As with all of the previous segments of this challenge, I’m a bit late. October ended two weeks ago now. But, despite being late, I wanted to stick with it and see it through to the end. So here is the completion of this year’s collection of 31 Inktober drawings!

#22 Scratchy

I wasn’t super sure what to do for this prompt, so I went a little bit abstract with my interpretation of the prompt. I drew Leonard Cohen, specifically performing Hallelujah, because he has a distinctive scratchy voice. I’ve always loved this song, and I wanted to pay tribute to a very talented artist. I was a bit quicker with this prompt because I wanted to retain a scratchy drawing style, too, for an added touch.

#23 Celestial

For the prompt “Celestial”, I went back to a familiar source of inspiration: Elden Ring. My favourite character from the game is a goddess of the moon called Rennala, who has this weird giant egg that she’s obsessed with. I think she has the coolest design in the game, so I was pretty happy about this chance to do artwork of her, and I’m really happy with the artwork I ended up making. I’m particularly happy with the moon and how it appears to be glowing, which I thought was pretty cool.

#24 Shallow

My partner helped me with the concept for this one, suggesting feet in a kiddie pool. I struggled a bit with rendering water with just black and white ink, especially because I was creating my own composition, but I’m pretty happy with where I landed. I remember when I was a kid, filling up the plastic kiddie pool with the garden hose and splashing around with my sisters. It’s a fond summery memory, and I think I evoked something of the vibe with this piece.

#25 Dangerous

I spent a good amount of time on this piece, trying to get the mid-tones right. I really liked the idea for this composition, of a lone zebra being stalked by a stealthy crocodile. I used a couple of references and put together a picture I think is pretty cool. It was particularly hard to get the zebra to stand out enough against the backdrop, so I added a bit of rim lighting to help it stand out.

#26 Remove

This prompt was an interesting one for me. I immediately had an idea that I loved, to depict top surgery as the results of something being removed, but I took a very long time picking a reference pose. I deliberately left the face details out to keep the artwork anonymous, but I really liked this pose once I found it.

#27 Beast

One of my favourite movies as a small child was The Neverending Story, but there were some scary elements to the movie that stuck with me, such as this creature, Gmork, who warns Atreyu about the Nothing while snarling from the shadows. It was an anamatronic puppet, so there were all the intricate little details of practical effects, and that stuck in my mind. I kept this piece mostly black to try and evoke the sense of Gmork peering out of the shadows.

#28 Sparkle

There are lots of things that I thought of for this prompt, but they all were a huge struggle to depict in black and white. Then I stumbled upon the idea of sparklers, and I looked up some references, and this picture was born. I’m really happy with how this one turned out!

#29 Massive

This is another prompt that I had an idea for right away. I find ocean creatures to be kind of scary, and that increases proportionally with their size. Whales are very spooky, and the idea of swimming this close to them is terrifying. I also tried to capture the soft gradient of the ocean fading into infinity below the whales, which definitely adds to the vibe of something so huge it’s unfathomable.

#30 Rush

My first thought was of the band called Rush, but I didn’t want to have to try and capture the likenesses of real people, so I deliberately interpreted “rush” to mean the grassy plants called rushes that are common on beaches. I have childhood memories of walking through the hot sand and avoiding the prickly clumps of these grasses to spare my bare feet.

#31 Fire

For the final prompt, I wanted to go back to Dungeons & Dragons and draw a spell caster. Fireball is the most famous spell in D&D, so that’s what I depicted. I used a reference for the fireball itself, but the caster is from my imagination. I imagine they’re a tiefling wizard casting a big flaming ball of magic. I’m pretty happy with the resulting composition, and I think it’s a good end to the challenge!

And with that, I’m done. I completed the challenge!

In the last few days since I finished Inktober, I’ve been trying to allow myself to experiment with colour again. I did miss using colour in this challenge. But, weirdly, I’m struggling to create anything. I don’t think I’ve finished a single painting or drawing since the Inktober ones. I’m not sure if I need to take a break, or if I need to force myself to keep creating to build momentum.

I think it’s the lack of direction. With Inktober, I was given a specific prompt for each drawing, and I knew what art style to use, and everything was laid out for me. But now, I’m fully free to create whatever my heart desires, and that’s left me feeling a bit lost.

I’m sure it’ll just take some time. I’m thinking I’ll stick with it and try for building momentum, rather than take a break, because it feels like that’ll be better for me. I don’t think I enjoy not creating.

My next post will for sure be a colourful one. I don’t know exactly what I mean by that, but I know I’m craving bright colours – both because of the limitations I experienced with the challenge, as well as because of the grey weather of encroaching winter. So look forward to something bright and colourful next time I write!