INKTOBER 2022
I first found out about Inktober way back in the day and over the past several years I have tried multiple times to complete the challenge. Sadly, given the circumstances I was never able to create all 31 artworks. Usually, I would stop after 5 artworks as it would become too much for me, while juggling studying and everything else life had to bring.
This year I have decided to join the challenge and do my best to complete it. The decision to participate in this event was mostly made because I needed to somehow kickstart my drive to illustrate, to keep myself accountable someway and, last but not least, to get a bit more used to Photoshop. With October now behind us, I thought it would be a nice opportunity to share my thoughts on this experience.
PROCESS
CREATING THE PROMPT LIST
When I decided that I would be doing the Inktober challenge, I knew that regardless of what my day-to-day schedule would look like, I needed to organise and prepare well in advance in order to actually manage to get through the challenge and finish it. Even then life can have surprises for you and change your plans completely.
The first step was to make my own prompt list for all 31 days and possibly find a theme. The first idea I had was to illustrate the 6 PlayStation consoles, from the very first one to the most recent. Then I was trying to figure out where to go from there. I am a big fan of gadgets, especially of the old-school ones, thus I decided to go in that direction. That ended up adding a few more ideas to my prompt list, but still not enough. I continued adding toys, video games, a few childhood memories and other obsolete objects.
The theme ended up being a mix of nostalgia, childhood and old-school illustrations.
THUMBNAILING AND RESEARCHING
After having my prompt list ready, the next step was to create thumbnails for each illustration to have a better idea of how I wanted to portray each of the chosen ideas. The thumbnails were small and quick sketches that showed mostly the composition and elements for each illustration made traditionally in a sketchbook.
With that step done, I moved on to research. As with many of my chosen objects to illustrate, I had to find reference images that would help me out with the line art and sometimes with understanding how light and shadows worked on particular surfaces. After many days of research, I finally had a folder with all of my required reference images.
CHOOSING A MEDIUM
Next up was choosing my desired medium for creating the illustrations. My most comfortable one would have been traditional media, with possibly ink and pencils. As the challenge was approaching and time was rather limited I have decided that choosing traditional media would have been too time consuming. Decision which brought me to choose Photoshop. For more context, I have never created a full illustration on Photoshop. My experience was just playing around in the software to check different assets for work and that was about it. Photoshop was always scary for me and even though I tried before, I could never get into it, but something convinced me to give it a try.
After the first few illustrations, I did get to ease into the software and get more used to it. The only limitation I gave myself, also to make it easier, was to use only one brush for everything. I have used Kyle’s Drawing Box - Happy HB brush for everything, from drawing the line art to filling in the base colours and adding shadows and highlights. Might seem a harsh decision but it made my life easier as I didn’t have that many choices to overwhelm me.
CREATION WORKFLOW
With the medium chosen, I could finally get started with creating the illustrations. At first, I didn’t have a workflow set up and I kind of just went with what made sense. As I would finish more and more illustrations, I managed to create a much better workflow that in the end helped me quite a lot.
I started with creating the line art for all of the illustrations with the help of the reference images. Once all of them were done I went back to the first prompt on the list and started putting in the colours.
For all of the illustrations, the main layers were the line art, base colours, shadows and highlights. Next to them I would add any needed extra layers to try out various approaches or effects. In case it was a more complex illustration and more elements were included I would separate the layers in folders for each element.
The background was always the last to go in and I would create it depending on what worked best with the main illustrated object. If there would be time and would have an idea, I would create a bit more complex backgrounds.
When the background was done and had one last look at the illustration, I would export it and then post it on Instagram daily once the challenge started.
LESSONS I’VE LEARNED
Along my adventure of creating the illustrations I have learned quite a few lessons, which I will take with me for future projects.
ZOOM OUT
The first thing I have learned was that I was working too zoomed in and focused on one area too much. Sometimes the area I was working on looked nicely when I zoomed into it, but once I would zoom out it wouldn’t look as I expected it. Other times, I would lose too much time on an area and the rest would be left behind and I would not have time to make it as detailed as I wanted to. This made me realise that I needed to zoom out more often or to even draw from a further perspective. By doing this I would progress faster and the illustration would look more as a whole.
DON’T OVERWORK IT
The lesson I have mentioned above is tightly linked to this next one, which is to not overwork your illustration. You can easily get lost in your creation process and forget that you might be overdoing it. Most artists feel they can do better or add something more to their creation in order to make it perfect, but sometimes it is not necessary. It’s hard to get to know that moment, however with experience you can have a better sense when you need to stop.
NOTHING IS PERFECT
There are moments when you love your creation and when you do not. Sometimes you can even sense that the outcome will not be as perfect as you wanted it to be and that is okay. It’s a lesson I am still working on but getting better at this means you get to enjoy the process more and work on more creations instead of getting stuck.
SWITCHING IT UP
As you work on more complex and long-term projects, it can happen that you either get bored, frustrated or even start procrastinating. In order to not get stuck in a rut, I would have multiple illustrations open, that are at different stages in the creation process. If I would sense myself not wanting to continue with an illustration, I would try switching to a different one. If that also does not help, a break is always welcome and helpful to reset yourself and to perceive things differently.
ENJOY THE PROCESS
Luckily, this year, even though the circumstances were not the best, I got to enjoy taking part in this challenge. Even if towards the end I felt burned out a bit, during most of the challenge I felt really good and actually proud of myself and the illustrations I created (which I must say, does not happen too often). If something does not give you a tiny bit of joy, do not feel guilty of wanting to give up on it. You gave it a try and that is what matters.
LIFE HAPPENS
When setting off into these kind of challenges or even if you work on a time limited project, life can happen and make you change your plans. I have learned that I need to let it go and change my plans as I go. We are always trying our best and it is only normal that things sometimes do not go according to the plan you set up.
REFERENCES HELP… A LOT
I never really shied away from using references as they can be educational. You can understand better how light and shadow hit various textures and forms, how a gadget works with all of those complicated pieces and so on. Seeing references of the things you want to create in your own way can make your life so much easier and teach you a lot of things if observing close enough.
PHOTOSHOP
Photoshop has been an amazing software to work with and I wish to continue developing my skills. It can be daunting at the beginning, but once you get to know it better, it can make your creative process so much easier. You can try different approaches faster and easier, you can undo mistakes, create various effects and so much more. Now that the challenge is done, I would love to set my tablet aside and go back for a bit to traditional medium.
EXPERIENCE
One month has flown by so fast and all of the 31 illustrations are done and posted. This challenge has been quite the experience and, as you have seen, I have learned quite a few things throughout the month of October. Of course, these are not mind blowing lessons and they can be learned throughout your own creative journey at a slower pace.
Given I have not completed an illustration in years and that my only exercises were a few tiny sketches every couple of months, I was really happy with the outcome. I thought that maybe I would have forgotten how to illustrate and feared that I would be too scared to actually push through. I cannot say what exactly drove me, but it just clicked. The theme, the challenge, the medium and possibly even the timing, they all clicked in my mind.
With all that aside, I did get the burned out feeling when I entered the last week of October and I was struggling a bit. It is definitely not a healthy way to keep up to create illustrations as it is always go go go and with few breaks. Both your mental and physical health can be affected by this type of workflow.
FUTURE CHALLENGES
I am really happy that I have participated and completed this challenge for once, however I do not think I will participate in another daily challenge anytime soon. I saw a lot of different challenges during October, which chose to take a slower approach with fewer entries. That might be a possible option for next year.
In the meantime, I am moving forward with some personal projects that will take some time to plan and research, thus the process will take a longer time. I am excited for this next chapter and cannot wait to share more!