INKTOBER!? A Year Went By So FAST!
Hey beautiful followers and contributors! I hope your animation journeys are going very well. If you find a tutorial, lecture, or resource that has helped or inspired you, please feel to share! I love getting submissions, and we all grow through helping each other in these small ways.
I’m even more busy than last year. This is a fun industry, but the hustle is real. I won’t have time to moderate for Inktober this year as much as I love seeing you all participate each time! Instead, I want to make an alternative suggestion:
At the end of the month, make a sketchbook or zine out of your inktobers--basically compile a pdf. I’m sure you’ve seen them by now. People sell them at cons or post them for free online. My favorite method is through gumroad.
Here are some examples:
https://gumroad.com/l/KeRZX
https://gumroad.com/l/dGCPh
https://gumroad.com/l/SCsVA
https://gumroad.com/l/lAaW
As you can see, many people offer to share their downloads on an optional donation basis. You don’t HAVE to sell them to share the file.
Other alternatives are blog posts or youtube flip-throughs or downloads through google drive/dropbox.
However you compile your inktobers, feel free to send a link to the completed set at the end of the month, and I will share them in November, so our thousands of followers can have access to your completed body of work. Mind you, you can submit them any time in November at all.
PROMPTS:
We’ve been providing prompts for 3 years, each year pushing us closer and closer to a more cohesive collection, with last year’s themes revolving around worldbuilding, which many of you managed to pull off with a real flourish. This year I want you to come up with your own prompts. Something that fills you with enough passion to drive you to finish your list. It could be 31 witches, 31 wild plants you’ve found on your hikes, 31 illustrations for an Edgar Allen Poe poem, 31 beautiful women, 31 drawings of your own OC’s or yes, even fanart.
Msg me your link to your completed collection in November (msg, don’t tag--or I won’t see it), and we’ll share it here.
WHY INK? ISN’T THIS AN ANIMATION BLOG?!
Every year I get this question. The answer is because of me. I like it. I subscribe to the Ms. Frizzle approach: Take chances, make mistakes, and get messy. Ink is aggravating but it’s fun like that, and I think the push from the community and the size of the challenge both make for really impressive personal growth. And it has a tactile look that fits October so well. So no, we don’t include digital inking for this blog’s contest, although if you want to do it for yourself, you absolutely 100% should. If you want to skip this and do 31 acrylic bookmark designs for your online store, you should definitely go for that instead. There should be no guilt for not participating. You are valuable as you are, and knowing how to say no to tempting challenges to protect yourself from unneeded stress and time strain (or because another opportunity would serve you better) is also an important life skill. Peer pressure is real in the art community and I’m proud of you wherever you make your stand.
...On the other hand, digital art is also great and I’d like to host a challenge for that as well. The problem is the holidays have a way of wiping this completely from my mind. Let’s put a pin in that and maybe some time around February, when it’s wintery and bleak, we can have a shorter challenge to brighten our spirits.
Other ideas that should have their own posts:
We have a considerable following here and I’ve wanted to make a discord for some time to encourage more interaction and sharing of ideas and resources between all of us. I think it could potentially be a lot more helpful than just a blog, but I wouldn’t be able to run it as I am now. We would need to recruit a couple mods for it. If that’s something you feel qualified to do, please msg me, and I’ll get back to you in a week or two (yes, I’m posting this before I go on vacation :3).
-VEE
