#witchtober 2019

[dunderella]

[ no.18 - potion brewer ]

“it really isn’t all that different from cooking-”

[doorbloggr]

What is Inktober?

And what's the controversy?

Sunday 23/19/22

So in 2009, a concept artist and creator named Jake Parker started a challenge, mostly for himself, to complete a hand-drawn art piece for every day of October. In subsequent years, other artists worldwide joined in on the challenge, and from 2015(sic), Parker has posted a list of prompts prior to October for artists to inspire what they'd draw each day.

Originally, as the name suggests, Inktober participation would only count if you completed ink-drawn pieces on paper, often with a fountain pen, but it has since grown to a challenge incorporating all artistic mediums, include paints, music, writing, and even digital art.

But in 2019, Jake Parker made the decision to copyright the term "Inktober", meaning that artists trying to sell art under the "Inktober" title were receiving cease and desist notices or legal action would be threatened. Parker has given several reasons for the decision, including protecting his own work; books of his own art, and about doing ink art; and to not allow predatory profiting off the brand; people using the Inktober name of discriminatory tshirts or posters, selling merchandise using the brand name without permission from Jake Parker and his team.

He has assured artists that it is not his intention to scare artists away from participating in Inktober, or selling their own art made during the challenge. But there are guidelines on how to avoid action from his team. Artbooks must use Inktober as a subtitle and not as the main title, ideally, together with the year of the challenge (e.g. Doorbloggr: Inktober 2022), and avoid using the official Inktober Logo in any merchandising.

In August 2019, it came out that Parker may have plagiarised most of the content for his book "Inktober All Year Long" from an artist named Alphonso Dunn, and their book "Pen & Ink Drawing".

Rightfully so, this brutal stance and the controversy around it scared away a lot of artists from participating in the Official Inktober challenge. But luckily, the variety of artists that this original challenge brought in gave rise to iteration and elaboration on the idea. And so the Inktober spin-off was born.

October: A Month of Art

In the same way that Parker made prompt lists for each new October, many different communities made their own challenges with their own names and flavours. Many still have prompts for 31 days, while others ease it down to 16 days, or even once a week.

One of the first offshoots was Drawlloween in 2012. And from my own limited research, it may have not even been inspired by Inktober. It just so happened to also take place in October. Since October is Spooky Month, Drawlloween prompts are all based on Halloween, many very specific to pieces of spooky media and horror stories. In a similar vein, other Halloween themed challenges are Witchtober, Spooktober, Drawtober, and Goretober.

INKTtober is a spin-off I've seen on a couple different social media's I'm on that focuses specifically on Tattoo art. OCtober or OC October is a common one I see on Tumblr where each day is about an artist's Original Characters or OCs.

Other artists have grown the idea of a monthly challenge beyond October. And I wanna specifically shout out @regal-bones for their beautiful work on Swordtember (Sword designs in September) this year. Amazing work.

Day 2: Candle, Day 25: Spider

And finally, the one that I have been partaking in, Linktober. Linktober is a celebration of the Legend of Zelda series. The challenge began in 2015 as a spin-off of Drawlloween, and in 2016, the team created their first full month calender of prompts.

Each year of Linktober has brought a new calender of prompts and in some years, they even introduced alternate challenges that spice it up beyond just Legend of Zelda art. 2018 introduced Linktober Chance, where the prompt is only half finished and you roll a d6 dice to generate a more specific prompt. 2019 introduced Linktober Quest, where each day is part of a story about a Zelda OC you make and the adventure they go on to save the world. Linktober 2020 introduced Linktober Shadow, a counterpart to the regular challenge where every day is spooky, or about the villainous side of the Zelda series.

I want to talk more about my experience with Linktober, but I fear this post may be getting too long. So I will talk more about Art and Deadlines in a Part 2(?) to this post.

Thanks for Reading

A lot of the information I wrote in this blogpost I sourced from the following article, so I implore you to read it too if you want to gain more insight:

The Controversy with Inktober, Alexis Epinoza (September 2020) The Telescope

Also, if you don't already, please follow the tags #drawlloween #witchtober #linktober #swordtember or any other drawing challenges promoted across this and other sites. Artists love reblogs and if there's a fandom you like, there's likely to be creative people making things for you. So show them some love.

[juliettelime]

happy october! here are some reposts from my 2019 witchtober series ~

✧ instagram | twitter | portfolio | commission info ✧

[seshihira]

Repost time part 4/30 - 2019

As for the last group of choice for my Inktober (+some Witchtober I also tried to do at the same time) drawings..

Those were my own 2 stories, 1 which my main project ever since 2013 (Freeze, Pattern, Ornament, Ghost, Dark, Injured prompts) while all the others were my 2nd story which has witches in it so I thought I would also try myself out in witchtober as well I jsut couldn't keep it up for long because the base Inktober already took a lot out of me 😂

(yes this low quality art "took a lot out of me". I was always a digital artist so it was pretty hard for me to go full traditional for a whole month out of the blue. Thanks to one of my best friends at the time my tools were higher quality at least xD)

[nerdeeart]

Inktober/Witchtober Day 9 - Swing - Hanging with my bat buddy

[ghostcaptainart]

Inktober day 1: Pumpkin witch!

[ten-shika]

Inktober Day 13: Scarecrow Witch

There are many stories about the Scarecrow Witch. Some say they are robots, others say they are aliens, or from another world. Nobody has ever seen their true form. They take the shape of a human as decoy and live among us

[incandescentsims]

Witchtober Day 31 - Sand Witch

[simmancy]

𝕎𝕚𝕥𝕔𝕙𝕥𝕠𝕓𝕖𝕣 𝔻𝕒𝕪 𝔼𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥𝕖𝕖𝕟: 𝟙𝟠𝕥𝕙 ℂ𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕪 𝕎𝕚𝕥𝕔𝕙 🕯️

Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live.

[saka-deamus]

Day 29 of Witchtober - Theatre Witch 🎭

Inktober prompts by @juanjoltaire!

[qixzy]

Doing Inktober / Witchtober again with my own prompts! Is anyone else doing it? :) Day 1, Crow

[dunderella]

[ no.11 - space witch ] 

//.  s o f t  r e s e t ___ __   _

[annaholak]

“Books may well be the only true magic.” - Alice Hoffman

Another charcoal drawing for Witchtober Day 3: Books 

(So what if I’m like a week behind? Time isn’t real, and I can always turn this into Witchvember, right?)

[jazinedraws]

witchtober Day 13. (pastel) goth

[titosims]

⚝𝓦𝒾𝓉𝒸𝒽𝓉ℴ𝒷ℯ𝓇⛤٭⭑⋆⭒

𝒟𝒶𝓎 𝒪ｲ - 𝒲𝒾𝓉𝒸𝒽 𝒜𝓅𝓅𝓇ℯ𝓃𝓉𝒾𝒸ℯ

⁽ᴾʳᵒᵐᵖᵗˡⁱˢᵗ ᴵ ᶠᵒᵘⁿᵈ ᵒⁿ ᵖⁱⁿᵗᵉʳᵉˢᵗ ᵘⁿᵈᵉʳ ᵗʰᵉ ᶜᵘᵗ⁾

[nerdeeart]

Inktober/Witchtober Day 22 - Ghost - Cute little ghost witch!