizardillo I just want to say that I think you're really brave for doing redraws of your previous work - I find it very difficult to return to the things that I made and didn't meet my expectations. Well done!
