Mentorship in Review: Transforming Illustrators

Our illustration mentorship program is meant to bring portfolios to a new level, and we mentors were incredibly pleased by the way mentorship program graduate Zhiheng Andy Su completely transformed his portfolio during the spring 2024 session. Over the course of weeks, Zhiheng went from two very different digital and hand drawn styles before to one consistent and beautiful children’s book portfolio after.

Advocate Art agent Bhavisha Patel mentored Zhiheng and had this to say about the process of guiding him to create a new children’s book portfolio:

“When Zhiheng first entered the mentorship, one of the key things I noticed was that he had a number of styles, and so we needed to get a clear direction into his portfolio. Looking back at his older work, he had some interesting styles in there, which were a mixture across hand drawn and digital. The main elements of his portfolio which stood out to me were his characters, and his use of texture and colours. After discussing his portfolio in the first review, it was clear that Zhiheng’s natural style, and the one he was most interested in pursuing, was the hand-rendered look. I thought it would be perfect for both picture books and early middle grade. The briefs I issued him allowed Zhiheng to focus more on his hand-rendered style, whilst bringing in some of the textures, colour palettes and charm of his characters from previous pieces. It was great to see Zhiheng’s work develop throughout the pencil and colour stages, as he not only continued to bring emotion and expressive characters to life, but it was nice to see how he thought about the finer details too, allowing him to create rich, detailed illustrations that really carry a narrative.

I am excited to see where Zhiheng’s work will take him, as he has continued to flourish in this new direction through consistent work. I especially like the way he has more confidently explored perspective, and also injected light and shadow into his work, to create dynamic colour palettes and atmosphere in his pieces.”

Check out these before and after images above and marvel at Zhiheng’s beautiful portfolio transformation.

To learn more about our Illustration Mentorship and apply for our next mentorship session, click here.