Welcome to Result's Day! If you're stopping by for the first time, here's the scoop: We kicked off a giant Imagination Experiment on Monday. It was an invitation to Children's Book Illustrators to join in the "CREATE A CHARACTER" Challenge using Blobs #106. If you gave it a try, let us know how the Challenge worked for you!
Participating artists will be entered in a random drawing to win a 30 minute phonecall with literary agent, Marietta Zacker. That announcement will be made later this afternoon via Twitter (the winner's name will be added to this post as well).
If you want to check out results, tune in to Twitter between 8am-2pm Eastern time today. Artists will include the hashtag #theblobblogMZ with their characters.
Instead of participating today, I'm focusing on three extra pieces of information for readers/participants:
1) Examples of potential questions you could ask Marietta
2) The inspiration for Blobs #106
3) and the winner of the random drawing (posted later!)
Let's talk about some questions you might ask an agent like Marietta. And please use these as a guideline to create your very own! If you're the lucky winner - get to know her. Below are a few interviews you can read:
Marietta Zacker: Agent Looking for Diversity (2015)
You'll find a couple of these link to even more interviews. Yes, more reading.
Now questions. How on earth do you come up with questions she has not been asked?
Figure out what YOU want to know specific to where you are in your journey.
Here are some examples to help kickstart your own...
What smaller conferences or writer workshops have helped shape your own clients' writing careers?
How do you lift clients up when you receive multiple rejections on submissions made to editors?
How do clients pitch projects to you? Are they verbal concepts first or do you prefer stories be presented in dummy/manuscript form initially?
How do you approach career planning with your clients? Do you set up goals for the year, number of books to develop, etc?
What is the usual timeframe a writer/client will turn a revision around (successfully) after you have provided editorial feedback?
Do clients often start off as part time writers/illustrators and evolve into full time?
How many projects do you hope a potential client has up their sleeve before signing? What happens if you fall madly in love with only one story and the others are really...not so great?
I hope these help stir up some ideas!
Now - how Blobs #106 developed...
Last week we talked about Mother's Day. And because I had such a glorious day (made possible by my loving family) last weekend, I decided to use a couple moments as inspiration for batch #106...
The first three Blobs came from a hydrangea I picked for my mom. It wasn't the usual fluffy white, pink or blue petaled plant you might see. The flowers had a creamier color with a pop of hot pink on the petal tips. I loved the bold contrast (like my mom). I learned it was possibly a mix between a hydrangea opal classic and magical opal antique. Then I loved it even more because of the name - magical opal antique? It was like a word trio. I zoomed in on the petals to create these guys...
See if you can spot similar shapes the next time you see a hydrangea!
And the fourth Blob came from a photo my daughter took of a tree she liked during our sunny stroll to the DIA...
I used only a portion but enough to suggest some type of character.
And there you have it! Shape collection made simple.
Thank you to every artist who participated in the Challenge this week! I hope you had fun and made some of your own discoveries.
And thank you again Marietta for joining us!
*UPDATE*
The winner of THE CREATE A CHARACTER Challenge is Heidi Sheffield!
You can find her designs here.
We adored Heidi's designs and the execution! Each character had personality and left us wanting to know more! What did that little furball of a pup just do? Thank you again for giving these Blobs a try and making them your own Heidi!