10-Piece Illustration Portfolio (Published)
12 weeks · 3 milestones
Go from sketch to a finished series of 10 illustrations.
Milestone map
Milestone map
3 milestones
Set up your illustration tool and complete foundational exercises covering the core elements: line quality, basic shapes, value (light and shadow), and proportion. The fundamentals are not optional prerequisites — they are the actual skill being built in this first phase. An illustrator who skips fundamentals produces work that looks 'off' in ways they cannot diagnose or fix because they do not know what is wrong. You do not need expensive tools: Krita (free, open source) and Autodesk Sketchbook (free) are professional-grade illustration software. If you have an iPad, Procreate Pocket is a low-cost option. Pencil and paper also produces the same fundamentals. The proof is a set of 5–10 foundational exercises submitted as images: gesture drawings, value studies, or basic form drawings. These do not need to be good — they need to exist and be honest about where you are.
Proof required
Submit: 5–10 foundational exercise images (gesture drawings, value studies, shape exercises, or proportion studies) plus a note naming the tool you are using and one specific skill you identified as your weakest point from the exercises.
What gets checked
- 5–10 distinct exercises are submitted, not 5–10 versions of the same drawing — each exercise should address a different fundamental: one for line quality, one for basic shapes, one for value/shading, one for proportion; a set of 10 near-identical face sketches is practice at one skill, not a fundamentals set
- Exercises are honest about current level — extremely polished work submitted as 'fundamentals exercises' may indicate these were not drawn by the submitter or were drawn after significant prior experience; the exercises should show the characteristic errors of an early-stage illustrator (uneven lines, flat shading, proportion issues) unless the submitter has prior art training
- Tool choice is documented — the note names the specific software or medium; 'digital' is not sufficient; 'Krita on a Wacom tablet' or 'pencil on A4 paper scanned with phone' are sufficient
Resources
Enroll free to unlock learning resources →Mastery
Line of Action — Free Timed Reference Practice
Free — do 10 minutes of gesture drawing daily from the start; consistent timed practice from reference produces faster improvement than any tutorial; this tool will be relevant through all three milestones
Unlocks after completing Foundation + Depth