Requesting Portfolio Review after almost a Year of reforming it

Nyrryl Cadiz

@Nathalie-Kranich hi! Before give a critique, I would just like to ask about your site’s layout. Currently, I can’t view the images along the sides. They’re akwardly cut and I can’t swipe to see them. I’m using a tablet.

Here’s what I currently see

deborah Haagenson

@Nyrryl-Cadiz I'm on a tablet and I can't see them all either. What I can see is beautiful!!

Nyrryl Cadiz

@deborah-Haagenson Same also on a tablet

Nathalie Kranich

@neschof Thank you! I love that blog and hadn't seen that yet, that was very relevant to read and indeed encouraging.

Nathalie Kranich

@Nyrryl-Cadiz @deborah-Haagenson

thanks for pointing that out! I didn't think of tablets when I recently widened the site. The theme isn't super responsive and whilst it scales for wide desktops and mobile it doesn't for anything inbetween, and I thought it was a shame to only use the center space for the gallery - BUT imma change that back, because it's no good ruining the tablet viewing experience.

Hopefully that's fixed now.

Nyrryl Cadiz

@Nathalie-Kranich i just checked it and it looks way better in the new layout.

Nathalie Kranich

@eriberart Haha, I saw your post about the Bologna Book fair and arranging meetings for the London Fair and was so impressed with your efforts and disheartened with my own XD It's not in the budget for me right now to go to fairs I think, but I hope I can do so next year with a better idea of who to contact.

Thanks for your feedback, sequential is definitly on my to do list.

Your work is great, I am expecting beautiful books from you very soon

eriberart

@Nathalie-Kranich Don't feel disheartened! I went to Bologna in 2017 and 2018 and didn't get any work from it haha! Although in hindsight my work definitely wasn't ready, but it was still a great experience to go to the fair and get inspiration.
I'm pretty sure LBF will be cancelled too this year so maybe it's a good thing you didn't arrange to go

Nathalie Kranich

@eriberart I didn't want to say it but yeah XD this year I might just swear off fairs and conventions to play it safe and hopefully next year isn't overshadowed by global tragedy

Nyrryl Cadiz

@Nathalie-Kranich so having addressed the layout part, let’s go to the review. I think you have a great thing going on here. I like your illustrations and concepts but I’m seeing 2 major things you’re lacking.

Children of various races, bodies, etc. Currently all I see are caucasian kids. I would greatly help if you include more variety in them. Include East Asians, Southeast Asians, Latin america kids, black kids, middle eastern kids, Kids with disabilities, etc. Show them doing multiple tasks. You can put multiple kids in a illustration and show them interacting.
Sequential illustrations. You might have already heard this but you need to show character consistency through various illustrations.

After completing these, you might want to follow Will’s list of portfolio must haves. You can add more animals, vehicles, different times of the day, different season, adults, different settings, interior/exterior. There’s a lot to add but it will surely boost your appeal to agents. Right now, I think the thing that’s preventing them from hiring you is your limited number of works. Continue illustrating and you’ll surely get some jobs coming in. I hope this helps.

Nathalie Kranich

@Nyrryl-Cadiz Do you think it's better to have overall more work on display then than I currently do? I have held myself back from uploading simpler vignettes or character designs or prop designs because in my mind I thought only full illustrations limited to 12-15 would be better than packing it full with more....very important stuff.

Nyrryl Cadiz

@eriberart @eriberart i’m planning to go to Bologna next year. Maybe we can all meet up!

Nyrryl Cadiz

@Nathalie-Kranich hmm... this is a very complex question. If you have a lot of work but most of them are not there yet or not relevant to your target market, then I’d say keep it small but if most of your work is good, I don’t see the harm of posting more. If you have vignettes telling a story and in good quality, add them but I’d discourage including character/prop designs in your children’s book portfolio. Perhaps place them in a separate tab.

Currently, your portfolio is lacking in kid diversity and sequential illustrations. So I’d really recommend working on those. There’s really no harm even if you add 20 new pieces as long as they adress the things your lacking.

eriberart

@Nyrryl-Cadiz Yes that would be awesome!

xin li

@eriberart oh no. I was hoping to hear more from you about LBF.

eriberart

@xin-li A lot of publishers have pulled out of going, including all the US ones, and Macmillan UK and Hachette UK. If it does go ahead it will be very empty... on the bright side maybe the people who are there will have more time to see illustrators

TessaW

Hi Nathalie! You are producing some really beautiful work. I have a couple of suggestions to add, but please take them with a grain of salt!

I think you'd have an overall cleaner presentation if you took out the paragraph text from the images. NOT the pieces with titles, those are great, but the text from the snow tracks piece and the frog piece. It's not always the case, but I have noticed that many illustrators I follow leave out the text from images that most likely were made to include paragraph text. I find it makes for a stronger overall portfolio impression.
In some of your pieces the rendering includes pencil texture over top. I think you should apply this element to all of you children's illustrations. I think it's more marketable for contemporary tastes and it will help to unify your portfolio.
I'd consider making some black and white illustrations that would fit well into middle grade books. Your style looks like it could work well in that market as well, and it could open up some more opportunities.

Hope that was helpful. I loved hearing what others had to say. Good luck in your career journey!

TessaW

Also a quick note to add- why haven't you included your bear in the snow piece? I love that one.

xin li

@Nathalie-Kranich Keep going. your work really comes a long way. Regarding your last question, I would say do both, pick out a few images you want to improve, and work on them, keep making new stuff also. But at the same time start querying more.

I am in a similar situation as you. Right now I am working on improving 2 pieces in my portfolio, and making a couple more spot illustrations. I am also researching which agencies to contact. I want to send out to 3-5 of them and wait for 2-3 weeks before sending out the next batch. I just assume most of them will say nothing, and maybe one will say "no"( which they really mean is "not yet"). If I do get a "No", then I can try to keep the conversation going by asking "what is missing from my portfolio?".

I used to think to query agency is like applying for a job. But now I think of it in the opposite way. It is more like I am offering someone a job (it is just chances that he/she would reject the job offer is very high). It helps me to think this way because I realized that I have to make sure to offer the right person the job of representing me by doing my own research.

Hope this helps.

Nathalie Kranich

@TessaW Hey tessa! Thanks, that's some great advise. I had been wondering about text and I think you're right, I might go through and remove that.
Thanks for remembering my bear piece XD I wasn't sure if it was all that strong, but with the current layout I have a space free again so I might reinclude it with some alterations...

Pencil textures are featuring more and more in my work so i hope with time my portfolio will become more textured and book-friendly

You might be right about B&W! I alwyas think of colour as my strength, but you're right that my subject matter probably works better for middle grade.

@xin-li

wooh! Good luck with your applications, your work has really stood out to everyone for a while now so it's only a question of time until you make a total breakthrough That's a really cool way of thinking of applying to agents. I'm not sure my inner-imposter could be shut up like that, but it's really good to remember how true that is. They are making money off their artists too after all.