This Is Mostly To Spur Me On

I wouldn't say I'm participating in Inktober exactly. For one thing, I'm not using a pen much, pencil is more my game. But I am trying to do some kind of a sketch every day, which is the general idea as I understood it.

My track is to start drawing, and then either hit a snag where I can't figure out how to draw what I want, or I finish the sketch, and all I see are the ways it isn't what I wanted. Then I lose hope and stop. I came up with something close to 20 sketches I wanted to do while stuck in this horrible week-long training back in January, and I've finished maybe 4 of them. So the "do a sketch every day" prompt seemed like a good push, especially now that I've publicly declared I'm doing it! You've all seen it, I can't take it back! There's only success or the abject admission of failure.

I've gone with the idea of doing a sketch for each video game in my Top 5 for each system. I got the idea from the Inktober sketch book I bought from Brian Rhodes at the 2016 Cape-Con, although he focused more on the games of his childhood. With seven systems, that's actually enough to get into November, but it could turn out I won't be able to decide on an idea for a game (I have no idea what I'll do for Phantom Dust, which would be the selection for the 22nd currently), and I'll need a stand-in. I'm trying to go with pictures that represent the game to me, usually some particular level or moment that is the strongest memory I have associated with it.

I recognize that isn't going to help much with that backlog I mentioned, but I'm hoping to figure a few things out that might help with those over the course of this month.

I figured I would work chronologically through the systems, so I started with the original Nintendo. Kirby's Adventure turned out pretty well, though I kind of wish I'd gone a different route. Not gotten so hung up on the specifics of the Level 6 boss fight with Meta-Knight. The Ninja Turtles 2 picture didn't go so well, needed to have a better sense of the layout before I started, but I just wing it on a lot of these things. The Super Dodgeball one was good in concept, and there's a couple of parts in particular I like, but the figurework is bad. Hands always seem to be too large. Paperboy actually turned out well, minus the perspective and scale being wonky. The Grim Reaper is probably 20 feet tall, given the distance and compared to other figures in the picture. Hell, it's an abstract concept personified, it can be as big as it wants, right? Right. The Mega Man 4 picture I'm almost entirely satisfied with, I just think Mega Man's posture needed to be a little more aggressive. On the other hand, him firing while leaping away from the bad guy is probably more representative of my playing style. I spent a lot of time on my heels in that game.

I'm going to try and do periodic updates on how things are going, as I move through each system. I did finally order a scanner, so if it arrives, and if I can get it to work, I may post some of the better results later in the month. In the meantime, Kelvin's doing a proper Inktober, which you can see here.