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213. Heartburn

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what I think will happen if I message my mutuals

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Life Story

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yay

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Wanted to draw... Didn't know what to draw... Just kept making lines until something coherent popped out.

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Arenose Bard

Sandy, gritty; full of sand

Day 9! The backgrounds have returned!

The first list is the Obscutober list made by @mysticsparklewings https://www.tumblr.com/mysticsparklewings/762909713497309184/mysticsobscutober2024?source=share

The second one being the 30 Character Design Challenge made by Parakeetty https://www.furaffinity.net/view/22445508/t

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Inflorescence Alchemist

The flowering part of a plant

Arrangement of flowers on a stalk

The time and process of budding unfolding blossoms

Day 8! Something a bit sketchier than normal.

The first list is the Obscutober list made by @mysticsparklewings https://www.tumblr.com/mysticsparklewings/762909713497309184/mysticsobscutober2024?source=share

The second one being the 30 Character Design Challenge made by Parakeetty https://www.furaffinity.net/view/22445508/

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Orphrey Assassin

Elaborate embroidery or a piece of such

An ornamental border or band, especially on Church robes

Day 7! The first week is done!

With how quickly new priests joined and left their quiet little church, no one suspected anything when Father Brimely joined them. Though his departure did leave them with some questions about how little Father Michael spoke of his past.

The first list is the Obscutober list made by @mysticsparklewings https://www.tumblr.com/mysticsparklewings/762909713497309184/mysticsobscutober2024?source=share

The second one being the 30 Character Design Challenge made by Parakeetty https://www.furaffinity.net/view/22445508/

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Plexure Necromancer

The act or process of weaving together, or interweaving; that which is woven together

Day 6! Do not let her appearance fool you, she would add you to her friend the moment you give her any chance to do so.

The first list is the Obscutober list made by @mysticsparklewings https://www.tumblr.com/mysticsparklewings/762909713497309184/mysticsobscutober2024?source=share

The second one being the 30 Character Design Challenge made by Parakeetty https://www.furaffinity.net/view/22445508/

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Sklent Rogue

Any slanting surface, as a slope

A sideways or oblique movement

Day 5! Today's image can forth fully completed in my mind. Super pleased with it.

The first list is the Obscutober list made by @mysticsparklewings https://www.tumblr.com/mysticsparklewings/762909713497309184/mysticsobscutober2024?source=share

The second one being the 30 Character Design Challenge made by Parakeetty https://www.furaffinity.net/view/22445508/

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Apricate Paladin

To bask in the sun

To expose to the sunlight

Day 4! An honorable warrior who brings light to a world of darkness.

The first list is the Obscutober list made by @mysticsparklewings https://www.tumblr.com/mysticsparklewings/762909713497309184/mysticsobscutober2024?source=share

The second one being the 30 Character Design Challenge made by Parakeetty https://www.furaffinity.net/view/22445508/

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Holology Warrior

Day 3! With a warrior who uses time as a weapon. Removing her opponents from the timeline completely

The first list is the Obscutober list made by @mysticsparklewings https://www.tumblr.com/mysticsparklewings/762909713497309184/mysticsobscutober2024?source=share

The second one being the 30 Character Design Challenge made by Parakeetty https://www.furaffinity.net/view/22445508/

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Littoral Ranger

Day 2! With a little turtle ranger. His aim is slow, but steady.

The first list is the Obscutober list made by @mysticsparklewings https://www.tumblr.com/mysticsparklewings/762909713497309184/mysticsobscutober2024?source=share

The second one being the 30 Character Design Challenge made by Parakeetty https://www.furaffinity.net/view/22445508/

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Scintillate Mage

For this year I've decided to mix two different October prompts lists together.

The first list is the Obscutober list made by @mysticsparklewings https://www.tumblr.com/mysticsparklewings/762909713497309184/mysticsobscutober2024?source=share

The second one being the 30 Character Design Challenge made by Parakeetty https://www.furaffinity.net/view/22445508/

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Anyone got room for yet another October Prompt List? 😉

I really wasn’t feeling the Official Inktober Prompt List this year & deeply miss the Obscutober lists nikolas_tower used to post over on Instagram, so I decided to break from tradition even more than I usually do & make my own! ✨

The main idea is each prompt is an Obscure Word, but I did get a little choosy & try to put a bit of my own spin on it!

Click the "Keep Reading" and we'll talk more about the details + Definitions if you need them. ✨

⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

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Before I get into my usual long-winded description, if you want to actually follow this prompt list—Or the Lite or Weekly version—here's what you need to know:

Here's the "Official" Definition list so you don't have to spend time looking up the words yourself if you don't want to...But also, if you do want to, feel free! The "official" definitions are intended as a time-saving guideline!

