Inktober 2023

Prior years of Inktober were a glut of artwork and I was anticipating the same for this year. However, due to this year’s prompt list feeling less than inspiring and my own drive to create failing in the face of colds and dreary weather, I have a rather paltry selection to present.

I truly did try to draw Day 2, but drawing spiders when you suffer from arachnophobia is an insurmountable problem. I did draw Day 3: Path.

I’m not entirely sure why it photographed so gray, perhaps it was channeling the weather at the time, an endless, dark, dreary day with rain of varying torrents. More suitable for Poe-style writing than inking lush forest trails.

For Day 4 I decided to jump to

Winston Malone

’s Havektober prompts and my hand was not happy with me. Stippling, the art technique utilizing tiny dots to shade in an image, is a very time consuming and physically demanding process. It can be worth it though.

Here’s an in-progress close up:

It took a little over 3 hours to complete it and my poor hand ached for a few days afterward. On Day 8 I tried to do Toad, but didn’t get farther than the preliminary sketch which felt a bit stiff and forced. I attempted an Azurewing as well, but my hand balked at the thought of doing feathers even in pencil.

Day 11 found me frustrated. I did draw a Gloombeast, which, let me tell you was NOT easy. In pencil, even staring at a reference, I had a bear, a fox, and a badger well before I had a wolf. Inking it was a horrible idea and I cringe anytime I look at it. No amount of bribery is letting it onto the internet so don’t even try.

Day 12 had a bit more luck with Spicy.

I also noted that I’d previously done Farm for a prior Inktober so here’s that too.

I attempted Day 14: Safirijar and it was going well enough, but wood grain is time consuming to ink so this one is currently still half finished.

Day 16: Angel also sits half finished even with me going back to it on Day 24.

Day 20: Aurispara was a battle I did not win. The pose was a struggle and, though I pushed forward with the inking, it just did not pan out. I may revisit this odd lil bird again though.

Day 25 saw another success (finally!) with Vines.

How long could a twisty vine take to stipple? Roughly 8 hours. Yeah… my whole arm from my fingertips to my elbow was rather displeased with me. To compare, this is how far I was in the time it took to complete Flower.

The ghost lines you see are stippled ink. I drew the original lines in pencil, then lightly stippled over them, then erased the pencil, leaving a faint guide for myself.

Needless to say my arm has not wanted to pick up a micron pen since then so I’m not entirely sure I’ll be adding any more to this year’s Inktober/Havektober. If I do, I’ll post them in the chat and add them to this post.

Looking ahead, next month, as many of you know, is National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWrMo. Now, I have no plans to write a brand new 50k novel while juggling school schedules, my birthday, and yearly Thanksgiving mayhem, but I do plan to tackle Shadows & Secrets and hopefully complete it before New Year’s. Once that’s all wrapped up, I will begin work on my next Tales of Tuomi story, Rhee Coiled.

Anoshe, my friends.

Book I just finished reading, 5 out of 5, like all her stuff. Highly recommend!

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Can’t wait a month for the next post? Check out my Story Index for more adventures!