Inktober
Inktober Challenge Progress 2024
7/1/25
Why I Wanted To Compete
Burn Out
In the last couple years, I had felt the burn out after Uni pretty hard and it's been a slow process building up my confidence and consistency. I'm guilty of putting too much pressure on myself to produce as much art as possible in as little time as possible, and if it'd doesn't absolutely dazzle everyone, I feel like I've failed. I know that it's not a productive way to work or live, so I'm hoping that taking part in this challenge will help. I'm approaching it as low stakes as possible.
.jpg)
Practise and Speed
One thing I see industry veterans excel at is speed, and it's definitely something I want to improve. Jackie Droujko inspires me a lot, and after how long my big pieces have taken me recently, I want to put her advice of 'make as few decisions as possible' into action.I've also seen many current artists talk about 'failing faster' - how making more art that's not as refined as you might want will help you progress faster than making a single perfect piece. This challenge will definitely help with that - I set myself a loose limit of 1-2 hours max on each piece.
Week 1​
I was off to an unsure start since it had been a while since I'd done a painting of a small scale in mind. I did have fun with the first two, treating the prompts as a character design challenge, and then a key-moment piece.
Definitely staying in my comfort zone at the start here.
.jpg)
Day 3 was a struggle for sure - I just couldn't get these boots right on the colour or perspective. I think in hindsight, a more 3D approach from the start would have helped, and some nice bounce light too.
.jpg)
.jpg)
Day 6 is one I'm very proud of - a fun little halloween theme that has great atmosphere! I've been looking at a lot of concept art to learn how they produce a sense of scale and space
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
Since day 3 was such a disaster, I decided to switch it up on the next few days. I was still slower and more tight in my drawing than I wanted to be.
These next few days really gave me confidence and I pushed myself to experiment with style and texture -finding new ways to use my usual brushes
.jpg)
At the end of the week I felt like I was doing pretty good! The pressure to produce a perfect work of art was waning, and even with a loose time limit I was being forced to be more decisive.
Week 2​
I was definitely feeling more confident going into this week. I think it shows with how I got more experimental with my interpretations for the prompts - pushing myself to draw subjects that I don't normally do.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
I think day 8 was probably the loosest and quickest of all of inktober. The style and atmosphere is really successful in all 3 of these paintings. - I've always admired impressionist art - seeing the brushstrokes but still being tricked into thinking that world could really exist is endlessly amazing to me.
.jpg)
Day 11 was more of a struggle - I think each snack would have benefited from being pushed more with obvious monsterousness and clearer shapes to communicate the message. You can tell I knew it wasn't strong enough since I Felt the need to label the snacks.
.jpg)
.jpg)
After a rest with a simpler approach with day 12, 13 was probably the furthest I pushed a prompt. I'm a massive fan of cosmic and eldritch horror, and couldn't get the idea of a horizon that could stare back at you out of my head. This was another up-hill battle though as I struggled to capture a dreamlike feeling whilst showing enough solid structure to communicate the enviroment.
.jpg)
Rounded out week 2 strong with day 14 though - another quick and sketchy one. The cat started as a single gesture line and once I found his suspicious little face, the rest of the sketch came easily. I also loved making indiscernable rodent eyes, and pushing the colours on this.
Week 3​
I started off really strong this week with all the confidence I had built up. It was starting to get difficult to keep going with the same enthusiasm though, and I found myself really struggling with the last three promts of the week. I think I had run out of steam after being so productive and making some really stand-out pieces.
.jpg)
.jpg)
Even though I feel the execution of days 15 and 16 could have been better, (particularly if I'd pushed the lighting) I loved my interpretation of the prompts and use of colour! I think that I managed to make all the forms really clear whilst keeping big, loose brushstrokes.
.jpg)
.jpg)
Day 17 is probaby my favourite of the entire series. I adore all the fun brushwork in the line art, and it was a lot of fun creating simplified and stylised shapes for the hands and legs of the wizard. I think it was successful because I managed to balance the chaos you'd expect from a wizard library without cluttering the design in a way that it'd be hard to tell what you were looking at.
.jpg)
I knew with these last two pieces that I had already gotten what I wanted out of competing in inktober. I think it's clear that these are not my strongest works. Even though they both have a good foundation in composition and values, I just wasn't satisfied with the final results.
.jpg)
It was a bit of a demotivating end to what had been a successful inktober. But, even though I was a little disappointed not to finish, I knew how much progress I'd made. Overall I'm super happy with the majority of the pieces I made - especially with a time limit that is super short for me!
