Anna Violet - Feedback/Advise

I have recently been in contact again with children's book illustrator and past student Anna Violet. During the 2nd year she gave me some really great advise so I decided to contact her again to see what she thought of my current work for the Rainbow Pig story. 
I was also keen to know what it's like working with an agency and whether she felt it was worth while to her way of working.


Hi Anna,

I'm not sure if you remember me but I contacted you back in my second year at Stockport college asking a few questions regarding illustration (Rosie Wilman). I spoke with Gary Spicer today regarding my rather unsuccessful trip to London last week. Only had one portfolio visit where the art director had no idea about children's book illustration and seemed reluctant to give me any feedback on my work... Felt a little deflated after that...

Gary suggested that I contact you again as you know and work in children's book illustration and because I've found your opinions very helpful in the past. I was wondering if it would be possible to send you a few examples of what I have done so far for my book to see what you think? I'm planning to illustrate a children's book I've written and enter it into the Macmillan contest.

I was also wondering if you could tell me a bit about what it's like working with an agent? Gary mentioned that you are a part of Plum Pudding. I'd like to know a bit more about how it all works because I think I'd suit working with an agency rather than trying to tackle it on my own :P

Many thanks,

Rosie

Hi Rosie,

Yes I remember you and hope you're enjoying your 3rd year. Sorry your meeting in London wasn't so good, I've felt deflated too sometimes. I'd be pleased to look at your work - do send me some samples.

Louise Power from Walker Books has been responsive to my emails in the past (illustrated stories & storyboards)and to others on the Stockport course. I think she acts like a gateway into Walker Books. SCBWI (society children's book writers & illustrators) have portfolio reviews in London each June, which may be worth trying. Also Fig Taylor from AOI gave me some useful feedback on my portfolio. I haven't had any work through my agent in the last year - they say my work is very niche-market, and I've been developing b&w images for chapter book market with them and softer work for under 5's. They have good contacts in the publishing world. I don't think many of their illustrators make a full-time living out of illustration, though, but this seems to be the norm.They charge 30% commission, but I think 30% of something is always better than 30% of nothing, and they don't charge anything upfront. If you're interested in agents, do look in the 'Children's Artists & Writers Yearbook' to see their listings & contact details - this book is a must if you want to get published in children's book illustration/ stories. Do make those follow-up phone calls, if you don't get any response - emails don't always get through the spam-detection systems!

There seems to be the mainstream US-style market (cute characters, dot eyes) and the more edgy European-style (which doesn't sell well in this country) - see images from recent Bologna Book Fair, held each March. The cultural differences are fascinating but frustrating.

I look forward to hearing from you, Rosie, and seeing your samples. Best of luck with Macmillan, too.

Anna

Hi Anna,

Thank you so much for all the advise and contacts! I've ordered the Children's Artists and Writers book from Amazon just now. 

I really like how the agencies help you progress and give you feedback. I think I'd benefit from that because on my own I tend to be very stubborn and stuck in my ways rather than trying anything new.

I'm going to send you a few images that are going to be in my book as I haven't completed any double page spreads just yet. 

Look forward to hearing what you think :) Thanks again!

Rosie

Hi Rosie,

Thanks for showing me your images. I think you have some lively cute characters with great shapes (a big plus for the young end of children's book market). Your texture works well - scanned-in recycled paper? Your hen is really expressive and full of life - quite a diva! Your pigs are very appealing and child-friendly, too - especially where they're all piled up on top of each other - a wonderful 'aahhh' moment - fun composition!

Some things you may want to consider,  and may just reflect my own views (I am a big fan of mess, textures, decoration and playing around with ink):-

-The position of the hen's feet. Could they be positioned more centrally or could she be running?

- Could the pig's nostrils be smaller (keep the nose size, though)?

- Pigs eyes (open ones). I am told that very large eyes are not well received by US market. 

- Body language/character. Could you bring out the different characters of the pigs more with different body languages. eg one cheeky/manic, one lazy, one bashful? You may want to read what Louise Power writes in a recent AOI Images Annual about what she looks for in characters.

- For me the pigs look too clean (but this may not be a problem with publishers). I want to add lots of real smudges and mess and lumps of earth/spikes of grass that are not computer-generated.

I hope my comments are of some use. I had a peek at some of your other images on the web - your foxes (made up of triangles) are great fun and full of life, too.

Best of luck with Macmillan

Anna

I found her advise massively helpful and it also reinforced what Ian suggested during the Thursday tutorials. Unfortunately with the limited time remaining for FMP I'm going to be unable to change the design's of my pig characters. I agree about the smaller nostrils but not about the eyes. The larger eyes are needed during the parts of the story where the pig is covered in mud because they are the only thing that indicate that it's still the blue pig.

The comments on body language are also a good point but I wanted to show in the story how the 3 pigs are very similar other than the obvious colour difference. 

Pick Me Up - London Visit

Whilst in London we also visited the Pick Me Up Contemporary Graphic Arts Fair at Somerset House. This was greatly enjoyable and very inspiring! 

Below are a few photos I took whilst at the event.

