I want your input!

There are a lot of things I’m mulling over as I create this feedback community, and it’d be so helpful if you could weigh in. I’d love to get your opinion on these questions:

We might not have much choice here, but I’d like to gauge your feelings on this as I look into community options. The last thing I want is to ask people to download yet another app, but I also don’t want to use something that doesn’t quite work only to have to migrate to something else down the road.

I tend to approach things with a the more the merrier view. But I also get the appeal of a small private community. So what I’m currently trying to decide is do I make the forum for paid members only, or do I make it open to all subscribers, with special features for paid members, like priority feedback, featured promotion, and private channels.

Keeping it private could mean there’s very little conversation in the early days. Making it open to subscribers would make it livelier. More illustrators means more people to provide feedback and to weigh in on issues. Paid members who are more selective about sharing works in progress can always do so in private channels.

For the record, it would still be invite-only so we can limit the number of illustrators if it starts to feel like too many.

It’s probably safe to assume most of you will be happy to have your work shared with credit, but it might be a different story if we’re talking about sharing the life cycle of a piece including works in progress. I wouldn’t share anything without prior approval, and it should be pretty easy to set up the community in a way that lets you pick and choose what you’re comfortable sharing. But for now I’d like to see what your preferences are.

If you haven’t seen these, paintovers are when someone takes an image of your art and draws over it to show a different way to approach or fix something you’re struggling with. It’s particularly helpful for more advanced techniques. For example, I’ve used it to help friends tackle a difficult perspective, add depth to a piece that’s feeling a little flat, and fix lighting that isn’t working.

This might be way down the road, but if this community grows, I can see some people feeling uncomfortable getting feedback in front of a large group. I’d solve this by creating smaller groups so you can get feedback in a more intimate setting. I get that people can self organize, but if you’re shy about asking people to form a group, it might be nice for me to arrange it.

I wasn’t initially considering assignments, because I don’t see this as a course. But the more I think about it, the more I can see a benefit. I really get the value of deadlines and of developing a cohort of people working together and holding each other accountable.

Something I feel very strongly about is that the assignments should be modular. They need to fit your goals and your style. Your portfolios need to look self-directed. I don’t want anyone looking at your portfolio and recognizing the same anthropomorphic cookie they’ve seen in a dozen other portfolios. Plus, some of you will be more interested in building out your product line than creating a portfolio, and the assignments should fit that.

This is kind of an add-on to the assignments question, although it could live independently. Something I think could be interesting is doing a monthly deep dive into a skill you could incorporate into your work. This could be a focus on something like rhythm, repetition, lost edges, value grouping, gamut blocking, manipulating focus, or experimenting with different compositions.

Here’s another add-on to the assignments question. Would you want assignments to apply to a specific market, e.g. children’s books, greeting cards, packaging, editorial, etc., or would you prefer that be modular, too? I expect many of you have already figured out which markets interest you, while some are still exploring.

This isn’t a poll, but if you’re an experienced illustrator, art director or someone otherwise involved in the illustration business who’s comfortable giving feedback, send me a DM. It’s a nice way to give back to the community and to raise your profile at the same time since guest mentors will get featured in a number of ways.

I’m sure I’ll figure out some other things to get your input on, but that’s it for now.

Thanks!