Inktober 2020

[Suuper-san]

First of all, did no-one notice Inktober 2019? Did we all collectively completely miss the entire month?

Anyways the beloved month of Inkober is nearly upon us.
A great time to take on a daily challenge, try out new mediums, and improve your art habits!

It would be great to have some participants and some friendly competition!

The main website as always:
https://inktober.com/

The official 2020 prompt list:
https://inktober.com/rules

Incidentally there is an Inktober52 contest as well, which is one drawing a week for a year. Just in case anyone is interested.

I'm going to participate in full force, but not with traditional inks this time, instead I'm going for a full colour digital illustration (it's a coloured lineart so it counts!!!!! promise!!), actually based off the prompt word (since I do prompts now XD)
Second to that I'm going to be working in bulk with probably 4-6 days at a time because that's my ultimate method. But I'll post every day with the progress.

My own goals for this: (spoiler for hiding rambling)

Spoiler

My self imposed restrictions are:
-Must produce multiple concepts for each prompt before picking a final design (~10?)
-Must be full body. (I kinda do this always, maybe not so important? gotta have cool shoes tho XD)
-Must have an awesome outfit (epic level details and multiple props and items!)
-Must have a fully rendered background (possible epic level)
-Quality at epic masterpiece level (a level higher than my highest piece ever)
-Not a must, but try and avoid cute girls for this one unless the theme begs for it.
-After all 30 are completed, go back and make alterations and improvements ~1 hour per piece.
-Finish each batch within the days that the prompts cover (cannot see this happening lol)

At maximum quality I might hit time restrictions but I'm taking a huge gamble that I can manage it. It'll definitely give me some insights into my limits.
I'm going for ~6-8 hour pieces, partly to push myself back into the flow of things, but also because I just plain need to do some long pieces for leaning myself into proper illustrations.

I'm going to try and use all my abilities and tricks at my disposal (some I never use for time constraints), and I'm hoping to pick up on issues between batches to refine my top level skills even more.

Even though I'm working at maximum level, it's so beyond my normal level that's it's basically an experimental style. I can't say I have too high hopes for it although I think they will turn out alright, but just not great. It's a wall I've got to go through to get even better.

I think my work might interfere with the timing, so I also expect this to go a bit over the month end. But it'll be my 95% focus until it's complete.

Note to my future self (because I know this will happen) - Don't start chickening out of finishing your drawings, especially if they seem really good! they will be better than normal because you're putting more time into them!! You need to finish them to gain the next level of skill!!!! Baka!!!

Leave a comment if you're up for joining and we can all encourage each other \(^-^)/
Post your artworks in this thread as well so we can easily see each others stuff 

I'll see you all later 

[legomaestro]

I will definitely do a prompt thing for Inktober but I got super shaded because one of my favourite YT Ink artists Alphonso Dunn said that the Inktober dude plaigarized him.

I'm not sure I'll post under the Inktober Flag, but I'm defo drawing one day a month for 30 days.



- Ballpoint + Pen + Lined Paper is what I'll do basically. I'm not sure what I'll draw exactly but I really want to work with low key stuff haha. Definitely up for joining though XD


Looking forward to your stuff, suuper! And jeez,  I wish I had your standards hahahaha

[Suuper-san]

oh.

that's kinda taken the wind out my sails hearing that :/

[legomaestro]

Gaaaaaah nooo suuuper

You know what, I'll still do Inktober because at the very least it's a learning experience and it's a chance to try out my rusty ballpoint pen skills again. It'll definitely help me make content at least haha

And I suspect Echo-chan would be up to it too at least

[Echo_River]

o/ That I am, Lego.

Yeah, I heard about that inktober situation, but I think... no matter who's idea it is, it's still one of my favourite challenges to do and I personally would rather not miss the opportunity to dash some ink on paper. Also, I barely use my ink tools so.... gotta make use of them before they dry out ^^;

Also, for some reason I thought October was 2 months away. Gah.

[Suuper-san]

Yeah took me a while to get back in the mindset but I'm all for it again, just needed to separate the event from the issue.

I'm taking quite a liberal interpretation to the rules and just making it my own event anyway

I'm still wondering whether to do backgrounds in my illustrations or not, it would definitely be a fantastic thing to do (learning wise) but since I'm aiming to work at maximum level there's a risk that backgrounds will double the already massive time I need to complete it. But it will be hard to draw a high level piece without a background since I start to add interaction, making it a proper scene. Ugh we'll see.

[Echo_River]

Yay! *claps happily*
Backgrounds would be a nice touch for sure. What about just drawing part of a background? Like, if the character is interacting with it, you could show just their close/immediate surroundings.

