This is my final illustration for Inktober 2021! This one was for the prompt "risk", although I think the real title ought to be "I hate drawing hands".

If you watch the time-lapse below, you'll see a couple of misfires in my sketches before I finally settle on what to draw.

First, I thought I'd draw someone playing Risk (the board game). I thought it would be cool to see the thrown dice tumbling toward the viewer and the board below. After getting started on the sketch though, I just didn't like the way it was looking.

Next, I thought I'd draw a baby reaching up and trying to stand. I don't really like drawing babies though, because the proportions are difficult to get right, so I scrapped that one quickly.

Finally, I settled on the sketch for the finished drawing, but not before considering another idea my wife had about a creature taking off their human mask, revealing a werewolf, vampire, or some other monster underneath (it's Halloween today, after all). I liked that idea a lot, but I didn't feel like doing something so complicated, so I pushed ahead with the hands.

The idea behind this is the risk one takes whenever they express their true feelings towards someone else. It makes me think of my wife - we've been together much longer than when we got married, and it always amazes me how a relationship like that starts with such simple but powerfully charged gestures.

Anyway - there's a time-lapse of this drawing's creation below. If you've been following along with me as I make these each day, I appreciate it, and hope you've been enjoying them!

This is my thirtieth illustration for Inktober 2021, for the prompt "slither".

When I started making this one, I wanted to add a bit more texture to the walls and the tentacle, but as I added each layer of light/shadow, I started to embrace the simplicity of it. In the end, just a little bit of airbrushing was all it needed.

Just one more to go and this year's Inktober project is officially complete! Time-lapse below:

I'm barely getting this one done in time - the day just got away from me!

Anyway, here's my twenty-ninth illustration for Inktober 2021, for the prompt "patch".

As usual, I planned on this one being sorta simple, and then I got carried away.

Time-lapse below!

Here's my twenty-eighth illustration for Inktober 2021, for the prompt "crispy".

Being a fan of Rice Krispie Treats, my mind immediately gravitated toward drawing a batch of those for this prompt. It seemed boring to draw a bunch of lumpy squares though, so instead I dipped into what seems like another one of my trends for these types of projects, and drew a bucket of fried chicken.

I made a batch of Rice Krispie Treats tonight for dessert, and they were yummy.

Time-lapse below!

This is my twenty-seventh illustration for Inktober 2021, this one for the prompt "spark".

I peeked at the prompt for today the night before - which is how I usually do things with Inktober - just to get a jump start on my brainstorming, but came up blank. I don't hate doing straightforward drawings for the prompts, but I like to be creative about it when I can. The best I could think of was to draw an explosion.

So today I was thinking about that idea and how it could be more interesting, and I came up with this, a zippo lighter, as it sparks into ignition.

I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out. I wanted to have the lighter be the primary focus, but also have the hand be very large in the frame. I liked how it looked plain at the end, but thought it could use a tiny bit more detail, and after almost changing it into the (famous?) lighter from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, I went for this adjacent design.

Time-lapse below!

Here's my twenty-sixth illustration for Inktober 2021, this one for the prompt "connect"!

This was one that I struggled with. Initially, I wanted to draw a man pumping gas into his car, and noticing that both the car and the pump had odd looks on their faces - but it didn't fit well in the square panel, so I quickly changed course to the idea you see above.

As always, there's a time-lapse of me making this below!

For the first drawing of the last week of Inktober 2021, I drew this fly - or what's left of him, anyway. The prompt for this one is "splat".

Originally, I thought I'd make the fly a lot smaller, draw more of the flyswatter, and have the handle of it blur off into the distance. When I actually got started, I decided I wanted to make the splat take up more space, and so this is what that idea turned into.

Time-lapse of this illustration below!

Here's my twenty-fourth illustration for Inktober 2021! This one is for the prompt "extinct", and I've flipped the roles of dinosaur and human.

Should the dinosaur have been in clothes? This was something I thought about while drawing this. I'm still not sure, but I like how it came out nonetheless.

Time-lapse below!

My twenty-third illustration for Inktober 2021, for the prompt "leak", is a trick-or-treater with a little candy problem.

I knew what I wanted to draw as soon as I started, but I struggled to get the pose of the character right. After a few attempts at winging it, I decided to dig into an animation book and get a reference pose. So thanks to The Animator's Survival Kit for saving me on this one.

I also had a hard time decided whether or not it might be better with a little vignette effect at the end, but ultimately decided against it. It's probably fine!

Time-lapse of my struggle below:

I've had to go to the dentist (and periodontist) for a number of reasons lately, and so my twenty-second illustration for Inktober is a dental scene. The prompt for this one is "open".

Time-lapse of me creating this one below!