It wasn’t easy, but I got there.

I still feel like I have to recover from the 31 day art marathon I set for myself with Inktober vs Skeletober, but I’ve waited long enough to talk about it.

I could not wait to get started. As soon as midnight hit on October 1st, I got cracking on the first Inktober drawing during a stream on my Twitch channel. Unfortunately, as I mentioned in my last post, thunder and lightning had also got cracking and there was a power outage. It’s kind of hard to draw in the dark, so that was that. But not only did I have to stop when I had only just gotten started, but the power outage did something bad to my computer and I was forced to start fresh and install Windows again. That set me back in a big way, and I’m still sorting through all the backups I hastily made at the time. But I pushed through as best I as could, doing my best to keep as close to the 2 pieces per day schedule I had set for myself.

There were a few times where I had fully caught up, only to fall behind again after spending extra time on a piece that needed the extra attention. Towards the end, I really fell behind after simply not feeling well.  I was at a really low point and didn’t think I could see it through all the way to the end.

But I did it anyway.

On the last day I had to catch up and pull together 4 or 5 pieces, and technically I finished the morning of November 1st after an all night art stream session. But I finished. 62 illustrations in 31 days.

Was it worth the effort? I don’t know. I’m glad I was able to push myself to successfully complete a goal, but it didn’t result in a lot of new activity around my art. What I did notice is that Instagram liked Inktober better, likely due to people looking through hashtags. Tumblr definitely liked Skeletober better, because Skeletor is always popular with that crowd and people were sharing my artwork on their own blogs. Twitter didn’t really seem to care that much aside from a few scattered signs of support.

But I didn’t do it for likes or hearts or follows or whatever. I did it to try and level up, experiment with new stuff, and get accomplish something that I had set out to do. I was certainly hoping to gain more of a following in my streams and on social media, but the people who did follow, and watch are super awesome, and I’m grateful to everyone who lent me their support.

I don’t know if I’m going to ever do this again. Actually, yeah, I do know: Forget it! I hope I’m way too busy next year to do two art challenges in one month. Even if I wasn’t, I don’t think it’s healthy to put myself through that again. Besides, could I even top what I did this year?

Anyway, I’m sure I have many more drawings of robots and Skeletor in me. I could draw those things forever! I’ll just have to spread them out for the sake of my brain and wrist.

You can see all my Inktober and Skeletober art on my Tumblr!

Sayonara.