justsmitchell

[justsmitchell]

FINAL DAY!

Day 31: Fire

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Day 30: Rush

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Day 29: Massive

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Day 28: Sparkle

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Day 27: Beast

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Day 26: Remove

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Day 25: Dangerous

This was the 2nd to last one that I finished. Mostly because I had a totally different idea that I tried to get work, but in the end decided that it just wasn’t meant to be. It was complicated and dealt with perspective that WASN’T coming together. And I didn’t want to spend 10+ hours on a single piece for any of my Inktober prompts if I could help it. Plus I wasn’t loving how it was turning out.

Which is sad, because it made it all the way through the base lineart step. But as I went to add details I just started hating it more and more. And at that point I had already spend 3+ hours just to even get it to the line art layer. And thinking about trying to color or black and white that thing? Yeah, nope. Ain’t got time for that.

So I completely changed gears and tried to figure out what I wanted to do. Then I remembered how much I like doing close up stuff and how I enjoy doing eyes. So I started with snakes, because that was what my original dangerous piece was about. Eventually it morphed into more of a dragon type look.

Now is this a dragon? A snake? Honestly, don’t know. Could be either. Could be both. I didn’t have a specific species in mind. I just tried to focus on shading and making the eye look liquid. I played around with some shading and some brushes. And hated my time doing this one a LOT LESS.

[justsmitchell]

Day 24: Shallow

I really wanted to try and do more stuff where the lines are white, really challenge myself on thinking with shadows and such. I found a fun brush to use as a rough gradient, and the inverted speckles look like raindrops so that was an added bonus. I was originally going to do a solid black background, but the piece didn’t have enough to it. If I was a messier or less clean line art drawer, then I could probably get away with a solid background. But it needed more to break up the solid blocks of color.

[justsmitchell]

Day 23: Celestial

For this prompt I had a general idea: I wanted to have a figure that was backlit by the moon. But when it came to deciding how I wanted the figure to look? I had no idea.

After some browsing the interwebs for a while, I eventually settled on a goddess type figure. I didn’t want it to be too similar to the angel prompt. And I really wanted to have a glow effect.

Then I had to figure out what I wanted to do for the background. And I decided to make a starry background, because just having the moon left too much empty black in my opinion.

[justsmitchell]

Day 22: Scratchy

I really struggled coming up with something for this prompt. I kept coming back to tree branches, but couldn’t figure out how to make something that still fit the prompt. I stumbled across something similar and decided to do my own spin on the good ol’ double exposure idea.

It was harder than I expected. I wanted there to still be plenty of white space, but still have the profile clearly defined. I also ended up putting a gradient over the branches to give a slight faded effect. The stark black of the branches throughout needed something to help diffuse it, thus gradients to the rescue!

[justsmitchell]

Day 21: Chains

I really wanted to do something that had to do with mental illness. Originally I was going to focus on my personal stuff, but then I realized that I wanted the piece to be more available to viewers, so I added several common mental illnesses. I wanted to make the individual tied up non-binary and very simple in design. I didn’t want to over complicate or over power the thought behind the piece with the individual chained up. Overall, it turned out differently than how I envisioned it, but at the same time better than my original idea.

[justsmitchell]

Day 20: Frost

Ok, this might seem like a cop out, but I could not think of anything for this prompt. I didn’t want to do something winter themed, and I couldn’t figure out a fun or unique way to do the prompt. Then I stumbled upon a Robert Frost quote, and thought, that might work!

So I make a quick portrait outline and put the quote in a font I really like and slapped it on a galaxy background I made. I felt like, for cheating the prompt, it didn’t turn out half bad.

[justsmitchell]

Day 19: Plump

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Day 18: Saddle

It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do for this one. It was kind of a weird prompt. But I eventually figured it out! I did end up using a reference of a saddle I really liked, changing up somethings as I went. And bonus! I actually did this one entirely in black and white. There is no color version of this that exists.

Doing this originally in black and white definitely allowed me to get a better grasp on darker darks and lighter highlights. Cause I feel like some of the ones I originally did in color are sometimes lacking the depth of that. I also played around with textures. I also tried to give a feeling of depth on the leather - make it feel like some parts are slightly raised, and I feel like some parts really came out.

Yes, there is room for improvement. But overall, I like how it turned out and I learned a lot in the process. Sometimes it’s not always about the end result, but how you got there.

[justsmitchell]

Day 17: Demon

I wanted to do something around the concept of mental health/depression but I wasn’t 100% sure how I wanted to do it. Originally I had envisioned something more complicated, almost a companion piece to the angel one. But I couldn’t really figure out exactly what I wanted to do. So I completely changed gears.

I’m not good at, nor do I have a lot of experience with drawing monsters or grotesque things. But I wanted to convey a sort of haunted feeling. So I decided to play around with silhouettes and brushes. I wanted to keep the silhouette crisp, but I decided to play around with brushes for the fire - to give it a looser feel. I originally made the fire crisp, but I just didn’t like how it looked. It needed more mess to the piece overall.

I also didn’t want to focus a lot on a ton of color. I think after the angel piece I was a little worn out. But I didn’t want to make it back and white. Actually , originally this was a completely different color. I think the flames were originally green? I actually decided to play with the hue slider on a whim. And I was trying to decide on purple or blue flames. In the end, though, I feel like the blue worked better.

I added the text at the end, just to give a little more context to the piece. I think it helps a viewer to have a little more information about what the piece is about without totally overwhelming it. I don’t think it 100% needs the text, but at the same time I think it really helps.

Overall, I actually really like how this one turned out. And I really like how the eyes came out. I don’t typically like using brushes like I did for this one, so it was good to be looser with my drawing. Something I need to try and do more.

[justsmitchell]

Day 16: Angel

So this one I accidently went into default mode and colored it before realizing that I was trying to not do that?? Oops?

To be honest though, I’m not super proud of how the coloring came out, or the black and white either. The lineart turned out good (took forever tbh). I honestly need to spend some time coloring angels, I just don’t have a lot of experience working with whites and light colors or pastels.

Wings are already complicated to draw, but coloring them adds a whole other level of difficulty. So I think it is something I need to work on. Like spend one day on line art and a separate day on coloring. I think I get tired from the sketching and lineart process taking as long as it does with these pieces that by the time I get to coloring, part of my createive brain has retired for the day. Or my eyes are tried from looking at a screen.

I think taking a break and looking at it with a fresh brain would be beneficial. Maybe I’ll come back in a couple months and try to recolor this and see how it turns out.

Going into this prompt, I already knew it was going to be a more challenge piece. And I do think aspects turned out well. I like how the skin looks, and the way the fabric lays. I think I just need to push the colors more - more lighter lights and darker darks. In the monochrome version everything is such a mid toned grey that the complexity of the piece just feels a little lost.

[justsmitchell]

Day 15: Dagger

Ok, so this one has to be contender for my top favorite. And it was actually the very first one that I did for Inktober.

I’m not really sure how I settled on this, but once I did, I knew it would be perfect! Honestly, it was also a lot hard to find an open mouth wolf looking up than I thought it would be. I ended up looking at several other artists that do more monstrous fantasy than anything to figure out how the jaw and neck worked.

Even though I wanted to try and keep things black and white, I really felt that this one would pop more using a red color. It would outline the wolf and make the eye more creepy. And also put emphasis on the dagger. Plus then I could play around with grain and lighting in the background without having to worry if things would be visible or not.

Overall, a fav for me.