Inktober 2019

I try to do inktober every year and each time I do it I hit the same snag. Every year starts with much excitement, ink shopping and ideas. But each time I do this, my ideas are FAR too ambitious to carry through every single day over a period of a month. This results in me making it to about the 15th to 20th day of October before finally giving up.

This year I decided it would be different. This time was was going to work smarter, not harder. My idea was to take ONE character, and then draw that character fitting each prompt of the day. The idea was to take something smaller, cartoonier and simpler and make it last. In this case I chose my bearded dragon, Kahlua. And for the first time in my life I was able to FINISH inktober - ALL 31 days!

The experiment was so successful that I had inadvertently created a beloved character that many people ended up contacting me to buy. People requested prints and commissions, which was completely unexpected on my part. All in all, a successful year of inktober.

Inktober 2018

Yep, it's been a year since I attempted art. Life has been busy with a lot of OT and little to no time for hobbies. But I thought this would be a good challenge to force myself to do a little every day. But like every year, my theme is far too ambitious and I only make it through half a month before life takes over again - note to self: inktober should be a little simpler.

Nevertheless, here is how far I managed to get with Mythical Monsters from around the world. A list made by Moragot. It was fun and interesting while it lasted, and it sparked more love for monster art from myself.

Oct 1: Gremlin

Oct 2: Preta

Oct 3: Tatzelwurn

Oct 4: Krampus

Oct 5: Kappa

Oct 6: Mummy

Oct 7: La Cegua

Oct 8: Mandrake

Oct 9: Chupacabra

Oct 10: Tokoloshe

Oct 11: Jorōgumo

Oct 12: Gargoyle

Oct 13: Gorgon 

Oct 14: Werewolf

Oct 15: bubák

Oct 16: Jersey Devil

Oct 17: Owlman

Inktober 2017

Well,  it was an attempt anyway. I was working massive Overtime during October and my ideas became so ambitious that I simply ran out of time to do a drawing every single day. Half way through I decided to start combining themes to catch up, which made for some fun and interesting experiments.

For my first Inktober, I chose to do a list that consisted of  mythical creatures, and I reverted back to  ink on paper. There were so many pros to switching back to traditional drawing for me. For a long time I had been in an artistic  block - never able to finish what I started. The idea of making an illustration 'perfect' also resulted in me never being satisfied enough to finish any art.  This whole exercise forced me to finish a drawing even if it was imperfect. The results were great. It kickstarted my art again, and I was able to progress.

Oct 1: Mermaid

Oct 2: Dryad

Oct 3: Banshee

Oct 4: Dragon

Oct 5: Witch

Oct 6: Centaur

Oct 7: Valkyrie

Oct 8-9: Madremonte; Kumiho

Oct 10-11: Unicorn; Harpie

Oct 12-13: Kelpie; Grim Reaper

Oct 14-15: Selkie; Fairy

Mad Kudu Character Sketch

We've started a fun way to practice some creature design. Initially it was meant to just be animal studies. But the challenge came in when trying to give the study some kind of character design (an emotion/personality). This was a fun way to practice, and this is my first attempt at it. I'll definitely be doing some more in the near future! 

This is a study of a Kudu, an antelope indegenous in my home country, South Africa. They are pretty grand animals... So I turned mine into a mean looking alpha male :)

Skull Studies

Due to being rusty at a lot of illustration techniques and the intense need to learn how to draw monsters one day, I thought it a good idea to start with some skull studies. Building up a library of shapes for me to grab onto when I attempt a bigger project in the future. This is my first batch. At the moment they're only front and side views. In my next batch I'll attempt some 3quarter views :) 

Mechanizing Disney

Because.... I felt like it :)

Done with ink and pens in my A5 sketchbook.

Cute Mechs

Experimenting with the design of cute character mechs. So far we've gone from soldiers, to big war mechs, cyborgs... and now for something new :)

I will add more as I come up with some more ideas!

Designing Barbie Mechs

Welcome to the sketching section of my blog!
There is nothing to see here in terms of final drawings, but I've taken screen caps of some of the sketches I've done in my spare time, done with ink and pens.

In this series, in the spirit of the kitbashing we have been doing (you can see the final versions of them in the kitbashing section of the blog), we've decided to create cyborgs for our next upcoming project - part human, part mech.

I have been experiementing with designs for this one. Here's a peek into the craziness I managed to come up with so far :)

I'll probably add more as I come up with new ideas...

Back in the Day

Dug up some old stuff I did as a teenager... I'd often get bored and just draw something random. These are 3 of them so far:

A dragon I had started, inspired by a story book I think...

A still life exam done in school... we were given 3 hours to complete it.

My mom at the time had been doing pastel wildlife drawings, I thought I'd give it a crack too. :)

Pretty random, but nice to keep past things around to look back on!