Here's how to make Inktober your own
Art by Miranda Hoover
SHOW LINKS
INKTOBER 2020 PROMPT LIST (AND RULES!)
How do I do Inktober? Why not hear from the founder -- Jake Parker, as well as artists Lee White and Will Terry, as they discuss the benefits of challenging yourself by doing a drawing a day for the whole month, as well as offer advice on different approaches to the prompt list. They also discuss their ideas for three different prompts from the 2020 list!
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INTRO
Episode 59: This question is from Dean:
Will mentions that he wished he’d kept a journal recording when he had learned certain artistic principles during his work at BYU. I do something similar when I have a creative idea, whether it’s an animation, sculpture or similar, I track when and where I am, and what sparked the inspiration. What do you think of this habit for an artist?
Jake keeps a journal but it’s less about techniques and more about inspiration -- different films or books he’s read, or ideas that he has had for stories. He goes back and rewatches stuff that matches his ideas. It’s a traditional, physical journal. He doesn’t keep digital journals.
Lee recommends Microsoft OneNote, it’s awesome for categorization. It includes images or links.
Sometimes you learn things over time, and you don’t know that you are learning something as you learn it. That is a flaw in the journaling system.
Question from Josh:
What five major moves made the most difference in moving your art forwards and becoming a professional artist?
Jake’s major move was making a portfolio that was specific to the job he wanted. It was so specific and focused that when his employers looked through it, it qualified him for what they were looking for directly.
Lee’s move was showing a body of work, and then stepping past that body of work. Showing his work in a scholarship review let him move past his old work. The second major move: Lee stopped trying to mimic what “illustration” was supposed to be and just made stuff that he wanted to make, and followed his instinct, and it was noticed a lot more.
Will’s major move was to stop going after the money, and go after what he artistically cared about, and the money followed on from that. His other would be when he started seeing money as a tool rather than what he could get for his personal use. Investing in direct mail postcards at the start of his career was incredibly difficult, but it paid off and he built his career off of it.
The lesson isn’t just about sending out mailers, it is about learning how money can work for you, and how to invest in paying people to promote your work or doing fanart of your work, or other avenues of getting your work out there.
What is the ultimate end? Followers are nice but they might not get you hired by Marvel or get you a job in the animation industry. Your portfolio will. Put your work in front of the right eyes.
INKTOBER
Happy Inktober! This October, artists do an ink drawing every day of the month of October (It doesn’t have to be ink!).
Why do it? It grows your social media, if you do it well -- Will gained thousands of followers (4-5k). It also forces you to do a project and have a body of work at the end of it that you can use for other things. Will’s plan was to sell the characters he drew at a show in Vegas that was cancelled because of COVID. It was a great kick in the pants that helped Will do a big project of his own. You should try and do it for yourself, not for the sake of the trend.
Lee is going to do it this year, and he is taking a 6 month sabbatical from professional work so he wants to use this as a chance to push himself and explore the medium of ink.
One of the great things and hard things about Inktober is the fact that if your heart's not in it, it can be really difficult and uncomfortable. But doing it when you are committed can be really beneficial. You can get a lot of followers from it because it gets eyes on your work. It should be a form of play, where you can experiment and try and get better at your craft.
Will prefers doing his work digitally. He couldn’t do an inktober image in a couple of hours because of his style, so he enjoys working digitally so he can move faster. People like rules and like to constrict art based on those rules, it isn’t generally useful to view things in those ways.
It’s often a good idea to use a singular theme, so that you can potentially sell your images later or use them for different purposes. An image can function in many different ways.
THE START OF INKTOBER
The first year that Jake did Inktober, there was no prompt list -- there wasn’t even social media at the time, just a really early version of Facebook and Twitter. No Instagram or Tumblr. It was 2009. Jake was posting on his blog, and they were random images at the time. The second year, he had to decide if it was going to be a regular thing or just a once off thing. He injured himself and broke a ton of bones in his face, so he took a year off. He did 2011 and posted on his blog and flickr. In 2012 he started doing it as a story, instead of random images. The next year he was still doing random images, but they were thematically linked -- concept art for a story he wanted to do. He started seeing prompt lists for other social media challenges so he used those prompt lists for his own Inktober work. He has also done huge posters with characters that he adds every single day.
INKTOBER APPROACHES
What are some approaches to doing Inktober?
Thematically linked.
Huge poster with characters each day.
Learn to use ink/experiment with medium.
Make a goal to just get better with Inking.
Inktober and chill -- get done with the day and just draw to unwind, you could do something simple like calligraphy or patterns.
Draw patterns that could become a licensed product.
Lee wants to do one with weird superstitions from all around the world.
How do you approach a prompt? You don’t have to do them, but they can be really helpful. The official prompt list is here:
The first one is “Fish”, how creative can you be in regards to this prompt? There are the obvious approaches, but you could also use it as a verb, or symbolically what it could represent. Lee also would like to try using a separate list of words to match with his first so that he has a randomized prompt list.
You could decide to do vehicles or animals or something like that, and mixing it with the prompt. You could also do whatever you want and then make it tangentially related to the prompt -- a van with a fish logo on the side. If you are not excited about drawing, keep exploring and trying until you find something you want to do. Do what you want for Inktober!
Lee recommends doing what you think the art director wants, and also do what you want -- a lot of the time they will go with what you wanted originally.
Stock photo and footage websites are a great resource for elaborating on your idea -- if you type the prompt word into one of those sites, you could get some examples of what people expect, and you could also use it as a way to subvert expectations.
LINKS
Jake Parker: mrjakeparker.com. Instagram: @jakeparker, Youtube: JakeParker44
Will Terry: willterry.com. Instagram: @willterryart, Youtube: WillTerryArt
Lee White: leewhiteillustration.com. Instagram: @leewhiteillo
Daniel Tu: danieltu.co.
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