Presenting all 31 Inktober drawings from 2018! This was my first year doing Inktober, and it was an exhausting, nerve-wracking experience! But, it was also a wonderful exercise where I actually felt as if I learned something!
Tap each image to see it larger, and tap again to see more information.
For more thoughts on Inktober, check out these blog posts:
Inktober, the Scariest Thing in October!
Inktober 2018: Into the Breach!
And check out the Inktober 2018 Art Book available now in the shop!
To learn more about Inktober, visit www.Inktober.com.
Inktober 2018 Day 01 Posionous
Day one of the 2018 Inktober art challenge! Clearly I was sticking to familiar territory here. I went back after the original image posted to Facebook, and added the background with the skull.
Inktober 2018 Day 02: Tranquil
Day 02 and I was sticking with the ladies. After uploading the original to Facebook, I decided to go back and add the background with the moons and stars.
Inktober 2018 Day 03: Roasted
Ok, here's where I started to have some fun. This little cave girl seems to have stolen some dinner from a certain Mr. Flintstone...
Inktober 2018 Day 04: Spell
This was actually a really old sketch, (circa the early '90s) that was inspired by Black Sabbath's "The Wizard." When I saw the keyword was "Spell" it reminded me of the old sketch, and I dragged it out for Inktober.
Inktober 2018 Day 05: Chicken
This one is a little literary joke, being a reference to Lord Foul, the bad guy in the Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever series. I've actually never read it, but there's a band called Lord Fowl that I really dig - you should check them out!
Inktober 2018 Day 06: Drooling
This was a quick one, but I got to play around with some neat brushes. Also, the addition of a little color was inspired by Frank Miller's Sin City.
Inktober 2018 Day 07: Exhausted
Ah, the day Assassin's Creed Odyssey came out. Yeah, trying to keep up on doing Inktober and play the latest installment of one of my favorite game series certainly was exhausting...
Inktober 2018 Day 08: Star
After a week of Inktober, I started to get into more of a groove, and this is where I started to experiment more. Star was an exercise in texture and trying out some digital brushes in Painter that I usually don't touch.
Inktober 2018 Day 09: Precious
Ok, when the keyword is Precious, what else am I going to do. I went back into this one and touched up the nazgul, as the original had too many! This one also inspired me to do a more complete illustration a few months later.
Inktober 2018 Day 10: Flowing
I thought it would be fun to work in more negative space with the hair. This was actually pretty relaxing, just getting into the long curved brush strokes and finding the shape of the hair.
Inktober 2018 Day 11: Cruel
What's more cruel than a headsman who has an axe that just might not be up to code? I'm not sure if that axe is going to just scare someone on the block, or maybe just make the whole ordeal just a wee bit more painful...
Inktober 2018 Day 12: (Sky) Whale
I'll take whatever chance I can to doodle some flying whales. For this one I decided to add some gray wash to help flesh out the scene - it wasn't until I added the sun behind the trees that I felt the image started to come together.
Inktober 2018 Day 13: Guarded
I didn't do a sketch for this one, but just took an old figure drawing rough and started inking over it, painting in black and white instead of relying on line as I am usually wont to do. Obviously based on Frank Frazetta's classic Death Dealer, I later went back and added the background, as it just needed something more Frazetta-ish back there.
Inktober 2018 Day 14: Clock
It's Tick Tock, from one of my favorite movies, Return to Oz! This image is a reference to a Steampunk RPG that I ran for my friends back in the early 2000s, where I gave the party a Tick Tock man of their very own. Their ultimate plan for such a marvelous gift? Why, to strap him full of explosive and have him lie in wait for a bunch of enemies! The call of Tick Tock yelling, "SURPRISE" still haunts our gaming sessions.
Inktober 2018 Day 14: Weak
After two weeks of Inktober, I was having fun switching up my style. This was an attempt to do something more in the realm of gag cartooning, and I got into the brush work for the fur!
Inktober 2018 Day 16: Angular
I wasn't quite sure what to do here, so again, I tried something new and just had fun inventing a character in a different style.
Inktober 2018 Day 17: Swollen
I decided to do something more whimsical than my usual stuff, and what's more fun than a cartoon style dragon?
Inktober 2018 Day 18: Bottle
Someone described this image as I Dream of Jeannie's little sassy sister. 'Nuff said.
Inktober 2018 Day 19: Scorched
For this I decided not to do any sketching or under drawing, but just work in black and white ink and hack out the idea in shapes. I rely so heavily on line in my day to day work that this excursion was not only fun, but pretty enlightening.
Inktober 2018 Day 20: Breakable
Space suit visors are breakable and so are humans. This day's piece was inspired by Alien, and I decided to explore more of the light and shadow rather than my usual line work.
Inktober 2018 Day 21: Drain
A little bit of linework and bunch of just playing with ink. I'm not sure if that's just a Kraken of Scandinavian folklore, or maybe Mr. Cthulu himself...
Inktober 2018 Day 22: Expensive
"Well, thief. I can smell you, I hear your breath, I feel your air..." Three weeks into Inktober I was definitely getting a little more ambitious with my pieces, and having fun playing with composition.
Inktober 2018 Day 23: Muddy
Believe it or not, this one was kind of a break for me. I took an old doodle from my sketchbook and just went to town on it with a brush. Mmmmm, dat hair, tho!
Inktober 2018 Day 24: Chop
After doing the Death Dealer on a previous day, I figured Conan would be a good subject for "Chop." Working on the textures of hair, axe, and fur was fun.
Inktober 2018 Day 25: Prickly
Richard Adams's Watership Down is one of my most influential books, and the 1978 animated movie that inspired this piece is still great. I thought it would fun to do something mythical and iconic in the vein of the opening sequence from the film.
Inktober 2018 Day 26: Stretch
OK, this was just an excuse to draw Vampi. I was having some fun adding color to some of the images, and thought that Vampirella's signature red would work for costume, blood, and bats. After all, it was getting close to Halloween! I redid her face after first posting to Facebook.
Inktober 2018 Day 27: Lightning
Pitting Thor versus the Midguard Serpent was something that I've always wanted to do. The Thor design is pulled straight from my God of Thunder piece, and the dragon was inspired by the style of Disney's classic, Sleeping Beauty.
Inktober 2018 Day 28: Gift
Can you tell that it was getting closer to Halloween? And what better way to say "Gift" than Jack Skellington? I took the opportunity to go back and fix a few things in this one after it had originally been posted to Facebook.
Inktober 2018 Day 29: Double
Not specifically a reference to Kubrick's version of Steven King's The Shining, but little creepy twin girls are still little creepy twin girls, aren't they? This became an exorcise in creating patterns in negative space that I really enjoyed.
Inktober 2018 Day 30: Jolt
I just thought it would be fun to do a classic, "Creepy Magazine" style zombie! This started a bit simpler, but turned into something more dramatic as I got into it.
Inktober 2018 Day 31: Slice
Back to the barbarian well for my last Inktober 2018 piece. I thought it would be fun to try something more dramatic, play with the composition, and use the frame of the image as part of the illustration itself.