What are your plans for Inktober?

A drawing I made during a demo on inking basics on the first day of my Cartooning Basics course. I always cover ink right away, so the students will appreciate what their penciling decisions are for.

#Inktober is a hashtag that's been running for a couple of years now on social media. Artists interested in mastering ink technique use the occasion to push themselves to create and post one ink drawing per day for one month. In my case it means adding a hashtag to the ink drawings I post twice a day all year, but whatever.

It's striking that despite continuing advances in digital media, ink drawing thus far remains the primary medium for cartoonists. Even those making comics on tablets need to understand brush and ink, as it's the look their cursors are designed to mimic.

This year, there appears another hashtag challenge for October, #Drawlloween2016:

I think I'll give this a shot, using ink, of course. Please follow my Tumblr and see how I'm doing.

Continuing my roundup of recent student work, I'm quite sure these gentleman will fill their Octobers with exciting panels and pages:

Geoffrey Class sent his two page final from Inking Comics. Nice, eh?

Self taught neurosurgeon, Justin Peele sends the first three pages of a new story in color,  "JoJo and Lars Get Yeezys." Follow the link to see more of his timely, hilarious ink work

 

The biggest reason to learn cartooning is that it provides a way to get your funny (or otherwise) ideas  down on paper. Peter Yuschak routinely sends spontaneous gag cartoons to his network of friends.

Joe Wessely works constantly at making comics and filling his sketchbook. He also cohosts the Comics for Grownups podcast, with Josh Malbin and Alex Rothman.

I cover inking in all 3 of my cartooning courses at SVA. They start this week, making this the last chance to enroll for fall. Embrace the challenge.

Here are views of the final critique in the Figure Drawing for Cartoonists course last summer. A lot of nice inking, am I right?