As I write this, it is October 15th, which means I am officially 15 days though my first Inktober. If you don’t know what Inktober is, it is a drawing challenge, created by artist Jake Parker, that happens during the month of October. Read more about it here.
I decided to participate in Inktober this year as a way to improve my drawing skills, and to try techniques and products that I may not have otherwise. I can already tell that I have learned so much the last 15 days, and I am constantly being challenged creatively by the daily prompts.
Because Inktober is so intimidating to inexperienced creatives, like myself, I decided to do a short How To on how I do Inktober and how I created my drawing for today
Date: October 15th
Prompt: Legend
For today’s prompt I decided to draw my favorite urban LEGEND, a sasquatch.
I started my drawing by doing a light outline of what I was going to draw, using a Tombow MONO Graph Mechanical Pencil and White MONO eraser. My pencil happens to be in light green, because it came in one of my Tombow VIP boxes, but there are several colors on the Tombow site.
After finishing my rough outline, I went back in with the same pencil and eraser, and added more detail.
My next step was to go in with a MONO Drawing Pen 05 and go over the pencil marks that I had just done, to make them permanent and actually start forming the final drawing. While doing this step, I trace my pencil markings very closely, but I also make new marks where I want something to look a little bit different.
After I finished tracing, I went over the drawing with my eraser and got rid of any pencil marks peeping out from the pen drawing.
My next step was to pick out a set of Tombow Dual Brush Pens that I thought could be used to color in my drawing. Before I lay a color down on my final drawing, I use a blank page to test out the colors and choose the ones that I’m actually going to use. I’ve ruined countless pieces by putting a color on my final piece that was very different than what I wanted, so I try to always do this now so I know what I’m getting myself into. For this drawing, I had several options for the dark brown that I wanted to use for the sasquatch body/fur, but eventually settled on color 947 for the fur and 992 for the face/hands/feet.
I started coloring everything in by doing the face first, so that I could cover any stray marks with the darker color.
When I was coloring in the body of my sasquatch, I wasn’t too careful to not overlap my lines, because the darker places where my lines overlapped created a nice texture for the fur.
Once I was completely finished coloring, I went in with a thinner MONO drawing pencil, the 01 size, and created additional fur texture by adding tiny lines all over the body of my sasquatch. These lines were meant to resemble fur lines and made the drawing seem a bit more realistic.
My final step, to commemorate the prompt and date of drawing, was to take a gray Tombow Fudenosuke Brush Pen and handletter the prompt and date on the side of the page.
I forgot to mention that the surface I am drawing on (and completed all of my Inktober drawings in) is the Plumchester Square Sketchbook. The specific book that I am using is the Inktober edition, which is only different from their classic purple sketchbook, in cover design. I am using the 8.3in X 8.3in sketchbook, but there’s also a smaller 6 X 6 size available.
I hope this simple How To helps you see that Inktober doesn’t have to be as difficult or complicated as it originally seems! Here’s to the final 16 days of Inktober!
All of the work displayed in this blog is my original work, and my images cannot be used without my permission. Feel free to comment with any constructive criticisms, suggestions, or plain comments! Any requests for commission can be sent to me at katielamberth.art@gmail.com.
Katie Anne Art 