Critiques Help

I've been working on updating my illustration portfolio to present to the Society of Children's Writers and Illustrators conferences.  My goal is to get  10 to 15 great pieces in one to two years.  It's a bit of a challenge I think, and I am frustrated with all the creativity going on in my head.  I get all these ideas, but I can't place them down on paper fast enough.  I really have to think, what angle would be best to present this idea?  What genre do I want my portfolio to present more of?  I really like fantasy novels like Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and anything King Arthur related.  So I chose to focus on that more.

I really want my artwork to be great in my portfolio, and wanted other peoples opinions on my artwork before I say "It's done!" and just stick it in the ol portfolio. So I joined some online critique forums and facebooks, and started to post my work.  My first one I presented was the Red Riding Hood image below.

I thought, hey it's done, but I feel like something is off a bit on it.  One of the critiques I received was, it didn't show much light and shadow.  I look at it now and it does seem flat.  The wolf's nose is too long.  So I traced the image and recolored it.

I then presented it to the kidlit facebook page to see what their opinions were.  They seemed to enjoy it, and just mentioned a few things to improve it even more. I didn't really feel defeated, but relieved it wasn't a total disaster.  So here's the final piece:  

I feel critiques are a way of improving, and you just have to grin and bare it if you want your craft to improve. :) 

WIP

Preview of a work in progress personal piece.

Unicorn

Updates!

I have updated my website http://www.mallettedesign.com/ with a lot of artwork from book illustration to graphic design ads.

I am happy to announce that one of the books I illustrated has won an award!  The Hooray for Helium book has won a gold Mom's Choice award! :D    So cool!  Congrats to Blake Washington!  You can find the book on Amazon or Barnes and Noble websites.

Dragons

I really enjoy drawing dragons.  I should draw more of them. :)

Some detailed shots.

Rocky Planet Kids Go to the Moon Illustrations

I just finished up illustrating my 4th children's book called Rocky Planet Kids.  Here are some of my favorite illustrations from the book, and I also illustrated the logo from a sketch concept by the author, Sandra.  The story and characters also belong to Sandra Frederick.

Cover to the book

The logo

New children's book illustrations

Sorry I haven't updated much in the past 4 months, but I have been working on this new book for Cuddlenook.  Here are some of my favorite pages and concept designs.  I'll let you all know when it is published. :)