Portfilio help/ advice/ review
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Hi there,
So I've been struggling lately to get jobs or interest from agents. I got a few good gigs last year but still can't seem to get an agent or any jobs really.
maybe i am more suited to animation studio work or something (not that there are many around haha) anything you guys think my portfolio could do with? or any of your own experiences to add
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@Tom-Burchell Hi Tom!
You have some great illustrations there - I absolutely love the dog detective (or professor maybe?), at the bottom of your page! It has so much character!The first thing that hit me was - all of this might be more suitable for middle-grade or comic books for kids. Don't know if this observation helps you or not, though...
The second thing is - It seems there is not enough sequence art, where we could see character consistency and stuff like that. Then I realized you have multiple illustrations featuring the same characters or from the same book - but not placed next to each other. So you might wanna check that. Right now it all looks like every piece in your portfolio is a stand-alone.Personally, I would trim the portfolio down. Keep only the best of the best.
I don't think you need so many illustrations, some of them don't really fit and some might not really represent you the way you want.
Do you want to be a picture book artist? Pick 12-20 that would tell the world you are doing picture books (and kick out all the ones that are not a good fit for picture books.
Do you want to do middle-grade novels? Again - pick 12-20 that represent that.
This exercise might help you realize which path you wanna take, and what new portfolio pieces you might need.
The style itself is funny, you obviously know how to draw, and you are not afraid of complex scenes. Of course, there's always a way to improve, but regarding your portfolio right now, I'd say it's just too crowded and not clearly focused.Hope that helps!
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@Tom-Burchell Checking out your portfolio, I see you got good technique and composition sense. The science-themed pieces are appealing to me.
The other set that sticks out to me are the illustrations of classic tales (Wizard of Oz, Christmas, Red Riding Hood, knights and dragons, etc). If I were scouting for talent, I would label you as a kiddie classic tales person. As you can see on Scholastic's latest releases for kids 3-5, there currently aren't many new books that relates to that theme. Kids 6-8 are mostly fantasy adventure and coming of age stories. Maybe the classics are usually published at a different time of the year, I don't know.
In any case, I would recommend going through the list of recently published books and see if there is a theme you can address (not to be confused with trends). For example, many of the ages 3-5 stories acknowledges life challenges and tries to reassure the reader that it can be overcomed with emotional support. What themes are you seeing that are being addressed by publication houses?
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@mag @willicreate thanks for the reply
funny I had a few agents say to me say that I would do well in middle grade but I always assume a children's book agent would get that kind of work for me maybe I need to apply to a different type of agency?Yeah, that sounds like a good idea to me, I'm so bad though cause Im like but what if they wanna see that one picture of this or that and I get a bloated portfolio XD so that sounds like a great but scary exercise haha.
I will check out those books to sounds like a really good idea. gotta admit i don't have a lot of heart-warming stuff so this could be a great help .
also just typed in middle-grade art agent and there are so many agents and publishers I had no idea! wish me luck
thanksssss
