I've been MIA a while, published my first book this year!!! Still have a lot to learn about working with digital, but these prompts are a good way to get back at it again. I love drawing, but worked for 3 days to get the colors so that I liked them. This is titled: First day of school.

Name is Mirka Hokkanen, @mirkahokkanen on instagram and twitter, and @mirkah here at SVS forums.

This was so much fun to imagine and work on my digital art skills. It’s all done all in procreate. Love seeing everyone’s interpretations of the story.

Here is my submission. My info should be on the bottom correctly. *edit, i guess my full name doesn't show: Mirka Hokkanen

I tried to post this yeasterday, but think it somehow got lost. This is my latest illustration, trying to practice doing a full illustration with complete background. Media is watercolor, pencil and digital tweaks at the end.

Finished an illustration for my polar bear book. Ive revised my story quite a lot, and need to make a few new finished illustrations for it. ill paste below what the older one that I made looks like, that I was also going to keep for the dummy.

Here is my entry. The bird has lost his independence, and the mouse has decided to be brave and get him out.

Here is my entry. A good time to work out those Procreate muscles! I look forwards to one day being as comfortable with digital as I am with traditional.

Hi, I am traveling and only have my iPad pro to work with. I wanted to try Adobe Sketch for the first time, so I did a tree house for this month's prompt.
Before I turn it in, does anyone have any opinions on how to improve. I don't have access to anything more than iPad and am used to using procreate normally.
I wish there was a ready airbrush tool, so that I could get softer lights emanating from the tree and fireflies. and i thought it might be fun to have a shovel and rake leaning against the tree, but not sure if thats too much small details.
As far as process, this is done only using the brushes that came with Adobe Sketch, I didn't download any extras as of yet. The original sketch I did with procreate, I haven't been able to figure out how to lasso areas and size them in Sketch yet.

I've been lurking as a new subscriber for a couple weeks and figured I should introduce myself too. I've been a working "fine art" printmaker for the last 10 years, and am making a shift to children's book illustration. This has been a growing desire over the years and feels great even though I am a little terrified. I've got a website at www.mirkah.com that I tried shuffle around to add a small illustration portfolio to. I feel like I don't have a lot to put in there yet but a lot of sketches and some random things. The posts here and classes have been most helpful in shifting focus and putting ducks in a row. I've got two little kids so I work a couple hours in the mornings and at night, which is the most limiting factor for me right now. What I'm struggling most with is what to put in my portfolio, at what point do I seek for an agent? I have lots of ideas for books too, so thinking I could do both illustrate and write if need be. But would it be easier to firs break ground as an illustrator? I can't go to the SCBWI winter conference but am aiming to make it to the summer one and have a nice portfolio by then to show. Obviously I'm anxious to move faster than summer, but reading the comments here I should compose a better portfolio first.

They had an open day at the Tx A&M Entomology department. I went and sketched this beetle. Did part of it there, and then had to take some photos and finish it at home. Thought you guys would enjoy it. *edited to add this was all done in procreate with the pencil tool.

@Jinjer-Markley its around midway next month. you'll get an email for it, and itll also be on facebook live. There are so many good ones, I'm so glad I dont have to be whittling this down to the main contestants.

Hi, I really like your line quality in this one, they feel organic and really liven up the image. I also like the light splotcheson the tree trunk, nice touch. I agree with the flying bird being on a tangent with the tree trunk, id shuffle things around there. Maybe move the tree to the right edge. Its a bit hard to critique if I dont know the end goal. If you are going for more realistic, the flying bird also has some anatomical issues on where the wings are attached on its body. They dont look like they are attached at the same spot, and the wing closer to us is coming out of the birds cheek. But it's an easy fix to move that down a bit. the back wing feels better located. Also the eye on the closest bird to us feels too high and its beak is sticking up from its skull. But if you are going for a more stylized look, then its no big deal. I assume you will be adding something to the ground, that is just fields of color? In general this is a really cute little drawing, and I would love to see more of them.

@Kevin-Longueil Thank you, I've always loved your drawings, you have such great mark making skills.

The monkey and toucan are spot of. I love the little cheeky smile on the monkey.

Its better, but still distorted as if some one is peeling the top and bottom jaw open of a rubber toy. Both sides of the jaws should be basically straight with just a curvy edge on the mouthline.

I think it all looks fantastic and the leaves being more sketchy dont bother me. What bothers me is the crocodiles mouth. It seems like its made out of rubber with no underlying bone structure in it. This is coming too late to fix it anymore, but for next time, I would make the mouth more natural, as everything else is drawn with reference to reality.

@Corlette-Douglas if your site is on wordpress, you can add borders to images in gallery

I think they look pretty good to me, but I'd work on Marcella's features a bit more. Her facial structure looks like a boy more than a girl, especially in the 3/4 and frontal views. Maybe even just adding more of an eye line on the top of her eye lid might help? Also the lips look different sizes in the different poses. Jacob looks much more cohesive through all the different poses.

i think there is a lot of good stuff in your portfolio, but there is too much and it is too busy. It is overwhelming to scroll though the whole page. Also as a tip I've heard Will/Lee/Jake say multiple times is that your portfolio is only as good as your worst piece, so I would remove a bunch of illustrations, and leave the best 10-15 up. Secondly would you be able to organize the gallery in a way that its in a neater grid, or that there would be some white borders between illustrations? I think that would do a lot to bring some order to everything.

Good luck with your journey! Im back at querying agents too and am trying to find the right home for my work.

@swedishbear thanks Heidi! I made a few more tweaks and resubmitted.