New project — updating portfolio

I’ve started to work on updating my portfolio. I don’t have any new illustration pieces but there are things I want to do with a few of the existing ones. Mainly, I want to add some design/typographic elements — that were in the original/final image but I’ve since realized that they suck (Thanks Intro to Typography!). The Aesop’s Fables for Children cover for example. It’s supposed to be a book cover so of course it needs a title.

My issue with this is getting the title to read over the painting. I’m using a Gaussian blur on the painting and a low opacity fill layer (both with a layer mask to only affect the top). I also made a vector border so it’s cleaner than the original painting.

I did illustrations for two fables to go with this cover: The Fox and the Stork and The Goose and the Golden Egg. I want to put them into a page layout.

There’s also my illustration for the First Test cover and this pirate-themed maze. Basically my goal is to put these illustrations in context so that they’re not just pretty pictures.

I also want to design and code my portfolio myself instead of using a template. That project will be a little more involved. I’ll be doing posts about that later.