promotional materials
biographical statement
Hi! I’m Emily Sneesbee, an illustrator and comic artist based in York, England.
I love drawing, painting, crafting, cooking, baking (and then eating) absolutely everything. Typically I like to create queer fantasy worlds and stories in mixed media and vibrant colours, and finding any excuse to add some little animal creatures into the cast for me to draw. Apparently I also can’t seem stop drawing different modes of transport considering I have stories set in cars, trains, motorbikes, undergrounds and more. Perhaps a byproduct of being a sucker for an adventure story, my characters need a way to travel that’s faster than by foot! (Even Bilbo and the dwarves gave up and chose travel-by-eagle in the end!!)
I have a passion for visual narratives and a mind full of my own fantasy universes, comics are my favourite way to illustrate them and share my universe with other people in the real world. I believe comics have a special place as a method of visual communication as they allow me to say more than I’m capable of with just words or images alone.
manifesto
I am in the process of creating a mini comic book out of my ‘manifesto’ that I will self-publish for use as promotional material and stock in my shop.
mail outs
I have re-purposed what was going to originally be my business card design into an idea for a promotional mail-out piece instead, as the design became too detailed to be suitable for the scale of a business card. The design is still only in a sketch stage so I might alter it a fair amount to suit the new intention, maybe so that the house folds into the envelope itself. Once I have finished and printed the design, I intend to send them to my client list and possible publishers.
business cards
Finishing the artwork for my business cards is high on my list of priorities as I am often asked for one at events but don’t have any properly printed way of making sure people can find out more about me and my artwork. Once I have finished the designs I am going to get them printed with Printed.com.
online presence
portfolio
Website page portfolio:https://sneesbee.co.uk/portfolio/
- This is going to be reworked into the HOME page of my new website with clickable images that link to more info on the projects.
Download link for WORK IN PROGRESS pdf of printed portfolio: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1z9gt-lyMUREe55PJEx6i9pxADXieiAJw/view?usp=drive_link
- I am putting together a physical portfolio to be able to bring printed copies of my work to any meetings with potential publishers, and to generally have a professional way of showing my work to possible clients.
website
The module lectures made me rethink how I wanted my website to work and so I have started remaking my platform from scratch with the assistance of Luke Tull; a graphic designer who is more advanced at building websites. The new website is just a framework (the design, text, and images are placeholders) at the moment so we can figure out the pages needed and navigation aspects, as well as building a shop into the site so I can start selling on there as well as Etsy (with the intention of solely selling on my own website in the future when I am more established and have regular site traffic). I want to have my homepage act as an online portfolio so visitors can immediately see all the kinds of work I do without having to navigate somewhere straight away. The images will link to pages with further information and imagery of the projects they are from, so that I can keep a more condensed overview on the initial homepage .
Current Website Design
Work in Progress Website (not yet live)
social media
I have focused most of my social media attention on trying to regularly schedule instagram posts so I can ensure more consistent activity and growth on my page. I find this is where I also network the most with other artists and organisations so I wanted to prioritise this platform specifically. I have gained over 150 followers since trying to be more consistent and this is growing exponentially, especially as I connect with more artists and the followings from networking at in-person events.
tiktok
Tiktok was something I focused more on in first and second year but, due to the time intensive nature of editing videos, haven’t been able to keep up with it as much as I would have liked. I hope that I will be able to start making more occasional videos over summer that I will also be able to post as Instagram reels, as I miss engaging with my followers on the platform and want to be able to share my comic stories on there to get people interested.
I have started uploading my work onto Pinterest since finding out about the better longevity of posts due to the ‘search engine’ nature of the platform. I can also directly link products from my Etsy to be pins which has been helping drive traffic to my Etsy storefront.
etsy
I opened my Etsy shop in 2022 during my gap year and have been running it the entire time whilst at Uni, gradually adding stock created from projects I have worked on during modules. Whilst I’ve gotten fairly consistent regular sales since opening, I want to focus more time and energy into my online shop (and in turn market stock) after graduation with a complete redesign of the shop appearance and stocking work that is more reflective of my current practice (My own stories, comics, and zines). Having my Etsy helped me be more prepared for selling at in-person events too as I already had the bulk of stock made and sorted, I just had to create my table display.
LINK TO CURRENT ETSY SITE:
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/sneesbee?ref=profile_header
industry engagement
comic freelance work
DRAWN TO KEY WEST (Non-fiction, 200 page Graphic Novel)
I was contacted by Theresa Chiechi asking if I would like to do a test page of colouring her graphic novel as she had seen my artwork on Instagram and thought I would be a good fit. This was my first experience with a more professional comics industry job and the knowledge and experience I obtained while colouring over 80 pages of the graphic novel was invaluable. I was able to see how Theresa had planned the longer-form narrative out in a concise and manageable way, how she organised files, the file types used and how to convert between them, how she formatted comic script writing, organisation of reference material, workflow interactions of a divided job flow (passing files and comments between the inker, colourist and letterer), and so much practical experience of colouring comic artwork that assisted me in my own practice.