The list is open to all mediums! "Typical" visual art (Digital or Traditional), Literature, Sculpture, Crafts, Coloring Pages—whatever you want!

The word itself does not have to be directly included/related to what you make; You can just take inspiration from the way it sounds or looks, or something the sticks out to you in the definition, etc.

If a word or two doesn't work for you for various reasons, feel free to swap-in a different word—Either another "obscure" word of your choosing, or a word from another prompt list that you like better.

I've provided "Lite" and Weekly versions of the list in case the full 31 is too much, but you can pick-and-choose words from the full list however you'd like if you're not crazy about the words I picked for the shorter versions, or if you want to shorten the list in a different way.

Tagging me is appreciated, but not required!

Remember that my views on these Month-Long Daily Challenges is that it's about the challenge of completing a certain amount of creative pieces in the time given...And that's pretty much it, so as long as you're doing that and having fun, I'm really not bothered about how you choose to follow the list! My Inktober motto has always been "work smarter, not harder," and this is no different!

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Well, well, Sparklers—I assume this is quite the surprise coming from me. 🤭 Both because I've been awfully quiet over the past couple of months and this is what I come back with. [And for the record, I intend to explain more about where exactly I've been in a Museletter, but I wasn't able to get it typed up and ready-to-go today; Once I get it ready I'll add the link here.]

Not that me disappearing for a while and coming back with something not necessarily expected of me is all that abnormal, but rather if you've followed me for a while, you might remember I'm not normally super-keen on everyone and their uncle's mother's brother's sister making their own Prompt Lists.

So then, Mystic, what gives? Why make your own Prompt List now?

You can thank nikolas_tower on Instagram for that, actually. 😆 Some of you might also remember that I follow his Obscutober list in October 2021, and I've also swapped in an Obscutober word a couple of times when one of the "official" Inktober words didn't work for me.

I've explained before how much I love the Obscutober concept to its core, so I won't re-hash all of that here. The important part is that I do love it, but to my great sadness, 2022 only got an abbreviated Obscutober list (2 words per week), 2023 didn't get an Obscutober list at all (though I didn't really need one for 2023 because I was busy enough as it was following two other prompt lists at once) and considering just how close we're getting now, I really sincerely doubt Nikolas has/had plans for a 2024 one. Add to that: I was not super jazzed about the official Inktober prompt list for this year. Now, don't get me wrong—I'm normally not thrilled with every single word on the list (and if you've followed my Inktobers' past, you know I say as much during the month!), but I'm not sure I've ever felt quite so unenthusiastic about the whole list before.

Additionally still, some of you might remember I did talk a little bit last year about some...struggles I supposed is the closest word, that I've had with the past couple of Inktobers I've done. And generally, I've had some ideas for really shaking up the way I handle October for the past couple of years.

While, granted, my main "shake-up" idea is totally unrelated even to this list and I never seem to be able to get the necessary prep work it would require done in time, I think the main takeaway is a I've had a low-grade yearning to do something different...but I do still want to stick to my "tradition" of handling Inktober unconventionally.

So in the end, it kinda just made sense to at least try making my own Obscutober-style list this year. It's something different and I've missed the Obscutober lists, so why not?

Worth noting that I did try to put just a little of my own spin on it in my choice of words. While already I did try to stay away from words Nikolas already used for all 4 of his Obscutobers, I also had a couple of "rules" with the words I picked:

No words that are "Obscure" purely because they're not English/aren't found in English dictionaries. For example, "Lunette" is a French word, but it appears in English dictionaries with a definition that's more than just "the French word for..."

The word must have a definition that's relatively easy to find and/or appears in well-established English Dictionaries like Dictionary.com or Merriam-Webster. This rule exists because I noticed pretty quickly a lot of "aesthetic" definition images on Pinterest either don't turn up any other reliable results that a word even exists, or the word may exist but the Pinterest definition is straight-up wrong.

No overly gross/medical/NSFW words. (This wasn't a problem with any of Nikolas' Obscutober picks, this is just a personal preference that did shape my research a bit.)

One of my problems with the Inktober list for this year is too many words feel like synonyms/too closely related, so I wanted to avoid that. A couple of words are still kind of close in the end, like "Vitrine" and "Hyaline" or "Escutcheon" and "Orphrey, but they're still more different from each other than some words that I considered and ultimately turned down. [For example, I considered "Lambent" and "Clinquant" but decided they were too close in meaning to "Scintillate."]

