make an illustration portfolio

I spent the entire month working on my portfolio. I’m really proud of what it looks like at the moment! I concentrated on toy design because I attended the International Toy Fair last Tuesday. I came up with five new pages of content and spiffed up some of my favorites.

My illustration portfolio still needs more bulking up, so I’ll continue on working on full illustrations with backgrounds and character sheets! I’m pretty excited about this :)

Well… the artists I teamed up with two years ago started getting pretty flakey! They’re still good friends of mine, but we’ve grown apart when it comes to art.

It looks like I’m on my own again. It was a minor setback, but I just have to stay optimistic and move on. I’ve teamed up with two other friends and we’re working on a comic together. I’ve also finally joined Deviant Art and Conceptart. This should keep me inspired and within the loop!

The big convention that I was anticipating came and went and it was a fair success! Teaming up with other artists with the same goals was definitely a wise decision! It was really difficult to find people to work with. I’ve teamed up with others in the past and it just didn’t work out. It made me hesitant to try it again, but I love art so much. I just can’t give up on it yet.

Maybe this will be the year when things will change. I just gotta keep drawing.

I started an art blog to post weekly sketches and drawings. I need something to keep me motivated and this might just be the solution.

Anyway, I’m already finishing up my course at art school, and its been alright. My only vice is that the professor is a bit lenient so I have gotten lazy and I’m not pushing myself as I should. I need to work hard this week and crank out even more drawings. I am way too lazy. I hate making up excuses, but sometimes its way too hot to sit and draw. Or too hot to use my computer if I’m working with digital colors.

I’m also distracted! Its summer! And there are loads of things to do before another long harsh winter….

I’m taking on some big projects. My friends and I have planned out our year to attend more conventions to showcase our work. That’s something to work hard for.

I’ve enrolled myself into fancy art school! I’ve had an amazing education at my university… but after all this time, maybe it just wasn’t enough. I think I need something more… I mean, my university is very prestigious, but not placed in the “nice parts of town”. Sometimes I think that part of the reason that I’m not getting hired is because they see the City of _ plastered all over my resume and I get labeled with a terrible stigma. Its a city where crime rates and car thefts are high. A city where, statistically, graduating college is not a priority. It was always a tough neighborhood and I was picked on by a lot of people. I really hope I wasn’t a victim of stereotyping. I can’t let that get in the way of a career.

If its not that… than its either I am not good enough or the market is just extremely competitive.

So art school… perhaps the expensive route to build my portfolio and network. We shall see…

I’ve always had an interest in the arts but didn’t really have any focus on what I wanted to do. I thought I wanted to go into web design… I liked it at first because of the combination of art and technology. And in the year 2000 with the rise of 20-something millionaires, the appeal was even greater. After dabbling with html, flash, and managing my own website… I realized that I wasn’t very fond of the tedious task of making a website. Not to mention that most of the businesses that the 20-somethings started went bankrupt.

I love drawing, but I needed to apply it somewhere. So it comes down to a happy compromise. I think I seriously want to become a book illustrator. In order to get started, I need to fix my portfolio… er… by now, its kind of outdated. I’ll read books and illustrate my favorite scenes and characters from different genres so I’ll be able to customize my portfolio for different publishing companies. Fantasy, children’s, horror…? I’ll have it ready!

And if that doesn’t work, maybe the work can be concept art for animations?

It will be a difficult journey, but in the end, I’m sure it will be a rewarding one.