Inktober 2019: day 31 - mapping pen and ink wash

The Mirror Twins and their friend wish you a happy Hallowe’en! Be careful who you greet after dark.

I posted a terrible, late-night photo of this on twitter just to prove I finished it on time, because it was so close to midnight!

Inktober 2019: day 29 - Pentel pocket brush and ink wash

Berix isn’t crying, those tear tracks are permanent stains caused by a hallucinogenic drug.

Just time enough to introduce one more new person! Berix is another courtesan of the Dai Empress. His people make extensive use of mind-altering drugs, so one of his special skills is formulating them for courtiers. He enjoys music.

Inktober 2019: day 23 - Pentel pocket brush and ink wash (G-pen for the strings)

Here’s another character we haven’t met before, although you may have seen his eye if you’ve been here a while. Jothan is a courtesan at the palace of the Dai Empress, with music among his specialist skills. His people never show their open mouths, so he wears a veil if he’s been asked to sing as well as play.

(The harp design isn’t final, I think it should be a bit less symmetrical.)

Inktober 2019: day 18 - fineliners and ink wash

Jessie can summon lightning even on a clear day.

I spent a good 20 minutes just staring at my sketchbook drawing a total blank on ideas, so in the end I decided to extend the ‘girls looking straight forward’ set from last year. Maybe I’ll do a few more?

Inktober 2019: day 13 - brush inking and ink wash

A character we haven’t really met before! This is ‘Sapling’, the Dai Empress, in extremely casual clothes. This might even be something like pyjamas. She rules a vast empire that spans more than half a galaxy.

I normally try not to use the same inking method two days in a row, but carrying bottles of ink to and from work was making me nervous so I thought I’d better do all the brush inking at the weekend. I did use different brushes though!

Inktober 2019: day 9 - dip pen and ink wash

The Mirror Twins have spotted a potential new friend.

I’m getting really tired so I tried to keep this one simple, but it actually took longer than yesterday’s picture!

Inktober 2019: day 4 - Pentel pocket brush and ink wash

Lottie wears her hair over that eye for a reason.

This one snuck past my 90-minute time limit, I'm not as quick with the brush pen as I thought!

Inktober 2018 : Happy Hallowe'en!

Happy Hallowe’en! The Mirror Twins are looking for some new friends, if you’d like to join them.

No Tabitha this year! I had so many Tabitha pictures that I recently made them into a set of postcards, so I thought it was time to try something different. I don’t think I’ve ever tried ink wash over hatching like this before, so maybe this will be my next Hallowe’en tradition?

Inktober 2018 : Day 27 - Pentel Pocket Brush and ink wash

One more for the ‘girls looking straight at the camera’ set! It was hard inking the Mirror Girl with such a thick pen, but it was one of the only ones I hadn’t used yet for this set.

You can tell I was at MCM this weekend because all the pictures become extremely simple.

Inktober 2018 : Day 24 - Pentel Pocket Brush and ink wash

I felt too sick to come up with an interesting composition so I went for broke on the hair. On the plus side, I haven't been happy with how I draw Nat's hair for years and I'm really pleased with it in this one, so I've made progress!

Inktober 2018 : Day 11 - brush inking and ink wash

Levitating is Nettle's equivalent of fidgeting.

I only have a short shift at work today so I hoped to do something more impressive, but I was so tired that this was all I could manage. I did try to ink with a brush though, which is something I still want to practice more.

Inktober 2018 : Day 2 - Pentel Pocket Brush and ink wash

Alexis is a type of angel made to interact with humans, so even his unnatural features look soft and friendly. He likes loose, fluffy clothes like jumpers and scarves.

My Pentel Pocket Brush is one of my favourite pens, but I don't think I've mastered it yet. I usually do my inks in two or three steps but with a brush pen it seems it's better to make one line and then leave it alone. I'm going to try to use it more this Inktober to see if I can really get the hang of it.

Inktober 2017 - Part 3

Day 21 : fineliners and felt tip pens - Eventually the school agreed that Nettle should just sit out of P.E. lessons.

Day 22 : mapping pen and brush pen - "It followed us home, can we keep it?"

I was hoping for this one to have a more scary feel, but the Mirror Twins seem to be too cute and are taking away from the horror of the black dog. I'm pleased with the composition though.

Day 23 : G-pen - Tree fairies of his type don't usually venture very far from their home tree, so Sweetpea has never seen a sweet chestnut before.