DDB Advertising - London Visit

Another visit we took part in whilst in London was to meet head art buyer Daniel Moorey at DDB Advertising Agency

The building was very clean and very modern which I found a little intimidating initially as we had turned up a couple of minutes late. As we were shown into the presentation room we soon realised that our lateness would go unnoticed as Daniel hadn't arrived yet. 
Daniel had prepared a presentation for us all where he talked about how he goes about finding the creative people behind some of the ads they have produced. He showed us his go-to list of illustration agencies and showed us some of the illustrators they have used in the past.
I've been thinking that working through an agency would be a much better idea for me as I struggle to promote myself due to a lack in confidence. This presentation really helped me to decide that working through an agency is the right way to go for me.


He also brought up the importance of being a nice person which we have discussed before in college lectures. He mentioned a situation where they had worked with a very difficult illustrator and because of that would not be working with him again. There are thousands of illustrators out there so why would they want to work with one who is rude and difficult. 


He also talked about how you have to be willing to make lots of little changes to your work because if something isn't quite right it could make or break how well the product sells. This shall be my reminder to never flatten things again!


Overall another very useful visit and I was also able to give out another one of my business cards which brought a smile to his face.

Nobrow - London Visit

Whilst in London we also got the opportunity to visit Nobrow in their shop/studio in Shoreditch. Sam Arthur gathered us all in the shop and talked to us about how they started and what they do. He then led us out of the shop, through their studio and downstairs to the print room. 

I really wish he had shown us around the studio because it looked fantastic! Individual desk spaces, huge computers and plastered with inspirational images. It was my idea of working heaven!

The print room was also fairly interesting but much less swanky. Sam continued to discuss how they work and how they sometimes collaborate with illustrators. He said that they get a great deal of emails and portfolios in the post that they just don't get the time to look at.

He discussed the importance of self promotion and that as an illustrator you need to develop a much harder skin and not be discouraged when people don't respond.
I really loved all the work on display in the shop and found the whole visit very inspiring. Also gave me another kick to learn how to screen print! Running out of time!

Serpent's Tail - London Visit

Last week we all went on a jolly trip to London for gallery, studio and portfolio visits... 


One of the studio visits was at Serpent's Tail publishing, an independent publishing house owned by Profile.
Our appointment was with the marketing director Niamh Murray. She showed us lots of really great book covers and explained how it goes from an idea to a finished book cover. She showed us examples of rough work that had been sent to her from various illustrators and explained why it wasn't suitable or why they had to change it for the finished cover.

She also talked about Amazon and that to successfully market a book on there you have to have a suitable cover. The title needs to be large and easy to read because Amazon only allows you to see a small thumbnail example of the book. This is something I have never considered when designing book covers in past projects.

Another interesting thing she talked about was how an illustrator had sent in his own interpretation of a series of published books as an example of what he was capable of. As a result he did eventually get the chance to do the cover art for one of their books. This is worth doing to catch the attention of a potential client. Seeing an illustrators work in context can clearly make a huge difference.

I've never really felt that my work is suited for book covers and haven't enjoyed producing them in the past. Unfortunately it's something I'm going to have to consider when producing the cover of my children's book in the near future. This visit was very informative, inspiring and have given me a lot to think about.

Before we left we got the chance to have a short portfolio visit with the art director Peter Dyer. One by one we went and showed him our work away from the group. When it got to my turn I suddenly felt quite nervous. We sat down and he immediately began looking through my portfolio. He flicked past the first few pages without saying anything. He got to the monsters and I felt that I should say something as it had been silent up til now. I said that I was hoping to become a children's book illustrator after graduation and that my strong point was character design.

He replied something along the lines of 'well I don't know anything about children's books so I can't really give you any feedback.'

I kept quiet again after that...

Once he reached the end of my portfolio he said that my new pig story art work was an improvement on my Uganda story work. I thanked him and gave him one of my business cards but I couldn't help feeling that the whole thing had been a waste of both of our times.

FMP Progress

Lots of progress has been made for my FMP children's picture book.


I've produced several story boards and rough books that have helped me to refine my ideas to an almost finished state. I still think there are elements of the book that could be improved on but I still have 8 weeks to pull it all together.


Below are some examples of what I've been working on... 

These are 3 of the pages from my most recent rough book. I'm really happy with these three.

These are a few of my characters and background objects from the book. The textures and designs might still change. I also want to incorporate some hand rendered texts into the book.

This is my possible colour pallet for the majority of the book. Once the paints have been introduced in the story the colour pallet will become more like a rainbow.

Manchester Museum Bug Event

I'm very late posting this...


On January 28th my class took part in the big Saturday event at Manchester Natural History Museum. The theme was bugs and we had all been working on bug themed images and activities   for it. 
We were given lots of ideas for different things to design such as masks, posters, paper models, animations, badges, work sheets, colour in pages etc...
We also had to chose one insect from a list to focus our designs around... I chose the scorpion and decided to design a mask, worksheet and badges.


Below are my finished designs...

Myself and fellow student Becca Hadfield were the only two to pick scorpions. We sat together and at first seemed to be scaring the children with our masks and paper model scorpions. As the day went on the kids became more confident and enjoyed all the colouring in and cutting out.
Overall the event went very well. Everyone seemed to have a good time and learnt a little bit about insects. Below are examples of my mask and Becca's paper scorpions cut out and fully coloured in.