Illustration Portfolio Reviews - A Realization

Today I received portfolio reviews from two very talented and well-established illustrators, who reminded me of a few things that I seem to have forgotten about in the past year. I hesitate to name them here, since I respect the suggestions they gave me and I would prefer to keep their identities private.

One of these suggestions was that I work on more humans. My portfolio was all birds, except for a couple of pieces. Last year, when Yuko Shimizu visited SCAD-Atlanta, she said the same exact thing about my portfolio, and it was a bit disheartening for me to realize that for an entire year, I haven't created anything non-bird related that I was pleased with enough to place in my portfolio. My plan for this year (aside from completing my thesis), is to work on more human-figure work.

The two artists I spoke with had no problems with my work having fantasy elements - in fact, one of the illustrators has worked for Tor Books, and his own portfolio has a bit of fantasy. As the other illustrator said, "you're great at birds. You've got the birds down. Now lets see some people."

I am going to listen to her advice. I'm quite excited with the ideas that are coming to mind.

An Important Message about Hiring Illustrators

This post is temporarily in storage. It is cross-posted in my Livejournal under a friend's lock.