Day 24 : brush inking and coloured ink - I regretted not using coloured ink for the flames on day 1 every time I opened the sketchbook, so I finally relented and did a new version of the same concept, this time with coloured ink.

Day 25 : cartridge pen - Lottie is fairly sure she shouldn't talk to the Crow Boy, but she doesn't really want him to leave either.

Day 26 : mapping pen - Sweetpea's ear frills, like the leaves on his tree, turn brown and fall off in Autumn. Also like the leaves on his tree, they tend not to go at the same time.

Day 27 : fineliners and grey pens - The next three were all done while helping Sammy at MCM! It's very hard to find time to do anything else while at a convention, so I feel quite proud of myself for not falling behind. While we were on a bus Sammy requested some more pictures of Poppet's friends, 'with a musical instrument', so here are the two we didn't see in the teacup picture earlier.

Day 28 : brush pen and ink wash - Louise's house also plays host to a slightly alarming type of house fairy called Lob-Lie-By-The-Fire. He looks a little more frightening than most house fairies, but he just wants to sit by your fire and help with the washing up.

I still can't quite believe I managed to do this one after spending 9 hours selling comics in a packed convention hall, and a further 45 minutes on a bus.

Day 29 : fineliners and felt tip pens - I caught con lurgy so this was one of the hardest ones to do all month, I felt dreadful while I was drawing it! It's also very hard to draw when one has to stop every 5 seconds to blow one's nose. Still, it looks pretty good I think.

Leilus has a lot of features he could choose as his 'I am a demon' warning sign, but the tongue is the obvious best choice because it can be hidden inside his mouth. The stereotypical spaded tail would probably be the worst.

Day 30 : ink and water - Well, it seems I finally ran out of steam and had to settle for one that I really wasn't happy with. I wanted to draw Nat one more time because it was the last day, but I was still ill and didn't have the brain power to get him on model or work out a good composition. I probably should have used a different pen too, but I'd hardly used ink and water at all! I should have been sensible and opted for something with less risk, but these are the lessons we learn in Inktober.

One of the reasons Nat keeps his hair so long is that it's usefully prehensile.

Just a Hallowe'en picture still to come!

Part 1, Bonus Picture, Part 2, Hallowe'en

Inktober 2017 - Part 2

Day 11 : fineliners and grey pen - If you didn't want to share your fancy tea with the house hobs, you shouldn't have left it unattended.

Day 12 : brush pen and coloured ink - Demons aren't allowed to walk around in human shape without at least one tell-tale feature.

Day 13 : ink and water - If only it really were just sleep paralysis

Day 14 : G-pen (and a brush for the black) - Shasta's face is not the most comforting sight to see looming over you when you wake up in a strange, dark world.

Day 15 : mapping pen (and others) - This one is a bit of a hodge-podge, it's mostly mapping pen, but I used a brush pen for the black and the effects on the ribbons, and a fineliner for the string.

A bundle of oak, ash and thorn twigs tied with red string will ward off fairies, both good and bad.

Day 16 : gel pens - Wipe that glamour off your face Trispin, Ely isn't impressed. I have a super-fine gel pen (0.25) that I rarely use, so I gave it a try for the hatching on this one. I like it but it's just so scratchy! I had to keep stopping to pick paper fibres out of the nib.

Day 17 : fineliners and grey pen - Lottie's 'friends' snuck up on her while she was reading. Partly inked on a moving train!

Day 18 : brush pen and ink wash - Isaac knows a lot of sung prayers, but he doesn't remember where he learned them. This one was partly inspired by Heikala's lovely process videos, I'd never seen someone get such a fine line out of a Pentel Pocket Brush and I wanted to try it myself. I also found a spare waterbrush pen so I've filled it with diluted ink, which means I can use ink wash when I'm out of the house as well.

Accurate skeletal hand brought to you by A Colour Atlas of Clinical Anatomy, since I was drawing this one at work at the medical library.

Day 19 : cartridge pen - I draw Lena in shiro-lolita a lot because it looks cute, but in reality she and Lucas don't have a lot of money and this old, eyelet lace dress is the only party frock she owns. This is another one finished on the train because I was determined to go to bed when I got home.

Day 20 : gel pen - Oof. This one is definitely in the 'why have I done this to myself' category. I sketched it in the morning, but didn't have time to ink it until late in the evening, and it took until 1:30am! What's worse, this sort of cross-hatching looks like absolute arse until it's nearly finished, so for most of that time I didn't even know how it was going to turn out. Thank goodness it looks okay.

