My sixth year of Inktober
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This is my sixth year of doing Inktober and I always quit on the first illustration as I wasn’t feeling it. I pushed through and I’m glad that I did. I really began to enjoy the process; I guess that I had to get back into the process. This is really two months of work and it is definitely a challenge and a grind.
Inktober 2021 day 1- Crystal:
Fizzrander’s eye was a troublesome problem. His old master and mentor, One-eyed Oliphant, had once had a magnificent crystal eye. It could glow in the dark, change colours like a prism, and even shoot light beams. Now that Fizzrander was a master himself and it was now time for him to accept his own apprentice, he had thought that he should get one too. The problem was that he couldn’t get it to work properly! It shone all night when he was trying to sleep and kept him awake. It did work smashingly as a night light though, when he had to get up to the bathroom at night! Wait a moment . . . Was that why old One-Eyed Oliphant got it?! Drat!
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Inktober 2021 day 2 - suit:
Werner P. Porkington needed to get in shape. It was time to get out of his rut, to really start living and take care of his health. He had to change his lifestyle, that’s why he started this new, improved version of himself by buying himself a fancy new track suit. New day, new Werner P. Porkington! The fact that a new Chinese food restaurant had just opened around the corner and there was a pork belly special certainly provided extra motivation!! Inktober 2021 day 2 - suit:
Werner P. Porkington needed to get in shape. It was time to get out of his rut, to really start living and take care of his health. He had to change his lifestyle, that’s why he started this new, improved version of himself by buying himself a fancy new track suit. New day, new Werner P. Porkington! The fact that a new Chinese food restaurant had just opened around the corner and there was a pork belly special certainly provided extra motivation!!
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Inktober 2021 day 3- vessel:
Amphorae sales were Azog’s bread and butter. He sold the two handled, Greek, clay vessels for a living and his business was his pride and joy. People filled them with fruity, fragrant olive oil, powerful red wine, fresh milk and various grains. They were stored on ships, tied together and traded around the entire known world. It was the cardboard box of the Classical age.Azog and his crustacean family also discovered that they made very fashionable shells. Sea critters needed a bigger portable home after a certain age and he was going to corner the market! He was a savvy businessman and a fashion icon!
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Inktober 2021 day 4- knot:
Mitten Man and Captain Cossack were not friends, frenemies, work associates or even aquintences , they were arch enemies! Captain Cossack was always rampaging around at the playground, every day, after school, like clockwork. He was either stealing little kindergarteners balloons, kicking the grade three kids ball over the fence or taunting other children from the prickly bushes.Mitten man had reached his limit. It was time to take action. Seeing him in the parking lot, the mighty Mitten Man leaped into the air, swinging from his mitten string from a nearby tree branch. With a press of a button in the palm of his gloves and a mighty ‘Thwip’ sound his mitten shot at Captain Cossack. The long woollen cord that his mom tied his mittens together so that he wouldn’t lose them shot out at lightning speed. Around and around, they spun, tying the misguided Russian up into a big knot of wooly imprisonment.
Captain Cossack swore a blue streak of Russian swear words. When Mitten Mans mom picked him up, she would make him eat soap to pay for all of his dirty swears! All thanks to your friendly neighbourhood Mitten Man!
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Inktober day 5- raven:
Baron Rookhaven was dying. He had survived countless battles, a castle fire, multiple plagues and several ex-wives, but this curse was a doozy. His court magician had tried everything that he had at his disposal, but alas, nothing had worked. Baron Rookhaven had long ago sent his knights out in search of a cure, but there was none to be found in all of the four corners of the world.His ex wives would have the last laugh. Their curse would be his end. He should have known better than to marry a sorceress, nothing good could have come from the match. Come to think of it, Baron Rookhaven probably shouldn’t have married her sister either. It was a bit of a miscalculation perhaps. Twins had sounded like a good idea at the time . . .
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Congratulations for your 6th Year of Inktober @Doodleworx !
I’m on year 2
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@Doodleworx These are great! Can't wait to learn more about inking... I'm just starting out!
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@Frogpunzel thanks! I appreciate that!
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@Jeremy-Ross thank you very much. It’s been a journey that’s for sure, but one that I’m glad that I took. I have really grown as an artist doing this challenge every year.
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Inktober 2021 day 6 - spirit:
The Kodama, or tree spirit, was inconsolable. Someone was in his forest cutting down his children , tearing their roots and snapping their limbs. His leaves quivered, his great mossy branches shook, beneath his trunk, his roots sent signals through the forest floors intricate, interlocking root system, searching . . . searching.His agitation awoke nearby kami forest spirits. Drifting down from their resting spots in his great leafy bowers, that twined together, they floated, spinning and whirling like maple seeds. They rubbed their sleepy eyes with their ghostly tentacles and floated down nearer to the forest floor, drifting and spinning lazily on their upside down mushroom bodies.
They would find the killer, with his sharp toothed axe and serrated saw. Then the Kodama would make the creature pay. He would be fertilizer for his newest seedlings and his tools of destruction would turn to rust. His people would long outlive this plague of monkey people.
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Inktober 2021 day 7 - fan:It was hot, real hot. The current climate was not ideal for insertions like this. Lieutenant Barkmore was panting heavily already, as he was deep in the barren desert planet of Paprika 7. He was on a mission and he had to accomplish it, no matter how uncomfortable he was. Thick fur was not an ideal situation for his line of work sometimes, but it certainly did help on cold planets.