Likewise, aside from the theme of being Obscure, I tried not to lean to heavily on words that fit a particular theme or idea

I tried not to pick "obscure" words that have become decently well-known or popular because they're obscure. The best example is "Aglet" wasn't even considered because it's been mentioned in multiple TV shows that I know of. "Scintillate" might push that boundary a little, but it is one of my personal favorites.

I also tried to pick words that had a little variety in definition length and not pick too many that had really short definitions, which ties into my next point...

More abstractly, I tried to pick words that feel like they both lend themselves to a really solid image but also leave room for interpretation of that image. Historically I've had problems with Inktober words feeling too much like they really only fit one specific interpretation of the word or they only have so many ways to represent the idea. And on the flip side, some of Nikolas' Obscutober picks (at least when I participated in 2021) felt a little too abstract at times. Ultimately, this feeling is probably highly subjective, but I tried my best to find the right balance anyway.

While not perfectly balanced, I did try not to lean too heavily on one type of word, as in Adjectives/Nouns/Verbs. There are still less verbs overall because it was just harder to find verbs that fit what I wanted, but if I hadn't consciously paid attention there probably would've only been 1-2 verbs and like 20 adjectives.

Not really related to adding "my own spin," but also worth noting that it was also important to me to provide "Lite" and Weekly versions of the list the way that Nikolas did for Obscutober II to make it easier for people that just don't have one-thing-every-single-day kind of time to feel welcome to still participate in some way. As stated in the description for those, you can just jump around the list however you like, but I know sometimes it's just easier if someone already lays things out that way for you instead of having to remember to leave things out and such.

And then for the visual list design, I did a mixture of Nikolas' Obscutober list style and my own more typical branding elements, which ended up working out much better than I expected; I wanted the "spirit" of the list to be recognizable to fans of Nikolas' lists without being an exact copy/looking too much like I was trying to "pretend" to be him or something, and I think I landed in a pretty good place. [And in case anyone is wondering, yes I did use my own template to make the list!]

I do have to admit to you Sparklers though that despite going through all that trouble, I'm actually still not 100% sure I'll be following the list myself. 😅 I've gone back and forth over how exactly I want to handle October at all this year so much...I definitely want to (and intend to!) do a Daily Challenge, especially given how spotty my uploads have been over the last year, but I just can't seem to settle on one full-fledged plan that I'm completely satisfied with.

I do have one potential idea I'm considering that already has a very specific alternate list, but pretty much all of my other ideas would normally use the official Inktober list, and so since that list isn't on the table for me this year, and it's really looking like DeviantArt isn't doing Drawtober again this year—Which I find incredibly sad, by the way!—I need another list on-hand that I know I can use and be reasonably happy with.

And for the record, I'm being intentionally coy about that one specific idea and not sharing that list because it's highly specific and if I do decide to go that route in some way, I'd like the main idea to be a least a little bit of a surprise.

But even if I don't use this list myself, I thought at least a few other people might enjoy giving it a try. After all, I wasn't the only one that enjoyed Nikolas' Obscutobers—I originally found out about them through another person entirely. So maybe a few other people are feeling that Obscutober void, or maybe you're just a big Word Nerd™ like me, or maybe you just want something that's a little different still from a lot of the more typical alternative prompt lists that have been floating around.

So, whatever the case, here the list is (and the Lite and Weekly versions, too); Let us all do with them what we will! 😉

Before I go, I will offer an apology to anyone who's disappointed or frustrated that I'm posting the list so close to time to use it—Believe me, if I'd been 100% sure I wanted to make it in the first place sooner, I would have gotten it out much sooner, too! But I'm doing the best I still can by getting out with this very tiny 2-day cushion instead of just dropping it right on the 1st. If the list turns out to be something you Sparklers want to see again next year, I promise I'll do my best to get it out with a lot more advance notice next time!

With that, there are still two days left in September and as semi-implied already, I still have a ton to do to be anything close to ready for October, so I'll leave you Sparklers to the list and your own October plans, whatever they may be; Hope to see you all again hopefully very, very soon...! 🤗

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List Design  © me, MysticSparklewings

Obscutober Concept Inspired by nikolas_tower

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⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

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Daily warm-up sketches for the week! This week's themes were vehicles, kimono, and fat bodies.

[I.D. - Picture 1 The picture is a series of six illustrations of full body figures. The figures are all drawn in minimal clothing and all have a high body fat percentage. The first image is of a smiling woman making a taxi hail pose. The second image is of a confused looking man scratching his head and stomach. The third image is of a woman sitting on a wall with a smile on her face. The forth image is of a grouchy looking man with a mustache. The forth image is of a woman jogging. The sixth and final image is of an elderly man with a cane.

