InkTober first came under my radar last year, but at the time I was too busy working on drawing commissions to look into it properly. This year InkTober is back again, and it seems like the perfect thing to get involved with to boost those lettering skills, portfolios or both!
Much of the work that gets submitted to InkTober is highly illustration based. Some of the work I’ve seen also incorporates lettering with illustration too. As a lettering community lets bring some amazing lettering work to InkTober.
What is InkTober?
If you aren’t sure what InkTober is, don’t worry I’ll explain now. InkTober was created in 2009 by Jake Parker, with the simple aim of creating ink based drawings and artwork for 31 days. InkTober starts on October 1st and finishes on October the 31st. Now six years in, thousands of artists join in with the project every October. If you search for #inktober on Instagram you’ll find an incredible collection of inked work.
How do I join in?
To join in, the process is quite simple. Create your lettering using ink based tools, such as brush pens, calligraphy pens and fine line pens. Draw your lettering, rather than writing it out, as the aim is to draw using ink. Then share your inky lettering on your Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest and Facebook accounts and use the hashtag #inktober when you post.
Do I have to letter for 31 days?
Whether you want to do 31 days of ink based lettering, just one day, half the month, or a few days here and there. According to Jake any amount is fine. If you really want to help develop your lettering skills further though, then I would recommend committing to at least 14 days. If you’re looking to build up more of a portfolio, then again a minimum of 14 days is a good way to go. As this will give you a nice little body of work.
Other InkTober resources
Jake has also recently created an online class called ‘How To Ink’, which is available through his online learning website ‘Society of Visual Storytelling’. I haven’t taken the class myself, or previewed any of the lessons. From the description though, the class could still contain some useful tips for letterers when it comes to dealing with ink, even though it is aimed at learning illustration!
Participation
I’m looking forwards to joining in with InkTober this year and using it to boost my inking skills. I’m pretty confident with using a pencil, but when it comes to inking there is definitely a lot of improvement to be made! I’m not quite sure how many days of the project I’ll be doing, as Lettering Tutorial keeps me quite busy. I’m sure I’ll be sharing my successes and failures in a future article though.
If you want to follow along with my progress I’ll be adding my InkTober creations to Instagram, @letteringtutorial.
Join InkTober, and show off your lettering skills!
