Thursday, October 1, 2020

FanArt_ink.Fish


MTGinktober flops upon us with Day 1, "Fish," starring Tatyova, Benthic Druid and the little fishy fools from Disrupting Shoal
 
Ah, we're finally back to Inktober!  I've decided to go forward with it--our 5th anniversary of MTGinktober, in fact--despite a number of unique complications.  First, the founder of Inktober seems to be in some unresolved creative conflict that, while I can't quite tell what's going on, looks distressing to put it mildly.  The guy has built up a lot of trust over the years, I even met him personally once in the past, and he is vouched for by good people, so my stance is that I'll go with whatever his publisher determines has been their professional judgment.
 

The other factor, though, and surely more important in the grand scheme--I feel I should be doing more virtual volunteering for the upcoming election.  I spent pretty much every day in the last half of September virtually phonebanking, and it has come to be a legitimately pleasant, hopeful part of my life--granted it's not always a pleasant experience, it's ultimately uplifting in that I'm doing something tangible to help the effort, and I get to see real examples of people coming to their senses or rallying as they have been all along.  Though as I'm writing this up, maybe Joe will win by default given the breaking news about that orange baboon's diagnosis.
 

Anyway, I wasn't sure what to draw for today's prompt, and wanted to avoid Kiora as we just drew her two Inktober posts ago, and while it kinda feels cheaty to use a Merfolk for fish, I rectified that with actual fish--illustrated by a Fisch' to boot.  This was a bit of a stressful drawing because I noticed I'm basically out of my favorite ink (Pilot "Ink" dip pen), and for a while my nib got stuck in my Tachikawa holster!
 

Other concerns during this "live" run--I found my other main inks, Microns, are also mostly close to dry, so I'm really running on fumes this year (not to mention I'm also cannibalizing old sketchbook pages as I did last year--this is the usually unused front page).  The nib is cooperating now, though, fortunately, and I found some spare inkwells, however they are unreliable if memory serves.  I've also been out of practice on traditional art since last year, basically, and I only barely squeaked out a practice piece last night.  I felt my arm and hand shaking often early on before finally getting back to steadiness towards the end of this piece.  
 

Fun Facts: I usually use my own hands as reference whenever drawing hands, and was particularly proud of this one, and lamented having to draw over it, though that's usually a welcome reprieve.
 
Easter Eggs: I hid my signature in the orb thingy.
 
 Not normal,

Reuxben

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