Lots of great entries already this month. Many first timers too. It would be cool to see the entries break 100! Here's my submission:

@ShannonBiondi Fixed and uploaded to the drive. Apparently I'm not good with super clear instructions. Thanks again for doing this.

Not all mermaids can be royalty.

"Godzilla vs. Lophaevis"

Is it hot in here, or is it just me?

Love is a Battlefield

Young elephant done in acrylic.

Redid mine and rotated it to a more objective view. I noticed almost none of us actually rotated like we're supposed to. I would highly recommend you go back and do it correctly if you just kind of copied like I did. This was a heck of a good challenge!

Saved a few of the steps for anyone interesting in the building process.

I decided to do the "5k" this year and do 1 per week. My focus is on painting right now and Inktober is just so time consuming. But I still want to participate and put out something worth looking at, so I compromised with the 5k. One (maybe 2) per week should be doable, and I've been using this month to slowly work out the sketches so all that needs to be done in October is the actual inking.

I decided to do the 100 Heads Challenge. If you're not familiar, it was started by Ahmed Aldoori on YouTube. The goal is to draw 100 heads in 10 days. He provides a Pinterest Page with a set of 100 heads already prepared (of course, you can select your own).

I decided to do this challenge with a brush pen and N4 Copic marker. I love the 3 tone comic book style from books like Framed Ink and wanted to improve my skills at it. There's only so much time in a day, so the average is 5-6 minutes per head for me.

Feel free to join in and post in this thread! I would love to see the different styles and how others tackle it.

Day 1

Day 2

As a comparison, here is one with the easy-peasy-to-control Tombow (and a gel pen, prompt "frail"):

@danielerossi Okay, that one does not have any special way to control the ink flow amount. (The one on the left can control it by squeezing.) My guess is that it just wasn't flowing steady on your first couple of goes and is now working as intended. I store mine tip up, and it still flows like mad from the moment I start.

The pocket brush is crazy sensitive as previously mentioned. You can do what Vivian mentioned and just wipe away excess, or do what I do and embrace the fact that lines will come out on their own terms. "Happy little accidents!" That brush is a bit like watercolor, in that it adds variety whether you like it, or not. I've recently started playing with using short, animator type lines, to give it even more unpredictable life!

Here's an example of one of my favorite pieces from a recent sketchbook full of elephants using this technique (prompt was "tired"):

Day 9 "Swing" and also the last page in my 100 Elephants sketchbook! Learned a ton doing this 100 somethings challenge. If you'd like to see the drawings go from utterly terrible to definitely not as terrible, I made an insta story with the whole process. https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17843775202658463/

@danielerossi Which type do you have? Left or right?

@danielerossi If you want a less sensitive brush in your arsenal this Tombow set is really nice. I primarily use the Pentels, but these are great when you're looking for something more solid.

@VivianTong said in Brush pen control:

I thought I had a pretty delicate hand with pens and pencils but those brush pens are on a different level of difficult

You can't truly understand @Jake-Parker 's reference to drawing with "butterfly kisses" until you've met the Pocket Brush.

@danielerossi It's probably just a matter of learning. Brush pens are sensitive, some more than others (the Pentel Pocket Brush being one that will make you want to scream when first using it).

Almost done with my 100 elephants challenge! This is the second to last page of the sketchbook. Decided to stick to the Inktober theme for the last couple of pages. Here's the frail prompt.

@Susan-Marks I'm pretty sure that came from Jake. He mentioned doing it as a half-marathon (every other day), 10k (every 3rd day IIRC), or 5k (one per week) if those work better for you.

Do what works for you, and have fun with it!

I decided to do the "5k" this year and do 1 per week. My focus is on painting right now and Inktober is just so time consuming. But I still want to participate and put out something worth looking at, so I compromised with the 5k. One (maybe 2) per week should be doable, and I've been using this month to slowly work out the sketches so all that needs to be done in October is the actual inking.