....I haven't decided what I'm going to draw yet I usually do my own thing, but I wonder if mid-month I'll run outta juice lol

[Suuper-san]

hmmm there's a thought, I could try that.
Although I'm really after a proper finished illustration look this time round.
So far I haven't managed to complete an Inktober run, maybe this year will be the one :P

Well it starts tomorrow, hope you're all ready! I know I'm not XD

[Suuper-san]

Well I've made a start.
1 hour and 20 minutes in and I have all my initial concepts for the first 4 days.
I was originally going to pick one straight away but I think I'll work for one layer with each concept and see how it develops and if it suits the style I'm aiming at.
First thoughts - looks like I can come up with ideas given any prompt word. So no issues there at all, and shows that I'm thinking a lot more freely now.
Also I definitely found it hard to not just draw cute girls all the time, I suppose it's my style after all.
Also I didn't really think about it but by the end of today I should probably have the final idea and close to the final sketch done for each one, because I'm going to spend most of the time in the next 3 days inking and colouing.



EDIT:
I'm about 4 hours in now. Haven't done much else.
Also I'm probably a bit confused about what I'm doing, I kinda developed each idea and now at least half I really like haha.
Picking the final ones will be a pain, gotta do that pretty much now :P



Well I chickened out of picking it for myself, I just sorted the sketches into 2 piles, pass or fail, and rolled the dice for which ones to pick from the passed. Now I can put my effort into maximising the chosen lucky 4.



I'm still trying to keep the main prompt visible in the theme, which is different to normal, when I just go with whatever comes to mind even if it has nothing to do with the prompt itself. So that's an extra condition that I hadn't realised I set until I was doing it.

[Echo_River]

Oh wow! Aaaaaall the ideas! O: I love seeing the many different concepts you had in mind.
Cute girls are approved. So great how you're not just putting one fish but lots of fish!

Here's my first entry. I goofed right off the bat. I didn't double-check the list and thought "Wisp" was the first prompt  I was going to draw "Fish" too, but realized that would defeat the purpose of a drawing a day. So I guess I'm doing the number 1 on day 2 ^^;

I need to work on planning. It's usually a last minute choice how I'm going to shade or what end result I want to see.

2 Wisp

Sketch and lines

[Suuper-san]

Thanks!
I'm taking the challenge as a bit of a commission practice, so trying to come up with a range of ideas and stuff, develop properly and maintain the theme.

So great how you're not just putting one fish but lots of fish!

You know the idea of just one fish didn't even occur to me haha

great first sketch!! Very cute wisps, remind me a bit of the souls in Soul Eater. Fab lighting too.
No worries the prompt order it'll all work out :P

[Echo_River]

Thanks~ Reminds me I haven't watched Soul Eater yet.

You know the idea of just one fish didn't even occur to me haha

Your fish will never be lonely 

Meanwhile. Fish in the mind of Echo:

Spoiler

I was wishing I had a fish model for this, one I could rotate and such. References of any other angle than side or front were scant!

[Suuper-san]

looks awesome Echo!
funny you chose a large fish because in the background I have super large fish as well, perhaps they're the same....?

latest news for me I've injured my wrist doing heavy lifting, cant even chop vegetables without it hurting. Not insanely bad, got muscle ache all over too.
So I'm stuffed already. Fortunately I wasn't tied to daily arting but it's a super annoyance.
Hopefully it'll pick soon.

Here's my development so far though.
The major thing I've learned so far is dealing with landscape and portrait in the same workspace, I just put them in a big square and then the largest dimensions will always be the same. I can trim them when saving so no problems there.
So far I seem to be working to half speed my normal speed, perhaps because of dealing with do much new ideas I can't seem to build up any momentum like normal.

[Echo_River]

Thanks! Oooh, the fish that travels through the paper dimension 

Sorry to hear about the wrist >_< Hope it recovers soon!

That layout is so smart O: The square really helps to see how wide or narrow the area is and it looks really neat too! Really liking the progress on those drawings. Fish and Wisp are my favourites so far ^^


Today's entry:

Line

Forgot to take a picture of the sketch ^^;

[Suuper-san]

@Lego!!!! Where are you????!!!

@Echo

The square really helps to see how wide or narrow the area is

That's true, I didn't really notice that but I suppose subconsciously I did haha

Lovely day 3 for yours!
btw is that your own letter style you're using there? Very simple but makes it really interesting!

My wrist still hurts but I tried to draw a little today. Way behind where I wanted to be which is an annoying start to the month, but I'm hoping to have a blast and catch up soon.

Progress so far:
This isn't the lineart stage yet, I'm hoping for something a LOT crisper.
I might do a colour draft after I've finished the draft stage for each of them as I think it will help to finalise a lot of the background and areas I'm struggling with.
This whole event is hopefully going to give me some nice EXP for dealing with full illustrtions, as I'm certainly hitting a lot of speedbumps and problems which need solving.