Portfolio Advice

And a new 3D piece I’m adding to my portfolio

I’d love to illustrate a book featuring undersea creatures, especially an awkward baby whale shark character who is excited to explore her world.

Imagine you’ve just prepared your favorite coffee or tea and sat down at your computer to go through your email. You’re scrolling through the emails that have poured in and one catches your eye. Is this what you think it is? They really want me to work with them? This would be my dream project! Yes! I have to get started immediately!

Now stop. Surely something has come up for you. What does that email look like for you? Is it an editor from a particular publisher asking you if you have a story behind your latest portfolio piece? Is it a shoe brand asking you to design a line of illustrated shoes? Is it a local school that wants you to paint a mural? Is it a homewares company, wanting to license some of your work for a line of dishes? What job(s) would you love to have land in your inbox? Make a list. And now you know what to fill your portfolio with.

Part of building a good portfolio is working on the jobs you want before you actually have them. Show the work you want to get. A shoe company will never commission you unless you have shown that you can design an illustrated shoe collection. But, if you have that type of work and get it in front of the people that hire for that work? It’s much more likely to happen.

The opposite is true too. Did you suffer through a job drawing bicycles and you never want to draw another bicycle again? No matter how “good” that work is, do not include it in your portfolio! Because if you have bicycles in your portfolio, you’ll get hired to… guess what?… draw more bicycles. And that’s not what you want, right?

Another tip I like to give is to make your 100 favorite things list and use that as a jumping off point to make prompts more interesting. I want to add a piece with a kid in it, showing something in action, not just a forward facing character smiling. So, I go to my list, see Halloween, tiny trucks, and parade, and my basic idea turns into something much more interesting. I’m going to create a kid in costume hiding behind a gravestone on Halloween night watching a ghostly parade going by. Now you try it. Make a list of a bunch of things you like, and add a few into the mix to make your next portfolio piece a little more unique.

Your portfolio is a menu for editors and art directors. Make sure you have a smaller, more focused menu, where you serve up a dish that they can only get at your restaurant.

What advice do you have on building a portfolio?