Damien Mason

Oh Boy- I was attracted to your new work, thats what drew me here- I have to say I do find it warmer, more human, fine arty (I think the market leans towards that style and I wouldnt “perfect” it too much, its perfect to me already, has bags of charm.
I’m no expert in the market by the way, but I do love looking at children’s illustrations. Its a GREAT idea, a winner I think. Good Luck xxx

Yup- I guess Shannon has a point, about you feeling most happy too :)) x

hehehe, the blue one is happy :)

I’m loving the ‘messy’, ‘unfinished’ look to the blue one! I also think a mixture of the two would work well. Good luck mate, i’m sure it’ll be a winner either way! Kids love monsters!

I like the blue :)

I’d say go with the painted. The children will associate better with it.

I’m gonna add my vote to the painted too … if your new little friend is anything to go by ..

Painted texturishness…all the way. The paint texture is far more suited for children (or at least it would have been to me as a child… and that’s all that counts). I don’t know if this is common to all children… but I always liked to look at things super close… like wood grain and carpet and especially the drawings in my favourite books… and just stare at the texture. Maybe I was a weird kid, but to me there’s no doubt that the rougher, slightly less clean paintish texture is the way to go.

Fellow bubbler, Roland Harvey might offer some friendly advice! He’s an author and illustrator of many published children’s books.

i like both. Can you do that?

I like them both. But having a partner who is actually in the publishing world I would suggest that you stick to the style that you are most mature and developed at. Their are millions of people out there dabbling with different bits and pieces trying to become book illustrators. You need every good card you have in your hand. You have a very unique and mature style. I don’t think the second one conveys the qualities of your work as well as the vector. Your work uses line as a trademark. Trademarks are good. The painterly style only confuses things. Either go really painterly or clean line.

Good luck

ps. wow I didn’t know Roland Harvey was on RB! He’s a legend.

This journal has been featured in today’s RedBubble Daily Wrap

BTW- The blue chap deserves a book all of his own I think (love him as a character) x

I think theres a similiar book coming out some time soon called the field guide to monsters or something, which i believe is some kind of monster directory for kids, with a little fact file on each one. I only know because they ran a competition to win the job illustrating the thing, if youre worried it sounds similiar to your idea I can dig up the email for you.

Seriously Paul, go with the vector art It’s great. Just don’t incluse autocannabilistic pandas.

Actually looking at both, I really don’t see that much of a difference between the two. You’ve got painterly textures in the hair on the first one. So I’s say for your own convenience do the vector but try and incorporate some hints of texture like you did with the hair on the bunyip.

Also you can always fake texture with overlays to give your vector work a more organic feel.

...and you mentioned a certain style being favoured for kid’s books. I think it’s quite the opposite. Looking at kid’s books these days there’s such a diverse range of approaches to the art.

i agree with Chris – there are a whole lot of styles for kids books and your later vector work has lovely textures. While you need to consider publishers, the print-on-demand style means you can miss the middle-man and get something “on the shelves” when you’re ready (at least the e-shelves).

I love Clive the Bunyip – the clean outlines are definitely a signature for you and I really think you should stick with those. If you want to play with paint-styles, that’s cool, but I’d recommend keeping the lovely clean black outlines.

And remember, it’s often the adults who choose and buy the books for kids, so making your illustrations appeal to both audiences could give you a good foot forward. I know I’m always looking at (and commenting on – sometimes to complete strangers) the illustrations in kids books – and I don’t have any kids!

Looking forward to seeing the end product – whenever it happens to be!

Jeannette Rowe has become a very successful, bestselling Australian artist using the painterly wacom tablet effect… She even got her images published into a children’s very popular ABC animated show called YoYo Her whose series are huge bestsellers in pre-schools too.

Although I love both of your monsters… I REALLY love “Still to be named” Bluey :D If you’re way more confident with vector though… then perhaps vector outline with gorgeous painterly colouring would be the go. I just love that style so much. And going by Janet’s success it’s a winner with the kids.

Have you got a publisher in mind to send your submissions too? I think a definite first try should be Five Mile Press who publish all the Dragonology and Monsterology books (as well as many of Jeanette’s books). Bmail me if interested in details.

by the way I’ve got quite a few of Jeanette’s books and have checked out most of them… and I noticed as time went by she started doing a lot more black vector outline work… still with painterly colours though. And honestly… I much prefer the relaxed painterly style versions of her works better.
The painterly illustrations are just so bold, bright, vibrant, textured and gorgeous.

I haven’t read all through this so maybe there is a lot of info I have missed….kids aren’t stupid, they love detail and honestly I’m not so sure about the colour thing….everyone gives them bright colours but I really think they can handle more subtlety. I really don’t think you need to make simplified images just for kids so I’d go for the more complex textured style (and more and more)