Picture 2 The picture is a series of six illustrations of cars. The first image is of a blue car on a purple background. The car is sliding to the right side of the panel, leaving a cloud of smoke as it drifts. The second image is of a food truck named Gumbo's. The third image is an action shot of a van driving over a hill so fast it leaves the ground. The van is red and the image has a warm colour palette. The forth image is an orange sporty car with a large spoiler. It is set against a abstract background. The fifth image is of an old fashioned vehicle. It is taller than it is wide, with chunky parts and features. The sixth and final image is of a strangely shaped car. It is green, with a massive top and very low to the ground wheelbase.

Picture 3 The picture is a series of six fashion illustrations of people of various body types and genders. They are all wearing various styles of feminine kimono. The first image is of a woman wearing a pink tsukesage style kimono with a bright cyan obi. She is wearing simple tabi on her feet and has flowers in her hair, which is styled into a bun. The second image is of a person wearing a komon style kimono that is white with little flowers on it. Over top they are wearing a hakama, which has been fastened with a bow. Their red hair has been tied into a bun. The third image is of a very muscular man wearing a red furisode kimono. His long hair is tied into a side braid. He is wearing a pair of gata. The forth image is of a petite eldery woman wearing susokiki hikimuri style kimono. Specifically a bright orange one with a cream coloured inner layer, and a green obi. She is wearing a black wig of carefully styled hair with many accessories. The forth image is of a large man wearing a heavily layered junihitoe style kimono. In warm pink tones. His blonde hair is style long and swept back. The final image is of a woman wearing a soft green yukata with a bright yellow obi, and little polka dots on the pattern. She is wearing simple gata to complete the outfit.]

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Morning Warm Ups for the Last Week (2)

Themes for the week were horns, still water, and masc trad goth styles. Found a new colouring styles part way through the week.

[I.D. - Picture 1 The picture is a series of six illustrations of people or animals, with a focus on their horns. The first image is of a satyr with long, tall horns and goat like features. He is drawn in grey scale and has long ears, horizontal pupils, and a goatee. The second image is of a musk ox and a mountain goat. The third image is a demonic baby with a sweet face and blue skin. They have many tiny horns on the top of their head. The forth image is of an ibex with very long, twisting horns. They are set in front of a simple, blobby blue background. The fifth image is of a rhino set on a red and brown background. They have a sad face. The final image is of a demon with a pig nose and long purple horns coming from his bald head. He is snarling at the camera.

Picture 2 The picture is a series of six illustrations of still water in various positions and places. The first image is of a lake on a windless day. It is painted in greyscale and there is a small island with a single pine tree on it. The second image is of a backalley. The alley is framed by a stone wall on one side and a thick hedge on the other. There are some shallow puddles on the pavement. The next image is a glass of water, it is painted with blue paint. The forth image is a close up shot of water, with special attention paid to the shadows and highlights of the water. The fifth image is of a deep puddle on a dirt road, where the sky and clouds can be seen reflected in it. There is a kitty cat drinking from the puddle. The final image is of a bunch of water drops on a red surface.

Picture 3 The picture is a series of six fashion illustrations of people of various body types and genders. They are all dressed in a masculine trad goth style. The first image is a grey scale image of a person wearing a long black leather coat. They have a partially shaved head with long curly hair on the other side. They have on a button up top tucked into loose black pants that are fastened with a belt with a large buckle. The second image is of a person with a short, heavily teased hair style that covers most of their face. They are wearing a t-shirt with a large red cross on the front, that is layered overtop of a fishnet shirt. They also are wearing red leather pants tucked into knee high lace up boots. The third image is of a large, very muscular man wearing a loose blue t-shirt that falls off one shoulder. He is wearing many silver necklaces and has heavily teased hair held back by a headband. He has tight black pants on and thick chunky boots. The forth image is of a petite person with bright pink, coily hair and a nose ring. They are wearing a large necklace and tank top. They are wearing black tight pants fastened with a bright cyan belt and red boots. The fifth image is of a large man with a simple outfit of a red, loose shirt, and black pants. He is accessorizing with fish net gloves, a nose ring attached to an earring with a thin chain, and pointed dress shoes. His hair is heavily teased and flipped over the face, and he is wearing red eyeshadow. Finally, the sixth image is of an androgynous person with short, purple, coily hair. They have on heavy makeup and have snake bite piercings. They have a long, complex necklace on, and a leather jacket worn over top of a band tee. Their pants are loose and tucked into pointed toed, knee high boots with many buckles on the side.]