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I decided to do Inktober this year. In the interest of not spamming people, I'm only uploading this overview screenshot and day 31. Below are some thoughts about it, so feel free to stop here if you aren't interested in a beginner artist's musings.
I tried doing Inktober last year but was quickly distracted by my friends getting me into the game Satisfactory. As far as I can tell without looking to deeply, I didn't make it past day 6. It was disheartening, and I wanted to try again this year.
I started out strong. I feel like I did solid jobs at the first six or so prompts. I copied references from Google or Ebay. I had fun trying to do some basic shading using my neglected alcohol markers. It was nice to try out new things and finally get back to drawing after a month and a half of not drawing.
Then day 8 hit and I realized that the similarities of the prompts was going to be an issue. The words "trek", "hike", "roam", "drive", and "expedition" were all on the list - but I didn't have the creative energy to do all of those. Especially because I felt like I cheated at "trek" by doing a silhouette instead of a proper figure. (I was honestly a bit embarrassed posting it to various Discord servers.) So for day 8 - "hike" - I decided to spend some time doing a basic study of a certain box cat artist. I haven't shared it because it really just feels like copying.
Day 9 was another day that felt like a cheat because I diverted to playing with my color alcohol markers instead of the traditional black-and-white. On the other hand, it was also one of the most fun days.
Days 10 and 11 were unremarkable - just me trying to copy internet references again.
Day 12's prompt of "remote" was fun because I tried to make my own thing again. I tried to take some inspiration from the Teams calls I'm on at work. I know it's hard to make out, but the four "cameras" are a seal, a lion, an antelope, and a "no camera" icon (inspired by my manager, a senior team member, a member of the network team, and me, respectively).
Days 13 though 23 were mostly uneventful except that I forgot day 14. But I made up for it by forgetting I'd already done day 19 one night and doing it a second time. Day 23 was slightly more fun because I tried copying a screenshot of the game Rust. Everything but day 20 was a copy of a reference, again. I started using previous years' prompts to make things more interesting for me. I would repeatedly draw a pencil sketch and throw it out because it was too much to try to do in one night.
Day 24 was me falling back on color as a crutch for feeling bad about figure drawing. Unlike day 9, I put more effort into color blending. It actually turned out pretty nice. I daresay I'm actually happy with it.
Day 25 through 27 was another string of copying references. By this time, I was starting to realize something: I was not really enjoying a lot of this. Yeah, I was making progress at the challenge but I was procrastinating things until the last minute. So much so that I was usually a day behind. On day 29 I was two days behind and managed to complete day 27 just before midnight. I almost decided to call it quits and try again next year.
What happened next was the result of several things. Part of it was some discussions I had in my book club with ArbreBonk and Felowl (we're reading Atomic Habits by James Clear). Part of it was listening to old episodes of the Draftsmen podcast. Part of it was thinking about how effortless it seems for my favourite artists to pick up their pens and draw a fun joke image just because they feel like it. And a lot of it was just sitting around and thinking. I finally realized "Hey, if I have a choice between trying to draw the prompts and having no fun, and just drawing whatever I want, the second one is more likely to get me to actually fucking draw." I then loaded up a Google Images search for "absol" and some pictures of pets in funny poses from r/AccidentalRenaissance. I proceeded to get 3 drawings knocked out in less time than it usually took me to do just one.
Day 31 was the easiest. I drew a spiritual follow-up to a piece a friend sent me of an absol failing to carve a pumpkin.
I think if I learned anything this month, it's that I need to focus more on doing my own thing and keeping it to a manageable size.
I want to make marvelous things! I want to draw like my favourite artists do! But I need to keep some things in mind if I want to actually reach that point:
- I can't keep doing boring studies and copies of references and exercises and drills. I have to dedicate some time to just having fun with the process.
- I need to keep my goals manageable for now. If I keep picking things that are too large, I'll burn out from trying things that are outside of my current skill level.
That first point is kind of... unsurprising. It should be unsurprising. It's part of Lesson Zero of Drawabox. It's part of the first video of Steven Zapata's Form From Imagination course. Plus it just makes sense.
