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INKTOBER: DAY 31: AWARD - Well, we did it. 31 paintings in 31 days! Despite the universe’s best efforts, we got there. I’ll probably take a little break now, until inspiration hits again, because I’m fried! I hope you’ve enjoyed even a little bit of what I’ve done. Which one has been your favourite?

INKTOBER: DAY 30: VACANT - Almost there… I had a few ideas for this one. Glass, abandoned houses, Sex Pistols… but eventually went with a wee zombie with a vacant expression. When you’re poorly, you just roll with what you think you can do at the time. Saying that, I actually love this guy, and could see him joining the three OCs I revisited during Inktober. He’d need a better name though - I’ve taken to calling him “Sprout” in my head, but he doesn’t really look like a Sprout, does he?

INKTOBER: DAY 29: LESSON - This one pairs up with “Rowdy”, as I chose to depict Tiffany Aching for “Lesson”, Hag o’ The Feegles and apprentice witch. If you haven’t read the books she features in, you absolutely should, as nobody wrote witches and witchcraft as well as Sir Terry Pratchett did. (I still can’t bring myself to read the final one though…)

This one was prepped in a wonderful bar called Baba Yaga’s, @babayagaswb - which has regular art exhibitions and events. They also do a very good cup of coffee. One day I’ll get a print up in there, if I find out how.

INKTOBER: DAY 27: ONION - I should do a map of places I’ve worked on these. This was prepped in a sunny window of a cafe in a seaside town. Accompanied by iced tea in an ornately patterned glass, with a very nice feta/pesto toastie. Shout outs to the people who came to see what I was doing, especially the very little ones who liked the onion lady. I do too. A nice easy prompt, this one, and I love how she turned out. Might put this one on a tee.

INKTOBER: DAY 26: PUZZLING - I can’t really say I’m the biggest fan of Hellraiser, and yet I seem to reference it every year. After being told off for attempting to draw Pinhead (again) I ended up using the puzzle box itself to inspire a character.

INKTOBER: DAY 25: INFERNO - This one was running dangerously close to “Blast”, so I tried to make it as different as possible. I looked at a lot of fire-themed characters, and settled on this one from Fate/Grand Order - a female version of Ibaraki Doji, the famous Japanese oni. I put her kimono patterns on her face, because they were so pretty, and now the whole thing reminds me of old CLAMP mangas, which I’m not mad about at all.

INKTOBER: DAY 24: ROWDY - We currently have Covid, so I’m just going to do my best for the rest of Inktober. For ‘rowdy’ I chose to draw one of the Nac Mac Feegle, the rambunctious wee piskies from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. Discworld was a huge part of my life growing up and the Feegles are among my favourite charqcters. Mainly because I now have children, and can relate to the idea of trying to keep a bunch of mini hooligans in check…

INKTOBER: DAY 23: FIREFLY - So remember when I said I had a trio of characters that fit into the prompts this year? This is the second one. His name is Phooey, and he’s a will o’ wisp/headless horseman type of character. He’s extremely baby, as he’s scared of most things and spends his time hiding behind Oob. He’s very sweet and usually wears a big scarf to hide the fact his head floats several inches above the rest of him.

INKTOBER: DAY 22: BUTTON - I don’t know why “Button” made me think of mice. I had a sketch, and then one of the LittleNones came out with “is it one of the circus mice from Coraline?” Well… it was after that. This one is dedicated to them ❤️

INKTOBER: DAY 21: BLAST - Kept it simple today (me, panicking about Inktober? Surely not…). This is Katsuki Bakugo, from the series My Hero Academia. He’s also known as the Bombshell Hero: Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight, and if that doesn’t give you a clue as to why I chose him, I don’t know what to say to you. His entire personality AND his superhero power is literally explosive.

INKTOBER: DAY 20: RIVALS - I think I do the heaven/hell thing every year in one form or another. I can’t help it, it’s a favourite of mine, although I’ve tried not to go too horror-y this year. This time I had an excuse to draw chubby little cupids, and I took it. I think I could develop a while series of them, in the style of My Little Ponies. Rainbow cherubs with tattooed cutie marks might need to happen.

INKTOBER: DAY 19: ARCTIC - “Arctic” comes from the Greek ἄρκτος (árktos) ‘bear’ - which doesn’t actually refer to polar bears, but rather the bear constellation, Ursa Major. It’s the place under The Bear. So I have a character who is also under a bear, AND features the constellation. However the real star of the show, and the thing I’m going to need you to google immediately, are Inuit dancing polar bear sculptures. They are MAGICAL and everybody needs to see them at least once. I don’t know how I spent my entire life thus far without them.

INKTOBER: DAY 18: DEAL - I think I’ve done a few variations of this character over the years. Just randomly drawn to wee white rabbit magician’s assistant girls, clearly. There’s no deep meaning to this one, I just wanted to do something card-related with some bright colours. She turned out adorable ❤️

INKTOBER: DAY 17: ORNATE - Oh I love this one. Based on the works of James Jean, this was drawn while I sat in a very nice coffee shop. I had some iced tea, one of the best toasties I’ve ever eaten, and some wonderful company. I love how it turned out. This is dedicated to that lovely group of women who shower me with support when I need it. May you all have a group of superior support weirdos like mine!

So today’s prompt is “blunder”, and my head was fully empty when I started this. What could I do? Then a figure emerged, and crashed into my brain - Mr Bean. Mr Bean is just one of many famous “blundering” characters in UK comedy (we love them over here) - and so whatever this is was born.

INKTOBER: DAY 15: RAGGED - Halfway there! My initial thought process for this prompt was “run ragged”, and have it featuring some kind of rabbit. But then I thought… there’s a very fine reference for ragged rabbits, and that’s Watership Down. (Please don’t go and watch it, it’s wretched.) This handsome fellow is General Woundwort and as you can see, I very much embraced the “run ragged’ idea alongside a bit of “Ragdoll”. I very much enjoy the scribbles and textures in this one - it’s the only one so far where I’ve used digital watercolour.