As promised, here's the second round of Inktober art!

Today's picture is a stranded starfish trying to make its way home. As with the previous one, this was drawn in pen while my sister and I were driving to a family reunion.
 
It was inspired partly by the ongoing analogy in My Fugitive, whose protagonist based her mindset and values heavily on the story of a man who, upon finding thousands of starfish stranded on the beach, started throwing them into the sea.
 
Another man saw him doing this and commented, "You know, it doesn't matter how many you throw; you'll never be able to save them all."
 
The first man smiled at him, picked up another starfish, and tossed it into the ocean. "It mattered to that one."

Today's Inktober drawing was inspired by the Willow Maid in this gorgeous song, and is brought to you by the HUGE FREAKING KUDOS I give to people who can draw in marker and not end up with a bunch of unwanted lines and colors overlapping in the wrong places.

Sadly, I didn't have time to add a background before I had to run out the door - the whole thing was kind of a rush job - but when/if the mood strikes me, I might make a better version of this, probably digitally. ​

​I was planning to draw something dramatic, complex and touching for today's Inktober theme, but then I got let down twice in just a few hours, so here's this silly piece of TMI-ish vent art instead.

I'll draw my other idea another day, when I have time to do it justice instead of having to rush out the door like I did after drawing this.

​The clock keeps turning backward, and Sans just wants it to stop. But the power to stop it will always be in someone else's hands.

​Today's Inktober is a quickly-drawn ode to my weak time management, the lack of an "undo" button on markers, the fact that I have a steadier hand while drawing digitally than traditionally, and my apparent capacity to forget the presence of collarbones and thus put the neck tendons in the wrong place when I'm distracted by my minor cheekbone disaster. :P

On the upside, drawing traditionally DOES force me to tone down on the nitpicking, adapt to my mistakes instead of simply undoing them (the striped shirt hides the fact that one shoulder's line was in the wrong place), and finish the picture in a more reasonable amount of time than I would if I had an undo button to enable the perfectionism I'm working to overcome.

It also gives me this chance to internally chuckle at the fact that the panel with the difficult perspective turned out better than the one in an easy pose, haha. Granted, I did the latter without a sketch, because I was deliberately trying to get this one done quickly so I'd have time to work on Just Cause.

I took a little break from my Inktobering (which is now officially a word no matter what anyone says) so I could finish this page of Just Cause.

I'll probably still draw today's Inktober prompt because I like the idea I have for it, but I decided it was time to hurry up and share these ominous hints about this story's future and past. :)
 

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I'm participating in Inktober this month! Here are my first seven entries:

This is a scene from my novel, Catgirl Roommate, in which Nyla the catgirl was not allowed to steal Sam's mint because she'd already had hers, so she decided to take her mint-acquiring needs into her own hands... by chewing the lid off of Sam's mouthwash.

It did not end well.

For that matter, neither did drawing this picture; it didn't quite turn out the way I wanted it to. I guess that's what I get for trying to hand-draw something at print resolution.

​Photoshop hardcore SUCKS at drawing long, smooth lines without a pen tool, and I had to zoom in so far just to get a smooth line that I couldn't properly see what it would look like zoomed-out while I was drawing. I used the pen tool for some of the lines, but having to use it for almost ALL the lines really kills the fun, at least for me.

I tried a couple of my other art programs, but they kept on failing at basic tasks until I got heartily sick of working on this picture, haha.

At least day 2 turned out better; I drew that one at a more reasonable size.

Inktober's kind of been holding up the production of the next page of Just Cause, so I decided it was time to kill two birds with one stone and use today's entry to do the lineart for one of the panels.

Today's theme is "spell", so... Undyne's magic energy spears count as a spell, right?

​The monster towers over her, ready to impale her on its icy claws... and Wigfrid is already drooling over the small butcher's shop worth of meat she's about to carve out of this thing.

This piece was very experimental in several ways:

1. Drawing in white on a black background.

2. Using the same color for both the outlines and the highlights, and trying not to give Wigfrid a mustache and beard in the process.

3. Using a 1 pixel brush for most of the picture, as opposed to my usual 2 or 3 pixels. Photoshop doesn't have very good anti-aliasing (the thing that stops lines from looking jagged) for 1 pixel brushes, so the lines were rougher than usual as a result.

4. Foregoing some of my usual artistic crutches, such as the Zoom In tool and the Pen tool. Once again, this resulted in rougher lines, but it was also more fun and hands-on, and it forced me to give myself some leeway not to make all the lines perfectly smooth. I think I'm going to do this more often in my side projects, though I'll stick with smooth lines for Just Cause.

5. Using widely-spaced lines for weaker shading as opposed to low-opacity brushes. This is an area where I definitely have room for improvement, since I have next to no experience with it, but it was interesting to stretch myself that way for this picture.

There are more Inktober entries coming, so stay tuned!

In the meantime, if you want to be the first to see my completed art, and to get exclusive access to works in progress, please consider supporting me on Patreon.
​
If you want me to draw something specific for you, visit this page to get the pricing and details for my commissions.

And if you want to get my art on your pillows, mugs, blankets, clothing and more, go here to see my physical merch.

The 9-panel work in progress for page 37 of Just Cause is available on my Patreon! Here's one of my favorite panels:

 
​You can get access to the full WIP, and be the first to see the completed page, by supporting me for $1 or more on my Patreon.