Someone walking past might not see the shadow, but it's there.

Part 1, Bonus Picture, Part 3, Hallowe'en

Inktober 2017 - Part 1

It's finally here! Inktober is my favourite art challenge of the year, here's the first 10 days!

Day 1 : brush inking - In the spirit of self-improvement I started with a brush, since I don't usually ink that way. I think it came out quite well, although in hindsight I wish I'd done the fire in coloured ink so it would stand out a bit more. I don't know if Nat needs more practice controlling it or if he wants it to run up his fingers like that.

Day 2 : G-pen - The Mirror Twins have many friends to talk to. So on this day I was out of the house from 6:45am to 10pm because I had a shift at both jobs, AND I had come down with a horrible, horrible cold, so frankly I'm extremely proud of this one just because, despite all of that, it looks okay.

Day 3 : fineliners and grey pen - This was another long day and another day full of cold, so I'm also very happy that Sweetpea looks okay in this one! I've never drawn him dolly-style before.

Day 4 : fineliners and felt tip - Franz's nosebleed is brought to you by the dire state of my nose on this day. I'd had the cold for 3 days at this point and my nose was shredded from all the tissues! I also forgot that I try not to use the same pens two days in a row, I was very tired.

Day 5 : gel pen - I think it hurts Jessie to channel lightning through her body like that, but it's the only combat magic she knows. I can't believe how well this one turned out since I was still trying to get rid of that cold and still at work!

Day 6 : fineliners and felt tip - Finally I had a day off work! It was such a relief! I realised last year I've done a version of this picture every Inktober since 2014 (in a different ink each time), so now I want to keep going and see whether I run out of ideas or ink methods first.

This year Nettle is trying to practice moving only the things she wants to move, but I don't think she'll ever be able to use her powers without some of her hair floating around. Turning the pages for Spider is by far the hardest part of this exercise.

Day 7 : mapping pen - Caspian finds it harder to hold his human shape when he feels threatened. This one was a lesson in paying attention to ALL your materials, I thought my pen nib wasn't cooperating but it turned out to be the ink, not the pen.

Day 8 : ink wash - I wanted to use masking fluid for this one but I turned out not to have any, so instead I just had to be really, really careful painting around Louise.

Later in life she will know better than to follow the forest lights, but when she first moved in with her foster parents she didn't know what they were.

Day 9 : gel pen - If you pick a magical fight with Nat under the assumption that he'll be as unprepared as his sister, you will get yourself seriously hurt. I sort of wish this one had more movement, but at the time I wanted him to look more controlled than Jessie.

Day 10 : ink and water - One of Sweetpea's Autumn jobs is to bless and plant some of the acorns from his tree, to ensure its children grow in good spots.

Bonus Picture, Part 2, Part 3, Hallowe'en

Inktober 2016 - Part 3

Part 3 of Inktober! I continued to struggle to find time to do these, but I'm happy with most of them anyway.

Day 21 - mapping pen : Autumn is a good season for fairy-spotting. I was absolutely exhausted when I drew this so I'm surprised it turned out okay!

Day 22 - G-pen and grey pen : I suspected my G-pen was misbehaving so I drew something simple to test it, I'm still not sure if something's wrong with it or not.

Day 23 - brush pen : I don't have a good bead on what Trispin's glamour makes him look like, possibly just cleaner? I was so pleased with the sketch for this that I think it was very brave of me to ink it with my brush pen, probably the pen with which I need most improvement. Inktober is supposed to be a way to get better at using ink after all!

Day 24 - G-pen : I had a long day and felt like drawing something cute.

Day 25 - ink and water : The Crow Boy has lots of friends.

Day 26 - mapping pen : I already drew Ely with her glamour on, so here she is without it. She's just as disgusting as Trispin.

Day 27 - brush inking and ink wash : I've never drawn the Crow Boy dolly-style before. It doesn't really suit him, which presents a problem because it does suit Lottie but they come from the same place so they have to be drawn in the same way. Hmmm.

Day 28 - brush pen : Spider is, on the surface at least, a very laid-back telepath.

Day 29 - cartridge pen : Spider is taking precautions with the tea tray, but Nettle won't drop those. I usually ink my dolly pictures with my G-pen, so I had a go with my cartridge pen instead. I think it looks pretty good.

Day 30 - G-pen : Just enough time left for Lena to show off another divination technique!

Part 1, Part 2, Hallowe'en