With this week's theme for Illustration Friday being digital I thought it was appropriate to share my last article of Becoming An Illustrator that shows the evolution of my digital work. Enjoy!

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Well, it's been a year since I started to "actively" pursue my dream. I am proud to say I have done it. I have reached my goal of becoming a professional illustrator and being a stay-at-home mom. May 31st was my last day as an employee and now I'm out on my own.

I have learned so much over the past year. The main thing has been the evolution of my style. I was happy with what I had going when I first started out, but as I got more feedback I decided I needed to work on some things (like using smaller eyes, adding eyebrows and necks). You cam se my progression below with my digital work.

Illustrator with flat color and outlines. Notice my big eyes:



Illustrator with gradients for more dimension. Notice I'm toning down the eyes in the phase:



My medium of choice now has become Painter. Notice my little eyes:



I am very comfortable with my style and technique now but I know there is room to grow. I'm starting to experiment with paper and surface textures and things I need to work on are my noses and gestures. It will all come together in time and I'm enjoying the process.

I've mentioned my self promotion process throughout the year and have narrow down the things that have helped me the most.

Things that worked for me marketing wise:
My website
Link exchanges
Detailed Meta tags
Portfolios.com
Cloroflot.com
Folioplanet.com

Things that helped me grow as an illustrator:

Researching other illustrators
Looking at picture books
Starting a blog
Illustration Friday
networking with other illustrators
Joining a critique group
Sketching daily
And believe it or not, just spending time with my daughter to see facial features and body language.

All the things above cost no money (except portfolios.com since I sprung for the titanium portfolio and it has more than paid for itself with referring jobs). Although I had a full time design job in all this and did freelance design work on the side, I still didn't want to spend any money. I wanted to show myself and others that promotion could be done without spending gobs of money on flashy mailers or sample packets. Without doing those fancy things, I got myself out to potiential clients, landed an agent and have gotten enough work so I could quit my full time job.

Getting here has not been easy. I am tired. Incredibly exhausted. The kind of tired where you are so tired you can't sleep. I have worked on my goal one way or another every day for a year. There have been (and still are) many late nights working on projects, slowly building my client base. At least now I have more freedom and am not bogged down with a full-time job, but I do have my hands full chasing a giggly one year old around, so having a huge project with a short deadline sometimes has to wait until naptime or bedtime. I wouldn't have it any other way though. Being home with my daughter is the most important thing for my family and me, but I still want a career. I need to accomplish goals and have something to show for it. I want to be successful. Although I am starting out again, so to speak, by being self employed, I still have to market myself heavy and do what I've been doing.

I truly hope that this series of articles has been beneficial to you in following YOUR dream. I appreciate all the feedback I've gotten and I will continue to write about my promotional efforts and experiences on my blog.

Click here to start reading my articles from the begining (June 2004).