October is here, and so is Inktober—but for me, it's Zingtober!

I think my record for participating in an Inktober was 20 days, and that was over four years ago. I hopped on Instagram and saw a lot of amazing artists who create incredible work in very little time saying they’ll try to finish it—and I’m in the same boat. I’m starting with a lot of faith and motivation to complete all 31 days, but it’s tough. So, you’re going to have me here for 31 days straight, spamming (sorry!). But before you panic—yes, I do plan on making more art while doing Zingtober. I already have a couple of Splinterlands drawings half-finished, along with some for Holozing (you know, those ideas you leave unfinished to start a new piece). I also want to make some cool little stuff for Halloween. Will I manage to do it all? It’s super difficult, but I’m writing it down here so it becomes a real challenge and a goal.

🔅 First Prompt: Mustache

For the “Mustache” prompt, I wanted to give it a fun twist within the Holozing world. I imagined one of the healers taking advantage of a playful moment to draw a mustache on Cinerala’s face with a marker while she’s fast asleep. It’s a cool scene that would even fit well with the kind of art I usually make for Holozing—though here, I feel like it didn’t completely convince me. The idea ended up feeling very horizontal, and I want to maintain a consistent size standard for all the Zingtober illustrations. But it’s only the first day! This is a challenge that helps improve artistic fluency, and that’s how I want to approach it: making each day better than the last. 🎨✨

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🧠 TOOLS USED:

Photoshop (as always, my digital salvation).
Brushes: my trusty brush pack, with a few new ones featuring glitter effects
Resolution: 2048x2400 px

_{(Thx to @holozing for such adorable creatures to bring to life!)}

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⏰ CREATIVE PROCESS

✏️ Phase 1: Ibis Paint for Sketching

First, I used ChatGPT to generate a sketchbook image since I didn’t have one on hand and wanted all the drawings to have this setup. But then I had to lower the saturation of the page because ChatGPT has this habit of making everything yellow—and it was really bothering me to draw on a yellowish background. -I hope using ChatGPT to generate the sketchbook doesn’t disqualify me under Zingtober’s rules- Then, I moved on to sketching the idea using Ibis Paint. Like I mentioned in the Arachlet post, this software lets me show you a speedpaint of the sketch without lagging my PC. Here, you can see how I start from a rough idea quickly put down and then refine it layer by layer.

🎨 Phase 2: Lineart

Then I moved over to my beloved Photoshop to continue sketching and use the horizontal canvas rotation feature—because in Ibis Paint, I could only rotate individual layers, and with multiple layers, it just doesn’t work smoothly. This way, I was able to improve the quality of the line art and the proportions of the Healer.

🌗 Phase 3: Gray

I started painting each of the character's elements in grayscale—but unlike my usual method of working precisely with the Pen Tool, this time I went straight in with a hard brush.

🌟 Phase 4: Final Touches

I'll say it now—I'm not satisfied with the result. I still love the idea of the Healer playing a prank on Cinerala, but I don’t feel like the line art and grays are what I’m aiming for in this Inktober. I tried to step out of my comfort zone, where lately I’ve been achieving good detailing in grayscale before moving on to color. That’s why I wanted to get closer to something like painting with diluted ink. I’ve done it traditionally before with good results, but today I just couldn’t pull it off digitally. But don’t worry—I still have 30 more days to keep exploring and working toward the result I’d be happy with.