Fortunately for him, Barkmore’s fan-bot, Harvey-9, hovered nearby and covered him in a cooling blanket of air. Over the years he had been in many battles and he had lost a lot of Harvey’s, that’s why he gave them number designations. This was a good one though. He would hate to lose him, especially on this planet.
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Well it looks like we have reached the doledrums of Inktober already. Every year artists are excited for Inktober, people work very hard and are anticipating sharing their love of what they have been working on for over a month. The first week is great, then people start complaining that it’s too hard and that people are cheating, breaking nonexistent rules, grouching about the moderators, etc. and then apathy kicks in an no one even bothers to look at other people’s work. It happens every year and I always forget, I know more than anyone after six years of doing this. I have the same amount of followers as when I started, no matter how much I have improved.
There are no winners of Inktober. It isn’t a competition. Deep down it is about getting better at your craft and becoming a better artist. You have to do it for yourself, even if no one sees it. Social media is hard, especially for artists. The deck is stacked against us, but do it for yourself. What are likes and followers anyway? It’s all meaningless, fake nonsense.
I have to make art. It is what makes me happy. I will trudge on. Anyway, enough winging. Carry on and ink on!
Inktober 2021 day 8 - watch:
“Filthy watch monkeys!” grumbled Edward Von Oliphant. They were always climbing up and down his mobile watchtower for shift changes, bathroom breaks, food runs and for shorts burst of exercise. Monkey people did not make ideal watch men. They just had too much energy, plus they threw their banana peels everywhere.
Being 40 feet up a watch tower elephant, it really was not a great idea to throw slippery banana peels around the creature that was responsible for their safety. Edward trumpeted his anger and trotted on. They were on the lookout for forest fires. Hopefully the banana trees didn’t burn down . . .
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Inktober 2021 day 9 - pressure:
Too much pressure!!! Harvey’s new pressure washer was a beast! He had bought it off of his oldie neighbour, Moe, who was a little long in the tooth to say the least. He said that it was a little too powerful for him, but Harvey thought that he could handle it as he wasn’t 100 years old.It turned out that he couldn’t. The pressure that shot out rocked him around like a bucking bronco after too many sugar cubes. All that he had wanted to do was clean the mildew off of his driveway and now his life was in danger. A broken hip was imminent! The question was: how did his geriatric old neighbour pressure-wash his own driveway as well as his even older neighbour’s car without dying?!
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@Doodleworx If you don't mind me asking... What kind of inking techniques are you using on your images? Markers, brush pens, etc?
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@Frogpunzel I use ink pens, some copic multiliners, and copic pens for the tone, last year I just used a paintbrush and ink that I dipped and watered down.
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Inktober day 10 - pick:
Today was the day. The hens had reached their limit. They had hatched their plot a week and a half ago and they had bided their time. Patience was a chickens greatest attribute, next to egg production and a beautiful singing voice. They clucked and scratched around the coop as if nothing was abnormal, but they were poised and ready.Helga had the knife. Bertha had the bat. The rest of the girls had sharpened their claws. They might work at a ‘U-pick your own eggs’ farm but that didn’t mean they would let a weasel pick their eggs! That’s where they drew the line and if that rotten little weasel tried something he was gonna get it!
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@Doodleworx Pigma brushpens from Japan are my favourite
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Inktober 2021 day 11- sour:
Gummy worms were good, sour patch kids were ok, but Sour gummy ants were Esmerelda the anteaters favourite! They were almost too good to share. Chocolate Ants were a close second, but eating 35, 000 ants a day made a really mess.Esmerelda’s pup wanted some too. It was tough to find an anthill big enough for two, let alone a bag of sour gummy ants big enough for both of them. Maybe he would like some candied termites?!
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Inktober 2021 day 12- stuck:
They were stuck. Really stuck. Roscoe and Josephine raccoon had thought that they had planned out a good heist. Halloween always had good eats and tonight they had anticipated a candy bar pig-out. Wilbur, their cousin had told them that the humans hid the really good candy in the carved pumpkins that were called jack o’ lanterns (for some strange reason). The first set of pumpkins that they found, the two siblings recklessly jumped inside.Pumpkins were easy to climb into and much tougher to clamber out of. If worst came to worst, they would nibble their way out, hopeful. It was awfully embarrassing though. “Wait! What was that sound?” Growled Roscoe from deep within the Jack o’ lantern. “Was that Wilbers laugh from the bushes?!”
“When we get out of here we’re going to tie a firecracker to your tail Wilber, you little jerk,” growled Josephine.
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Inktober 2021 day 13- roof:
Oda the Namahage had been on the roof for quite some time. It was the great Namahage festival in Japan and it was time to scare the children. Every year, people dressed up as demon-faced ogres and went door-to-door to scare lazy, misbehaving children and unmotivated Daughter-In-Laws. He even had his ‘Naughty or Nice’ book ready to take notes on how the parents wanted their children to behave better in the New Year.He hoped that there were lots of mochi (rice cakes) and warm sake. It had taken a lot of work to climb up on the steep roof, on a cold, dark night. But Oda really wanted to do a good job as it was his very first time being a Namahage. He was going to jump down into the courtyard to scare them when the family went out to view the full moon.
Oda hoped that the kids were good, as he’d forgotten his brush and ink and it was a long, climb down. Oh dear, was that the bark of a big dog? Did they have a guard dog?! Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea . . .
