Somehow, October got away from me. So much for sharing about the rest of Inktober as I experienced it. 😉 Although it has now come and gone, I thought I’d still briefly share about the rest of my drawings. I can proudly say that I completed the month-long challenge, and only a few of the pictures were late.
Just a warning, this post will be a long one. I tried to keep each description brief, but wordiness is one of my talents, so I hope you can bear with me. 😉
Day Eleven: “Run.”
As a mild Whovian (I like a lot of things about Doctor Who, but am not a hardcore fan about everything in the series), I thought it would be fun to incorporate something from my favorite Doctor and his favorite companion. I wasn’t 100% pleased with this picture, but I’m thankful I gave it a shot.
Day Twelve: “Shattered.”
Sometimes, you see a sketch perfectly in your head, and the actual project turns out almost exactly the way you’d hoped. This was one of those pictures. I really wanted to revisit Rapunzel this month after my less-than-pleasing sketch on Day Five (“Long“). And thankfully, my sketch for “Shattered” ended up being everything I’d hoped it would. I love the emotion of this piece and the double interpretation of the theme. I really took my time with the inking on this one, too, so the shading and ink work is something I’m quite proud of. This ended up being one of my favorite pieces from the whole month.
Day Thirteen: “Teeming.”
This one gave me a headache. I’m happy with Spike the baby dragon, but I couldn’t get Twilight’s face right no matter what I tried. I actually ended up redrawing her face and attaching it at the end because I hated the original so much. 😉 I should have colored in the parasprites before coloring in Twilight’s legs and hooves, too, because it looks like she’s sitting on some of them. Oh, well. I guess having a picture like this after a great one helps me stay humble. 😉
Day Fourteen: “Fierce.”
I’ve always loved the challenge of drawing the Beast. In the months after Disney’s Beauty and the Beast was released, I drew him over and over again until I knew every line and color I needed by heart.
Revisiting this character was like returning to an old friend. He will probably always be one of my favorite characters to draw. I’m so grateful for artists like Glen Keane (the Beast’s supervising animator) who inspired my imagination and creativity as a child.
Day Fifteen: “Mysterious.”
For Day Fifteen, I decided to go back to my book world and work on another piece of concept art. This is a minor character from my second book. I like this picture overall, although wish I’d changed her hood a bit. Her head is a little too pointy.
Day Sixteen: “Fat.”
This was one of the more difficult sketches of the month. “Fat” is usually used as a derogatory term. It’s a word I was labeled with as a sixth grader, a word I’ve struggled to escape and avoid ever since. But on this day, I claimed it and made it positive. I’m a full-figured, “fat” woman at this stage in my life, and that’s okay. I’m working towards better health, but I need to be content with where I’m at, too. I came up with other positive words that started with f, a, or t and added them to the background. It’s funny how a little sketch can be so healing. When you label yourself with a word you’ve been trying to avoid, it doesn’t matter if anyone else does.
Day Seventeen: “Graceful.”
One of the most graceful things I’ve ever seen was the Dancing with the Stars contemporary performance done by Amy Purdy and Derek Hough a few years ago. Amy is a double amputee who lost both legs due to illness and kidney failure. Her dance was a tribute to her father, who donated one of his kidneys to save her life. He also danced with her shortly after she got her prosthetic legs. Walking was a struggle, but dancing was easier for her. You can watch a little more about her story here.
Amy was so inspiring to me. I was amazed by the grace of her movement and the beauty of her dancing in spite of her disability. She went on to win second place in Dancing with the Stars that year. When this theme came up, I knew that special dance was what I wanted to try to capture in today’s picture. Sadly, I didn’t capture it the way I wished to. I was especially disappointed in my sketch of Derek, who has a surprisingly difficult face to draw. But I’m still thankful I chose this for the day’s theme.
Day Eighteen: “Filthy.”
It was time to go back to my fairy tale world for this theme. This is one of my main characters from my second book, a character close to my heart. I can’t wait to introduce her to the world. This is my favorite concept art I’ve done of this character so far. Every time I look at it, it makes me want to write more of her story. 🙂
Day Nineteen: “Cloud.”
Clouds are not my favorite thing to draw, so I basically used this day’s theme as an excuse to draw another unicorn. I enjoyed playing around with the shading on the cloud, but I especially loved experimenting with a different breed of unicorn, one I’ve been developing for my books. One of the best things about Inktober was it allowed me to take the time to visualize some of the things I’ve been keeping in my head for the past few years.
I think my favorite thing about this drawing was the subtle dappling on the unicorn. I’ve always loved dappled gray coloring on horses, so it was fun to get to use that for this little guy.
Day Twenty: “Deep.”
I love drawing mermaids about as much as I love drawing unicorns, so using mermaids in my “Deep” theme was a no-brainer. 😉 It was fun experimenting with colors and poses in this one. Sadly, my blue I used for the water started running out of ink, so the water isn’t as smooth as I would have liked it to be. I like everything else about this one, though.
Inktober Day Twenty-One: “Furious.”
I decided to have another go at my cartoon characters for this day. Unfortunately, they ended up looking more “annoyed” than “furious.” 😉 It was nice to have a simpler drawing this time around, though. My cartoon characters are something I love to draw when I don’t want to stress about my artwork too much.
Day Twenty-Two: “Trail.”
This guy also falls under the category of concept art. Though I’m not thrilled with the background…especially the tree he’s about to stab with his horn…I’m pleased with the unicorn himself. I’m excited to play around with more unicorn concept art now that I have this basic drawing finished.
Day Twenty-Three: “Juicy.”
I was stumped on this theme for a while. “Juicy” seemed like a boring theme. Then I added a dragon. Note to any artists out there: any theme becomes more exciting when you add a dragon. And now I totally want a mini dragon to guard my strawberries. 😉
Day Twenty-Four: “Blind.”
This was another day I didn’t have any clear ideas. I started with an online photo of a blind woman with her seeing-eye dog, and then just played around with it. This is what I ended up with. I have no clue who she is or if she’ll someday play an important part in a storyline of mine. She was fun to draw, though.
Day Twenty-Five: “Ship.”
I didn’t really feel like drawing the obvious choice for this day, so I decided to do a tribute to my hubby, who works for UPS. It was fun drawing him in cartoon form again. I haven’t done that since I used to make him homemade cards back when we were dating and first married. And I already mentioned this on Instagram, but just in case there are any UPS supervisors watching, he does NOT lift like this on the job. 😉 He uses proper lifting technique.
Day Twenty-Six: “Squeak.”
Once again, I couldn’t think of anything for this day aside from maybe a mouse or a squeaky step. Then this idea came to me of a squeaky marker, and this sketch was born. We’ve all been next to someone who blissfully uses one of those markers, unaware he or she is making everyone around them crazy, right? 😉
Day Twenty-Seven: “Climb.”
It was back to concept art for “Climb.” I chose a character from my third book, one I really don’t know that well yet, and found out unexpectedly that she likes to climb mountains. In dresses, no less. I’m looking forward to getting to know this girl a little better and chronicling her adventures.
Day Twenty-Eight: “Fall.”
My original idea was to make this picture and “Climb” be a little mini-series, and have my climbing character fall the next day. But basically, I was too lazy to do a super detailed picture again, and I didn’t have the time to invest in another picture of that caliber. So instead, I went back to my cartoon characters and drew my favorite month. This girls legs are a little wonky and out of proportion, but other than that I love how she turned out. 🙂
Day Twenty-Nine: “United.”
I knew I didn’t want to leave Lizzy and Mr. Darcy in such conflict after “Divided” on Day Two, so I decided to fast-forward to the end of the story for “United.” 🙂 Sadly, I messed up a bit on Lizzy’s face and had to use a little triangle of paper under her eye to cover up my mistake. Below is a copy of the photo with the triangle blurred out. I wanted to include the original, though, to keep things honest and real. 😉 Darcy also has some random yellow on his collar because I was STILL struggling with remembering to put a sheet of paper behind each page of the sketchbook to prevent marker from bleeding through. Maybe he had a hot dog with mustard or something. 😉
Day Thirty: “Found.”
It was so exciting to get to this point in the month…just two pictures left! For “Found,” I wanted to capture that look of love and incredulity exchanged between Belle and the Prince right after his transformation in the live action version of Beauty and the Beast. I didn’t quite get it the way I wanted to, but I’m trying to think of it as a caricature of the two of them. Someday, I’d like to revisit this one and try again.
Day Thirty-One: “Mask.”
Any surprise that this ended up being more Phantom “phan” art? 😉 It was great to draw the Phantom again. I chose my favorite Phantom, Derrick Davis, as the model for the picture. I can’t even tell you how much I love my gray Copic markers. I love having the ability to give the impression of a pencil sketch with markers.
And that, my friends, marks the end of my Inktober journey. It was an amazing experience. It was so encouraging to see my art improve and my technique and confidence grow as the month progressed. While I’m happy to have a break for now, I’m already looking forward to Inktober next year.
If you’d like to see more of my “in progress” photos from Inktober, they’re all on my Instagram account. You can also see my daughters’ Inktober artwork there. They didn’t make it all the way through the month, but they did do a few more pieces.
Stay tuned for more posts to come!