Revisions, revisions, revisions! It has been a year since I worked on Ollie And Logger In The Deep Blue Sea, the early reader book that I illustrated (and my mother wrote) for my first semester senior project. I love the story and feel good about the pacing of the sketches as a whole. But as I look back, I was deeply dissatisfied with a couple of things. The characters seemed awkward, stiff and bloated, their faces falling short of the natural cuteness I was going for. And on top of that, all the color work I did wasn’t working either. Try as I might last fall, I was not getting the lightness and fluidity of underwater scenes, and all the pieces look overworked. That’s the hardest part about watercolor – knowing when to stop, because once you go too far there is no going back, just starting over.
Despite my self-criticisms, I am confident that we have something marketable with Ollie And Logger – it’s just a matter of revising. So I spent my three-day weekend reworking the characters and the first color piece . . . and here are the results of the makeover!
Walking In Public 
I’m in love! I’m continually amazed by people who can actually illustrate. I thought Ollie wast he most adorable thing ever last year… but clearly I was wrong. Apparently it’s possible to make him even MORE cuddly. Who knew. Props to you for the working weekend. Very impressive.
your revisions are looking really good! He looks much cuter with a bigger face and I like that you can see his facial expressions more 🙂
I love the revisions, I thought the befores looked amazing, but the afters really made them pop even more. I’m really enjoying reading through this, even though I’m not an illustrator, keep up the amazing work!!
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