ITHAQA (Horror comic series)
After completing my work on Theresa’s graphic novel, I was later contacted by Michael Watson (writer and creator of Ithaqa) asking if I wanted to work as a colourist on the series after Theresa had recommended me to him (she is the inker for the series). The comic was in the process of working on issue 6, out of a planned 12, and I coloured 10 pages of Theresa’s artwork. Fundraising for issue 7 has begun and I will continuing my work as a colourist for the series.
commission
LUDOSPORT BRITANNIA
I attend Ludosport Light saber combat classes and tournaments in my free time, a sport which I love and am very involved in the community for. I worked with the dean of my school, Luke Tull, on creating some promotional artwork for the sport including illustrations of all the competitors from the Bristol school for the Reignite 4.0 tournament in February this year (including me!). My work is just the linework, while Luke intends to colour them before they are shared online. In turn, Luke has helped me with setting up a new website as he runs the Ludosport sites and thus has more experience with building them that he is willing to share with me.
TRUFFLE SHUFFLE- Pride sticker paid collaboration
I was contacted by Truffle Shuffle’s graphic designer Vee Bramwell about collaborating with the brand to create a sticker design for their 2024 Pride campaign. Vee had found my work on Etsy and messaged me through there. I got to visit the headquarters and was given a tour around the offices and warehouse. It was incredible getting to work with this brand as they make products that I love and have bought previously, and especially for a Pride project given that I’m queer myself. I designed the sticker and backing cards then had 500 of them manufactured for Truffle Shuffle to include with any orders of their Pride collection during the month. I was paid for my work based on my rates, manufacturing costs, and was also given 3 of their clothing products for free.
shop stocking
PICNIC COMIC
Picnic Comic is a small Bristol company that is launching an online comic shop, to which I submitted my ‘Working 9 to Drive’ comic zine and was accepted. The website is in progress and will be going live in a couple of weeks, I have sent over 5 copies of my comic so far.
exhibitions
TOBACCO FACTORY- ‘Cropped’ Flora and Fauna Exhibition 07/03/2025
-submitted 1 40×40 acrylic on canvas painting and 2 10×10 acrylic on canvas paintings
markets
FRENCHAY STUDENT MARKET- 23/04/2024
This was my first ever market table setup, the UWE Creators Network held a market at Frenchay campus where student were able to sell their artwork for free. I used the opportunity to finally put together all the thing I would need for selling my work in-person: card reader, cash box, float, grid displays, packaging, and price lists. I was also able to network with other UWE creators and trade work with them.
TOBACCO FACTORY SUNDAY MARKET- 21/07/2024, 15/09/20
LOCAL- ‘Cropped’ Fundraising Market 05/11/2024
BOWER ASHTON STUDENT MARKET- 24/09/2024, 31/10/2024, 13/02/2025
ARTHOLE Ball- 08/03/2025
applied for joint table with Daisy ross
put on reserves list
FINE LINES FESTIVAL COMIC AND ART MARKET- 10/05/25
accepted
This was the largest event I have tabled at so far, and a step closer to my goal of tabling at conventions and more comic festivals.
PICNIC MARKET- 11/05/2025
applied for full table
SHAKE BRISTOL- 06/09/2025
applied for full table
THOUGHTBUBBLE- 15/11/2025
applied for full table
accepted
It is a dream come true to have been accepted for the Thought Bubble Comic Convention. I have attended as a guest the previous two years and it quickly became one of my favourite events due to the amount of other incredible artists that would table there. I had been friends with some of the artists from social media (largely instagram and tiktok) and so was able to meet them in real life when I visited their stalls. It has been an amazing opportunity to talk with other artists about their practice and professional experience at these events and I have gained so much insight from them.
SOME ARTISTS I HAVE NETWORKED WITH AT EVENTS
awards
BRISTOL SHORT STORY PRIZE BOOK COVER
shortlisted
BATSFORD PRIZE
submitted ‘Working 9 to Drive’ zine into Illustration category
UWE SHOWCASE CAMPAIGN
selected for poster/billboard campaign
FABER/OBSERVER/COMICA GRAPHIC SHORT STORY PRIZE
I intend to work towards submitting to this competition over summer.
BOLOGNA BOOK FAIR ILLUSTRATOR’S COMPETITION
I intend to work towards submitting to this competition over summer.
1ST GRAPHIC NOVEL PRIZE
I intend to submit pages from my work-in-progress graphic novel project into the next running of this competition (2027).
undergraduate research symposium
I will be delivering a talk based on my IRP project at this year’s Visual Encounters Undergraduate Research Symposium.
I wanted to take part in this event as I felt that it would be good experience to have with public speaking and talking about the subject of comics academically in preparation for one day hosting workshops and meet-ups.
‘the panelists’ collective
I am one of the main organisers for the newly set up collective “The Panelists’; a group of aspiring comic artists comprised of UWE students. We felt that we could all use assistance and advice on our journey of figuring out the comic industry and workflows so we decided to start pooling our efforts and resources. Most of our resource sharing so far has been through trading books in person, but we are beginning to put together an online database to keep track of everything and act as a constant resource for members. We have a groupchat where we share work and advice, and have started organising in-person meet-ups where we discuss comics and do related activities (like the comic strip telephone challenge below).
Some of our proposed future plans include a comics ‘boot camp’ day where we all come prepared with activities to share, as well as putting together a self-published comic anthology book over summer. Our idea is to maintain a support network of comic creators beyond graduation so we can continue to encourage and support each other.
‘telephone’ collaborative comic strip challenge
prompt: grind
prompt: steak
see more on next page ->
sneesbee 