Science Break!

I'm not the only one re-doing my website this week. My illustrator's rep, Shannon Associates, is revamping their site too. Over the weekend I had to assemble a portfolio for the new format.

Building a portfolio is tricky business. You want to show your best stuff, but you don't want to show your hardest-to-create stuff. Because the pieces you show will, ideally, be the type of work you will get. For example, graphic novel work is HARD and doesn't pay super well. So I don't include many graphic novel/comic style pages in my portfolio. I've got the covers for Rapunzel and Jack in there, but no interior pages. Cover work pays nicely, three or four good covers can pay the same as a whole graphic novel. A cover can be done in a week or two, a graphic novel can take a year.

I love doing graphic novels, don't get me wrong, but I like to create those jobs myself.

In any case, one kind of job I NEVER get enough of is the natural science illustration. A few years back, I got to do some prehistoric amphibian scenes for National Geographic (for their children's publishing dept.) THAT was cool. I love those kind of jobs--I feel like a scientist when I do them. (I ought to get a lab coat.) I always keep this image in my portfolio:



This was a company job. Before I went full-time freelance, I worked for a company that did graphics and murals for natural history museums. This painting shows the fossilization process.

New banner tomorrow, I swear.