Update 01-04-2018: I did it! I uploaded for Inktober 2017! Well, I'm still uploading for it. But that's because I want to hit my goal of 31 inked drawings. I did 15 (about halfway!) before getting sidetracked. Still a pretty good personal improvement.
Also, if you're looking for daily inspiration, check out Sketch Dailies on the Twitter-verse!
After totally missing out on Inktober recently, I decided to seek out some other monthly challenges. Why shouldn't we have some set challenges EVERY month? Surely they're out there. But then I remembered, these are artists we're talking about. Organization may not be high on their/our priorities list. Working for food might be a little more important. Also cat videos.
Please check out the list below and let me know if you have any suggestions, amendments, whatever. There aren't a whole lot of monthly challenge things that are official for drawing so I pulled some writing ones and altered them. I also made up my own ideas for a couple because I couldn't find anything. Bear in mind, some of these months have other challenges available to them. That's not what this list is for - this just my list of my chosen fav ideas for each month. If there's enough interest to make a wiki that has ALL the challenges for each month, I might look into that (or you can do it, good luck, sir).
I'll update this list as I get more info or flush out my own ideas on the challenges.
January
Random Genre Month - Meant for writing prompts but I think this would work equally well for doing a drawing challenge. Grab your random genre for the month (or each day could be different) and use that to create a drawing each day for January.
February
A Month of Letters - I thought this would be cool to alter it a bit for drawing and instead of just writing a letter, you drew something. I like the idea of using
artist trading cards for this challenge. No pencil drawings unless sealed with fixative spray or something, ink or watercolor are probably the easiest.
March
30 Characters - Every day, you'll create a NEW character. Now I don't know if this means you can't pull from deep in your past. I feel like, if it's a character you haven't drawn in several years, that's fine. The point is simple to get pen to paper and get you thinking. (This is supposed to be in November per the official site but there's already Nanomango in November so I moved it here. You're more than welcome to do it in November with everyone else.)
April
Blogging A-Z Challenge - Each day uses a different letter so for April 1st you could use the word Apathy as a prompt for your drawing that day. Next day could be Beauty and so on. Looks like the official site reveals a theme in March each year but you could pick your own or just be random.
May
Story A Day - Another writing challenge that I think would serve well for drawing. On that official site, one of the prompts is to steal the first line from a favorite book and write a totally different story from it. For drawing, it could be to steal a character from your favorite artist and draw it in your own style. This one might require some well thought out prompts ahead of time.
June
Time Challenge - Something I just made up. Take 10 minutes each day and sit down with some drawing tools and a timer. First drawing - 1 minute. Second - 3 minutes. Third - 6 minutes. Typically, I've done this exercise when drawing something physically in front of me but I don't see why this couldn't also be a gesture drawing exercise or something else entirely from your imaginiation.
July
Color Challenge - Another made up challenge by yours truly. Draw in color every day! This could go a couple ways. You could sketch something new, color that in. Or take an old sketch it and colorify it up. Or don't sketch at all in pencil and instead draw entirely in color. Medium can be whatever so long as it's not just black and white.
August
NaNoirWriMo - Stands for National Noir Writing Month I believe, not much on that site there. But I do like the idea of a month of drawing dedicated to darker stuff. I think this could be anything from straight Noir style with a detective, spy, serial killers, or more fantasy styled monsters like Cthulhu.
September
3-Day Novel Contest - I think this one could be really cool. Couple ways you could go about this for drawing purposes. You could totally participate in the actual contest (Labor Day weekend) and then use the story you came up with to fuel your drawings each day for the rest of the month. Or could draw a short story via comic, one page each of the three days. Then spend the rest of the month working on those characters, continuing the story, whatever to do with that original short comic.
October
Inktober - Ah my nemisis. This one is pretty well flushed out already, very popular. I do like the added challenge of no-erasing. So drawing entirely in ink, no pencil sketch first.
November
Nanomango - This one is geared towards comics. So instead of a single drawing, you make a comic page every day. I don't think it matters is it's a 'slice of life' style comic or an actual storyline.
December
Character Drawcember - Check out the prompt list that this kind person made. This would be the month to pick a character and real focus in on it.
*Several of these links found via a
WikiWriMo list
Good luck everyone! I'll post my progress on these and please link me to yours if you feel so inclined to participate.
with love - M
