(this one was such a pain! i redid it something like 5 times. it's also the most literal one i've done so far this year 🤷 )

this one goes out to Ito sensei

i can "fake" my way through drawing a human face* using light and shadow to define the rough geometry of it. but i'm pretty bad at actually drawing one convincingly! this one is a good example - it more or less looks real (with a degree of stylisation i had to add to compensate for my inability to do "real" realism) but if you take a good look at it, the proportions etc are all really fucked up. idk if this is something i want to improve on!

*all drawing is about "faking" stuff anyway

man it took me literally all day to come up with something for this. i think this one is ok.

this is kind of based on a very scary creepypasta image i saw ages ago except i thought it would be funny (and also immensely more threatening?) to make it a cow

[Bathroom is on 2nd floor]

like with most other inktober entries, i reeeally want to go back and edit this. the bathroom details need shadows for a more convincing scene. for the cow, i started roughing out a shape with a broad brush, expecting to test out a grid based overdrawing thing to make it look like a textured window - in fact the messy brush already provided a distortion effect that worked "enough" to not need overdoing. i added a little bit of displaced colour to add to the effect. but: on to the next 1

WHICH item will you pick

the fucked up mini saxophone makes kind of the sound you'd expect it to, however Freddo makes an even worse sound, constantly

Not much love for Freddo here

oh shit, i should have put a signature bottom-right. that would have made it. ah well "ya can't redo inktober"

i drew this based on how i remembered the scene (it's from "It Follows"), and referred to some still images for the house. i misremembered the scene as happening at night, probably from looking at too much slimyswampghost -style creepy photo paint-overs.

as always, i'm looking at this and thinking about what would improve it. (i'm posting the pictures as soon as i finish drawing them). in this case, obviously the proportions of the cheek plates are off - the left one should be brought forwards to match the other. the lighting could be better - the brightness of the front of the dauphin ornament should match the front of the faceplate. i'd also wanted to add more ornamentation but that could've been another hour's work 🤷

Tried another new technique this time. After spending ages and ages painting stuff in layers, I did a single layer over the top of it set to influence Luminosity only (about 40% opacity) and painted over everything using light and dark values picked from the scene. So it worked as like a unified light-and-dark map over the top of everything, which improved on the fairly wonky painting I had before that. Also used a smeary brush for the luminosity layer, which gave it a bit more of an oily look.

🧭 👉 🕵️ HIM

i'm fussed that this might appear to be a political illustration because the elephants and riders are red and blue. and apparently the elephant is a political animal in america (what the fuck guys!?)
but it's not. basically it's two people who are going to work on their elephants and one (or both) of them was going the wrong way on the elephant road and their elephants bashed into each other. both people work at elephant factories, but the factories are in different directions from each other.

so that's that.

@bright_helpings thanks!

@alex
1–4: wow, will u illustrate a kids book I plan to write?
5–6: wow, will u illustrate a kids horror book I also plan to write?

@alex I like it! He's really whooshing himself up there

@Pixley thank you! the whooshy pose was the first thing i came up with today that seemed like an actual good idea, and that led to this!

@alex It's amazing. The colors are so great and the pose really makes it, there's so much life in this.

@bright_helpings ahh thanks very much!

@alex I love it! Dunno if you’ve played Dixit but this looks like it could be a Dixit card

@g1comics nah it's just here to watch people piss

@checkervest thank you!

@alex I pick the sun but fear that it will cause some existential disaster

@alex if it was a chocolate frog, I'd vote for it ;)

(Do you have Freddo Frogs in the UK? )

@GwenfarsGarden we do!

@alex i love freddo

@alex

@hoppet well then, this thinkpiece is for you!

@pisscotheque it's every elephant for itself

@alex this endless conflict is so sad… they should be brothers…