Detour or full circle?

For the last four years I have been trying to bolster my children's illustration work by doing samples that are more and more mainstream, more cute. I have now mastered adorable. But it didn't really help my career as much as I hoped it would.

At the beginning of the year I sat down with several abandoned stories to reassess whether they were worth pursuing. I kept a few for further revisions, shelved one indefinitely. A few weeks ago I did the Zombie Tea Party piece as a parody of all the cute stuff I've been doing. I was reluctant to show it, but I did, because that's what artists do. I had no idea that it would resonate with people (and by people I mean editors at big publishing houses) the way it did, and almost instantly.

So the story I put away is now quite active. This is a sample spread that is being submitted, like now. Like for real. Was all that time pursuing cute a detour? I don't think so. I'd like to think that I have come full circle. This art is not something I could have done four years ago when I wrote the story. And I think I needed to be a bit desperate to take the risks necessary to allow myself to do this.