inktober retrospective
• october 2019
![inktober_4](https://www.eliseloeb.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/inktober_4.jpg)
inktober
is upon us—which means it’s time climb out of the coffin and get those inks and watercolors out. since this will be my 4th year participating, here’s a look back at how much of my professional growth this challenge has seen ~
![Illo-Campire Illo-Campire](https://www.eliseloeb.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2-Intro-600x600.png)
![Illo-SharkVampire Illo-SharkVampire](https://www.eliseloeb.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/3-Intro-600x600.png)
2015 & 16
my first year of inktober
real talk: i have never run a marathon, but this is what i imagine it feels like!
getting into this challenge was fully without grace but i made it all 31 days. i was exhausted creating content that felt okay to post every-day-no-matter-what, even if they were only meant to be simple ink drawings. wish i could say i planned, or followed a prompt list, or sketched ahead of time—but that was not the case. it was rough.
since then i’ve grown a lot.
here’s a look back <3
2015 (left), 2016 (right)
pen and ink VS inkwashes+
![coffee-bat-edited-300x300](https://www.eliseloeb.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/coffee-bat-edited-300x300.jpg)
![inktober_8](https://www.eliseloeb.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/inktober_8.jpg)
![inktober_24](https://www.eliseloeb.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/inktober_24.jpg)
![inktober_27](https://www.eliseloeb.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/inktober_27.jpg)
fun fact: i moved from columbus to seattle in the middle of Inktober 2016.
2017
color and animation.
having survived two years of doing inktober, i stopped telling all my friends that i was functionally dead-to-the-world between september and november.
i discovered Mab Graves’ #drawlloween club and prompt list. i also started incorporating watercolor for pigment. the drawlloween community was super inspiring.
![Illo-GhoulLove Illo-GhoulLove](https://www.eliseloeb.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/5-Intro-800x800.png)
![inktober_18 inktober_18](https://www.eliseloeb.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/inktober_18-300x300.jpg)
![Ink-Animated-Vamptunes](https://www.eliseloeb.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Thumbnail300_inktober_color.gif)
![inktober_5 inktober_5](https://www.eliseloeb.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/inktober_5-300x300.jpg)
![Illo-AutumnPeople](https://www.eliseloeb.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/6-Intro.png)
![Surf-Monster-Illo Watercolor surf swamp monster with neon pink surfboard.](https://www.eliseloeb.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Insta_T10Insta-Vertical-1080-x-1350.jpg)
2018
inspired by the work of #mabsdrawlloweenclub and Mab Graves’ ambitious octobers, i wanted to do full paintings for both technical and portfolio reasons.
these each took about 3-6 hours, concept to final—sketching, re-drawing, painting, scanning, retouching for dust, and color correction. overall this comes to roughly between 90-180hours total—nothing to shake a stick at.
2018: full color illustrations, every day for 31 days. this is sort of where i draw the line for now (with a full time job.)
![Inktober_2018_EL_60](https://www.eliseloeb.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Inktober_2018_EL_60.jpg)
2019 🦇
this year i’m looking at a back to basics — environmental/atmospheric ink + a new render of digital illustration that I’ve been working on since 36 Days of Type.
hope you join. happy haunting ~
• october 2019