SVS Virtual Studio JANUARY 2023

[Melissa_Bailey]

@mag thanks!

About the book dummies — I will have 3 ready for agents to see. Two are about ready to go and 1 needs some work on back matter (it has nonfiction elements to the story). I worked on them pretty much one at a time, but there has been some skipping back and forth. There are other manuscripts I’m working on and am starting another book dummy this week, but those will not be ready when I start submitting to agents.

As far as how I’m going to submit them, it will depend on what each agent prefers. I’ll be submitting to 5-7 agents to start. One of them has already critiqued a dummy for an SCBWI event I took part in, so I’ll be submitting the revised dummy to her. For most of the agents, I’ll be sending a link to a private page of my website, so they can read more than one dummy if they want (as some do, according to their submission guidelines).

Work has been really slow the last 2 months, so I’ve taken advantage of the lull to work on getting these dummies ready to submit. I don’t really have any tricks on managing workflow. It might have been knowing that this slow period isn’t going to last that kept me productive!

It’s been a tough year, and I’ve found that I really don’t want to work digitally, so a lot of the work was done traditionally, and I found that I worked faster that way. If I tried to switch over to my iPad I became really unmotivated and slowed right down.

Not sure if any of this helps or not; it’s just what has worked for me the last few months.

[kirsten-mcg]

@Melissa_Bailey I love the silly kid pose! So typical!

[Melissa_Bailey]

@kirsten-mcg thank you! It's always fun when you can illustrate a silly kid pose!

[lpetiti]

First new Dnd character!

[Asyas_illos]

Working on another piece for my traveling mouse

[ArtistErin]

A dancing ballerina

[Mewie]

Really enjoying drawing skeletons and cylinders based on references. Much to learn but I feel faster and more confident in these exercises

[Asyas_illos]

Here’s the first in case you missed it

[carlianne]

@mag love this idea mag!

[Chantal Goetheer]

@Asyas_illos love the hike mouse is making. Brings me back to my own hikes.

[ArtistErin]

@Melissa_Bailey This is so beautiful I can almost hear the story Grandma is telling her grandchild... I love your work Melissa Incredible!!!

[ArtMelC]

@Asyas_illos I want to live in your illos!

[Rachel Horne]

@Asyas_illos ooo these are wonderful! I really love your colour palette - such lovely shades of each colour

[Asyas_illos]

@Rachel-Horne thank you!

[Melissa_Bailey]

@ArtistErin aww, thanks a bunch! ️

[Jeremy Ross]

Painting in procreate

[Jeremy Ross]

Good luck @Melissa_Bailey! Admittedly, I thought you already had an agent given how amazing your work is!

[Jeremy Ross]

These little animations are great @ArtistErin!

I animated one of my characters (a lime) going down a slide; it was a blast!

https://www.jeremyrayross.com/fun.html

[Asyas_illos]

@Jeremy-Ross I loved that so cute!

[Melissa_Bailey]

@Jeremy-Ross oh wow, thanks! Not yet … hadn’t felt ready for an agent until now. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.