Inktober 2017 - Final Results
Inktober is over and I made it through. Here's what I came up with:
Day 1: Swift
This is probably the most detailed and definitely the most realistic drawing I've done for Inktober so far (and maybe it will remain that way). It's also the one I felt the most intimidated by; new sketchbook, fairly complex subject, hadn't drawn in over a year. Getting this first one out of the way was a big step.
Day 2: Divided
I was going for a whole city v. nature thing here...
Day 3: Poison
Originally I was going to do everything in greyscale, but this is where I made the decision to start bringing in some color in places. This is one of my favorite pieces so far.
Day 4: Underwater
And here's where I decided that in addition to color, I wasn't above just sketching the occasional licensed character.
Day 5: Long
I'm definitely steering away from realism at this point with my cartoon giraffe.
Day 6: Sword
The white pen is a lot of fun to play with and I really like how the highlights ended up on this drawing, especially on the rock.
Day 7: Shy
I kept this one very simple since I wasn't feeling well.
Day 8: Crooked
Another simple one and a little change of style, for some variety. I really like the idea of this one, but I still wasn't feeling well at all and don't think I pulled it off as well as I could have if I'd paid more time and attention to it.
Day 9: Screech
For such a simple drawing (still sick!), I really like the way this one turned out. I love the shading and the highlights.
Day 10: Gigantic
Back to the land of licensed characters. This big, furry dude from my childhood was the first thing that came to mind when I read the prompt.
Day 11: Run
Mario running with a shell! I messed up his face a little bit, but I'd never drawn him before.
Day 12: Shattered
I was mostly looking for an excuse to play with the white pen and the brush pen for this one. I think the effect turned out kind of neat.
Day 13: Teeming
I'd just finished watching this awesome series from my favorite YouTube channel and felt like drawing something "teeming with life."
Day 14: Fierce
More playing with the brush pen to this lion silhouette. It's simple, but also one of my favorites.
Day 15: Mysterious
I had a hard time deciding what to do for this one and finally settled on a Stonehenge-like piece. I like the texturing on the rocks.
Day 16: Fat
I've lost nearly 100lbs this year and changed my diet completely. The one thing I miss the most is a freaking donut.
Day 17: Filthy
Maybe it's because I'm the parent of a teenager, but when I hear the word "filthy" the first thing I think of is a pair of dirty socks left lying on the floor.
Day 18: Cloud
I kept this very simple due to time constraints - just a happy little cloud, probably floating over that Mario I did a few days ago.
Day 19: Graceful
This is another one of my favorite pieces. I was experimenting with drawing something that looked light and airy and graceful using only the black and white inks and the brush pen. I love how it came out.
Day 20: Deep
I fell back to this cartoon-ish style a lot over the course of the month, it seems. It took less time and it was less stressful than trying to achieve photo-realism (which I do still love to do, but can't see very well to do sometimes). Here's a deep sea diver at the bottom of the ocean.
Day 21: Furious
Nothing like an angry emoji.... Yeah.. emoji. That's how fall I'd fallen. October has been a rough month in terms of family health, so the drawings took a back seat and got a little simplistic at some points.
Day 22: Trail
But I could only take so much simple cartoons before I had to try something more complex and detailed. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out, but I forgot to erase some of the sketch lines before inking and now they won't come up.
Day 23: Juicy
- For Josh
Day 24: Blind
The photo doesn't show the shading on the cane super well, but I was trying to use marker over the white ink. It worked really well in this particular piece - not so much in others later on.
Day 25: Ship
Yes, I went small and simple on my ship, but I was feeling a little lost at sea that day, myself.
Day 26: Squeak
This is another one of my favorites - I really like how the little guy turned out.
Day 27: Climb
Not much to say about this one, but I feel like he should probably have a better hold on the mountain and rely less on the rope...
Day 28: Fall
I resisted the urge to simply redo the previous picture and draw the climber tumbling to his death... but it was hard. Instead, I came up with a marker piece that feels like it's somehow missing a Snoopy...
Day 29: United
This is the only piece I'm actually unhappy with. I was trying for a line-art/tattoo art type look at first and didn't like how that was turning out, so I colored it in, then I didn't like that either and tried to do some shading over the image with markers and the white pen, which didn't take well at all on the black ink. Oh well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Day 30: Found
This is another favorite, just for the subject matter. It was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the prompt.
Day 31: Mask
Finishing up with a very simplistically colored Majora's Mask from the Legend of Zelda
Whew!
I made it through the month! I didn't think I would, to be honest. As I mentioned, October has been a pretty awful month for me, but having the consistency and the creative outlet of drawing every day actually helped some, I think - even though I did have days where I could only muster minimal effort.