The annual tradition of Inktober was created in 2009 by artist Jake Parker as a way to practice his inking skills and push himself to draw without the “safety net” of erasing pencil lines or digitally refining images. The month-long prompt has now ballooned into a global hashtag that attracts artists from all ends of the experience spectrum, from newbies to your favorite Marvel, DC and Image heavy hitters. Parker produces a list of daily prompts each year, but Inktober is a loosely defined party to which everyone is invited. Want to stick to Parker’s rules and suggested topics? Awesome. Want to experiment in digital art, watercolor or mixed media? Happy #Inktober to you, too! From horror icons to superhero portraits to bubbly slice-of-life renderings, Inktober has become a catch-all of creativity from the first of October until November rears its head.
The embedded tweets below represent 31 of our favorite Inktober 2017 drawings. Familiar Paste favorites like Becky Cloonan and Francesco Francavilla ply their prodigious talents alongside artists we discovered through the hashtag, like Abz J. Harding, Milan Glozic and Marcia Rojas. Traditional pen and ink drawings give way to full digital art and even cutout compilations. Some artists only managed to eke out a few Inktober works during the busy Halloween month, while others, like Chris Samnee, stuck to a theme all month long. If you like what you see here, be sure to click through to each artist’s Twitter and browse the rest of their Inktober creations—you never know what treats (or tricks) you may find. And maybe next year, one of your very own inky creations will make it to our round-up.
