Today, I thought I’d tackle the last three weeks of #Inktober52 in the form of a digital sketchbook page.

I took it as an opportunity to try out the new techniques I’ve been learning in Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, and a chance to try out different ways of using them.

One of the prompts was for ‘spider’. You can see the basic sketch I started with for one spider, and the main steps I took. I drew a cuter, face-on spider as well, trying out some other techniques.

I’m really pleased with the cute spider; I really had to figure out how to lose the line art I drew to begin with and I kind of ‘dissolved’ it into the colours.

For wave I ended up drawing some simple waves and colouring them in ‘flat’.

Elf was the most troublesome prompt. I don’t like to draw people, so did a couple of elf hats, and then I thought I’d write the word elf in different styles, including an elvish script, runes, Star Wars alphabets and some hand-lettering too. This turned out to be a good idea as I got to practice my digital hand lettering!

I would like to revisit the lettering and add shadows/highlights to the letters to help them look less ‘flat’. Maybe I’ll do that after I’ve done my ‘adulting’ that I need to get done today.

Just in case you’re interested, this sheet took me over five hours to complete. I used Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, Microsoft Surface Studio and Microsoft Surface Slim Pen.