Critiques wanted, trying to formulate a plan for myself
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Hello!
Would anyone mind giving me some feedback on these? I have been off studying and taking classes on here for almost a year now, and filling sketchbooks with tons of heads, hands and figure drawings, technical and perspective and inking drills. I would like to illustrate children's books. And while these are more simplistic in rendering than I would like, it is more related to lack of time for drawing than anything else. I have taken on the challenge of Inktober52's prompts this year to create illustrations for and am trying to gauge whether I am at the point of needing to hire daycare for my youngest so I can move forward with pursuing illustration professionally, or if I have another year or two of just studying and practicing to do before I ever need to think of it. Critiques all welcome on the works! I only have ever-loving supportive family to show them to, and while the love helps, there are no critiques to be had.
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@charitymunoz These are nice! You show a good understanding of many fundamentals and I like that you're trying out different angles and concepts in your drawings. But something I notice is that you don't have a consistent style. Each one of these could have been drawn by a different artist. That's absolutely great to do while learning and practicing, and in fact it's precisely by trying out many different things that you do develop your style. However, it is very important to have a handle on your style to get professional work. The route you take to get there is up to you. If you wanted, you could start working on a portfolio today, make 10-15 pieces in a consistent style in the next several months and immediately start applying to publishers and agents. Or you could decide to take more time to experiment, try different styles and slowly develop your own while still developing your overall skills. Only you can decide what's right for you at this stage
Good luck! -
@NessIllustration Thank you!! Very good point about the style. You're right, I don't have one. I've got some people I like that I've been studying, but nothing that's filtered through. I think I'll try the 10-15 pieces in one style - another good idea! Thank you so much for your feedback!
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As Ness mentioned there's some good fundamentals here and really cool concepts.
It would be nice to see some coloured illustrations because I think especially for children's books, images will probably be in colour and rendered out, and from the examples above I'm not sure what that would look like for you!I think it's worth starting to put together a website if you haven't already and spend time on some best-as-you-can illustration pieces. Maybe some full spreads in colour. I don't know if that's what you want to do or if you're purposely focusing on vignettes for chapter books.
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@charitymunoz I think for quick work they are pretty good. I would take one or two of them and see if you can't render them fully so you can see how far you have progressed. I think you have the beginnings of a consistent style with your animal characters. I would take the time to decide if you want to go realistic (like the chipmunk) or stylized (like the spider) You seem to have a range of consistency in style rather than in your rendering.
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These are so creative! Just wanted to share this video for photographing traditional art. They've got some really handy tips for your artwork to shine its best:
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@Nathalie-Kranich I have been focused on building my fundamentals and skills lately. I want to author/illustrate children's picture books and have notebooks full of ideas; I just have to get the skills and time (it's another 2 years until my youngest is in school). Good point with the color! I am currently working on figuring out how I want to do color. I've trained with oils, but would rather go with watercolor or gouache or digital. So lots of playing around to do in the next stage! Thank you so much for your feedback!
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@chrisaakins Thank you for your feedback! Yes, these are all quick work, mostly because I only get X amount of time. I tend to lean toward more realistic in my desire to render mostly because my drawing and painting background has been primarily realism based. I moved away from oils and into ink because I can't approach illustration with the same mindset as the atelier style painting I'm used to. I'm still looking for that sweet spot where I can stylize and maintain my rendering - I guess that's when style gets solidified. Great idea with the rendering fully! I will try it and see what comes out! Thank you again!
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@Daisy Great video! I try to do that, but mostly it's just grab my phone and snap a shot before I miss the opportunity. I'm working on clearing my schedule more so I can set up my studio lights and keep kid interference at bay. Thank you for the suggestions!
