color study

I did a color study of last week's girl. As an update, I made her look younger, perhaps more like 4-5 (closer to 5) rather than 3-5 years old. I'm pretty happy with her hair, but I think I made it a little bit too "jaggedy," if that makes sense. Also, I need to tweak the girl in the far upper right so that she looks a little bit younger like the others. Thanks for all of your comments and suggestions last week. As much as suggestions often mean more work, the work usually turns out better than before. I feel like her poses are stronger than before. OK, so I'm rambling, and my 4-year-old is anxious to do something with me. Until next time . . .

Popple

This little girl is called Popple and she likes snails and standing on her head.

Character Sketch

Oh my, I have been so crazy busy lately, I have really missed being here but I am so happy to be able to post something for October's challenge... I have been working on a specific project and it just so happened I was toying with character poses etc.. so here is my post. Hope I am still in time. I have also added one small color piece to give a hint of what is to come, hopefully for my new portfolio around Thanksgiving time.



Everyone's work is looking simply fabulous - I am glad to be back!

ARF! ARF!

Meet Betty Needlemayer

Meet Betty Needlemayer. She is a teenage girl who loves to create Green Art. She takes
old clothing, fabrics and other junk and with her magical needle turns them in to wonderful toys
for children all over all the world. She tucks little message inside each toy. Her very own wish
for the child. Seems these toys have special powers and can get in trouble here and there. Still working on the whole concept. That is the hardest part for me. Coming up with the pictures
is easy, putting a story together is something totally different. Being dyslexic doesn't help. he he he

Expressions

While we are working on character sketches I thought I would make a note about this reference. In his book MAKING COMICS Scott McCloud has a wonderful section about expressions. He talks about the muscles of the face and how they create expressions, and then he has a reference page of expressions and combinations of expressions. Because he does comics each of these expressions is created with the simplest number of lines and has been very helpful to me in terms of figuring out how to create an expression quickly.

More helpful links about portfolio

hi girls! i've found few interesting links on a blog of Edrian Thomidis (thank her for sharing).
i hope these will be useful:

http://blog.illustrationcastle.com/2007/06/13/how-to-build-an-illustration-portfolio/

http://howtobeachildrensbookillustrator.wordpress.com/2008/06/10/when-is-it-ok-for-adults-to-criticize-other-adults-at-a-portfolio-critique-session-of-course/

http://www.amateurillustrator.com/articles/?p=113

http://www.phylliscahill.com/articles/selfpromo.html

have a nice week all of you!

Benny's boots...

Benny's boots, if taken off, will reveal that the boots couldn't actually fit him, so I'm leaving them on--does that work okay?

Benny & Wildhorse Harry

This is hard but fun! I've needed to do this because I've wanted to create a dummy book for these two characters--any constructive comments are very welcome!

Character Studies

I knew I wasn't ready for book illustrations just yet, but I didn't realise how far I need to improve until I tried these character studies.
I rarely draw people, let alone children, so I knew that would be difficult, but even sustaining a sense of character in five pictures of one mouse (an animal I draw all the time) was a real challenge. What a useful prompt: lots of practice needed, but what fun!

Character Sketch

Here are some character sketches I've been working on for this week's prompt. I agree with Angelic in that, I'd would love some honest critique of these. While receiving negative feedback stings a little, I think you really grow as an artist when you are able to hear honest opinions. So, bring 'em on!! :-) Have a great weekend ya'll!! (I hope I didn't post too many).

ps - sorry for the color of the scans, we're having some technical difficulties. Hopefully, will be resolved soon.