Inktober: Days 8-14

Day 8: Star – Star Flower

From the previous post, it seems that I had jinxed myself, as with this piece, I had struggled with time. As I was at college during the day, working on other projects, I believe I had gotten home at 4/5 and had to rush my piece so that I could take a photo of it within the natural light. At the time of this photo, the natural light was more cool toned than previous pieces had been, and although I tried to fix this problem when editing the photo (as to make it cohesive with the other pieces) I feel you can still see the difference when looking at them all together.

Other than the lighting, I also feel this character has more issues with the drawing, specifically with proportions and angles and so on. When completing this challenge and compiling the designs into one zine, I believe I will go back and try to fix this character, as I do see her potential, but do not believe I achieved it on this day.

The flower I had chosen for this prompt was pretty self-explanatory, and I wanted the character to have a ‘stardom’ quality to her. Imagining this character in the society I have created, I believe she would be a celebrity figure, whether that is in a good or bad way. I want her to be in the limelight in this society, but the other characters could have different opinions of her, depending on what they’ve heard or believe.

 

Day 9: Precious – Kadupul

With this character, I had searched the rarest flowers and had found two that I felt most inspired by, one being Kadupul, and the other being a Kinabalu Orchid. For this specific prompt, I felt the Kadupul would be better suited as it looked more gentle, whereas the Kinabalu looked more sinister in a way. The Kinabalu will be used for another prompt ‘expensive’ as I see that character being more snobby than I would the Kadupul.

I wanted this character to be quite doll-like, angelic in a sense as if she has been untarnished by the world. As a character I feel she would be a princess figure, the other people may not see her very often, as I imagine she is protected a lot of the time, but when they do see her, they are enchanted by her beauty and grace.

 

Day 10: Flowing – Water Lily

This is my favourite piece so far, I am so happy with how she turned out! For the prompt ‘flowing’, I instantly thought of water, so had chosen a flower to fit the theme, this being a water lily.

When creating her, I wanted a similar petal hairstyle as my piece for the Chick and Hen character. However, with the reference I was using, the model had hair flowing across her face, so I decided to keep this element, and I am so happy that I did, as I believe in my design, the hair almost looks wet on her face and could resemble roots from the flower, as if she has just been taken straight out of the water.

 

Day 11: Cruel – Ricinus Communis

With this prompt, I wanted to create a villainous character who is very upright and has a scheming look on their face.

When looking at the plant, the Ricinus Communis, it had big leaves and red spiky balls. My initial idea was to have the leaf as a collar of some sort, then have the balls growing from the character. However, when drawing this piece, the leaf had become bigger than I had intended, wrapping around her body, as opposed to just her neck. I do still like the design though, as I feel she does still have the villainous appearance, which I feel the other characters would be afraid of.

 

Day 12: Whale – Pansies

The link between flower and prompt for this character is a bit farfetched. As I could not necessarily find a flower by searching ‘whale flower’ or ‘whale plant’, I tried thinking of colours, specifically from an Orca whale, with the black and white patterns. This had led me to pansies, as they often had a dark centre, which is then surrounded by white, and then followed by another colour.

Although I like the design for this character, I don’t really have a backstory for her as of yet. She does look like a quite strong character, but as of the prompt, it has not given me much inspiration as of this moment in time. But I will come back to her another time and try to develop her story further.

 

Day 13: Guarded – Pycnostachys Urticifloia (Blue Witches Hat)

With this character, as the appearance of the flower suggests, (although the colour is not shown) she is a witchy type character, but not an evil one, I believe she is a good witch that helps others with spells, love, healing, etc, but her speciality is with protection spells, linking back to the prompt  of  ‘guarded’. I feel she is a kind character but has her guards up as other characters may not react well when finding out she is a witch, even if she is good.

There are some issues that I can see within this character, specifically within the face, so again, like with my ‘Star’ character, I do plan to fix and refine these issues, when compiling all of the characters together in a zine.

 

Day 14: Clock – Passion Flower

I enjoyed working with this specific plant as it had so many different elements to play with.

I feel I slightly lost control within the inking process, as there are a few shaky lines (especially on the shoulder) and when shading her face, the ink on her chin had bled too much up into her face, whereas I had wanted it to bleed down into her neck instead, creating more shadow, as opposed to a beard.

Again, when it comes to creating the zine, I will come back to this piece and refine these problem areas, whether it is just done digitally, or whether I redraw the character.

 

So far, I do love every character that I have created, and even with the ones that have gone slightly wrong, I do still see their potential, either with their stories or the imagery I have created. So, I will come back and fix these characters, once the challenge is out of the way and when I start concentrating more on the creation of the zine. If anyone does buy the zine, I want them to get their money worth, so with any imperfections I see, I want to fix these problems beforehand, so that when the buyer receives their product, they won’t find any issues and won’t question why they spent their money on it.