So that's my thoughts. Thank you, if you read this. Hopefully I'll create more fun stuff in the future!
I tried doing Inktober last year but was quickly distracted by my friends getting me into the game Satisfactory. As far as I can tell without looking to deeply, I didn't make it past day 6. It was disheartening, and I wanted to try again this year.
I started out strong. I feel like I did solid jobs at the first six or so prompts. I copied references from Google or Ebay. I had fun trying to do some basic shading using my neglected alcohol markers. It was nice to try out new things and finally get back to drawing after a month and a half of not drawing.
Then day 8 hit and I realized that the similarities of the prompts was going to be an issue. The words "trek", "hike", "roam", "drive", and "expedition" were all on the list - but I didn't have the creative energy to do all of those. Especially because I felt like I cheated at "trek" by doing a silhouette instead of a proper figure. (I was honestly a bit embarrassed posting it to various Discord servers.) So for day 8 - "hike" - I decided to spend some time doing a basic study of a certain box cat artist. I haven't shared it because it really just feels like copying.
Day 9 was another day that felt like a cheat because I diverted to playing with my color alcohol markers instead of the traditional black-and-white. On the other hand, it was also one of the most fun days.
Days 10 and 11 were unremarkable - just me trying to copy internet references again.
Day 12's prompt of "remote" was fun because I tried to make my own thing again. I tried to take some inspiration from the Teams calls I'm on at work. I know it's hard to make out, but the four "cameras" are a seal, a lion, an antelope, and a "no camera" icon (inspired by my manager, a senior team member, a member of the network team, and me, respectively).
Days 13 though 23 were mostly uneventful except that I forgot day 14. But I made up for it by forgetting I'd already done day 19 one night and doing it a second time. Day 23 was slightly more fun because I tried copying a screenshot of the game Rust. Everything but day 20 was a copy of a reference, again. I started using previous years' prompts to make things more interesting for me. I would repeatedly draw a pencil sketch and throw it out because it was too much to try to do in one night.
Day 24 was me falling back on color as a crutch for feeling bad about figure drawing. Unlike day 9, I put more effort into color blending. It actually turned out pretty nice. I daresay I'm actually happy with it.
Day 25 through 27 was another string of copying references. By this time, I was starting to realize something: I was not really enjoying a lot of this. Yeah, I was making progress at the challenge but I was procrastinating things until the last minute. So much so that I was usually a day behind. On day 29 I was two days behind and managed to complete day 27 just before midnight. I almost decided to call it quits and try again next year.
What happened next was the result of several things. Part of it was some discussions I had in my book club with ArbreBonk and Felowl (we're reading Atomic Habits by James Clear). Part of it was listening to old episodes of the Draftsmen podcast. Part of it was thinking about how effortless it seems for my favourite artists to pick up their pens and draw a fun joke image just because they feel like it. And a lot of it was just sitting around and thinking. I finally realized "Hey, if I have a choice between trying to draw the prompts and having no fun, and just drawing whatever I want, the second one is more likely to get me to actually fucking draw." I then loaded up a Google Images search for "absol" and some pictures of pets in funny poses from r/AccidentalRenaissance. I proceeded to get 3 drawings knocked out in less time than it usually took me to do just one.
Day 31 was the easiest. I drew a spiritual follow-up to a piece a friend sent me of an absol failing to carve a pumpkin.
I think if I learned anything this month, it's that I need to focus more on doing my own thing and keeping it to a manageable size.
I want to make marvelous things! I want to draw like my favourite artists do! But I need to keep some things in mind if I want to actually reach that point:
- I can't keep doing boring studies and copies of references and exercises and drills. I have to dedicate some time to just having fun with the process.
- I need to keep my goals manageable for now. If I keep picking things that are too large, I'll burn out from trying things that are outside of my current skill level.
That first point is kind of... unsurprising. It should be unsurprising. It's part of Lesson Zero of Drawabox. It's part of the first video of Steven Zapata's Form From Imagination course. Plus it just makes sense.
So that's my thoughts. Thank you, if you read this. Hopefully I'll create more fun stuff in the future!
Category Artwork (Traditional) / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 1342 x 1061px
File Size 981.6 kB
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