8 Ways You Can Make Your First Inktober a Success

Inktober starts tomorrow, and like many of you, I'll be participating this year!  Since this is my third year doing Inktober, I thought I'd share some tips to help make your Inktober a great one!

Ways You can Make Your First Inktober a Success

Do a little prep ahead of time
-Make a list of things you'd like to draw and ink
-Find a montly challenge to inspire you and work from that
-Flip through your sketchbook and mark pages (sticky notes work great!) you'd like to ink, or scan/print bluelines/ink
-Pick a technique you'd like to focus on improving, such as drybrush, using a real brush, or inking on the go.

Set up a strategy
- Find a plan of attack that works well for you.  For example I like to do the sketching the night before, when I'm tired and perfection isn't necessary, and do the ink in the morning, after my warm up.  This requires me to be one day ahead, but I find it easier to force myself ot complete something I've already started.
-Decide ahead of time what you'd like to use your Inktober sketches for, and use the appropriate materials.
-If you already ink often, pick a material you don't use.  For example, I ink almost daily with brushpens, so I'm going to do a lot of my Inktober inking with a regular brush.  I'm also going to try and use some of the specialty inks I don't use often.

Make necessary accomodations
-Have a show this month, and know you're going to miss a couple days?  You can either plan to finish those pieces early, forgive yourself for the missed days, or you can keep inking into November.  Whatever works for you is ok.
-You can also prep sketches a few days in advance if you need to, Inktober isn't so much about the sketching AND inking, it's mostly about the sketching.  It's totally ok to use things from #Sketchtember or even earlier.  It's really all about making sure you ink something every day, so you can level up your inking skills.

Make plans for end of the month burn out
-You don't have to knock it out of the park every day (unless you want to).  You can ease into Inktober by starting with fun, easy pieces, ease out of Inktober with fun, easy pieces, or try to mix it up every day.
-Keep at it!  Even if it doesn't seem like you're improving, or you don't like what you've been producing, keep inking pieces.  You'll definitely notice growth by the end of Inktober.
-If possible, don't allow excuses to keep you from completing that day's piece.  Once you have a row of completed inks to admire, it's going to be so much easier to keep pushing through.

If You're Feeling Uninspired
-Go through old sketchbooks and ink favorite sketches
-Check out the #Inktober hashtag and see what your favorite artists are doing

Use Inktober pieces for Other Things
-Make an Inktober Ashcan
-Designate November as the month you color all those inked drawings

Use the Social Media Hashtags for Community Support
#Inktober should work for just about everything

Above all, try not to stress out about Inktober too much!  It's ok if you want to do fanart, it's ok if you want to color your inked pieces, it's ok if you're making a comic for Inktober, or working on an existing one!  The most important this is you are making art.

Other good hashtags:

#showyourwork
#artistsontumblr
#artistsoninstagram
#artistsontwitter
#inks
#aminking
#amdrawing

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