"Ink lovers, rejoice, because this week’s Inktober52 prompt is SQUID! Few creatures are as perfectly suited for our inky challenge as these slippery, tentacled wonders. Picture the majestic deep-sea squid swirling through pitch-black waters, or maybe a cartoon squid juggling eight cups of coffee. Perhaps yours is a steampunk cephalopod with brass-plated suckers, or a cosmic squid floating between galaxies like it owns the place. You can go terrifying and monstrous, or charming and goofy. After all, squids are basically the shapeshifters of the sea.
Inktober is about getting back to the basics, pen, paper, and imagination stretching further than a squid’s longest arm. Forget the filters and fancy digital tricks! Let your lines twist, curl, and ink-splash across the page with as much chaos and grace as the real thing. A squid can be elegant, mysterious, or completely ridiculous (giant squid in a tiny teacup, anyone?). So dive deep, embrace the smudges, and let your art surface with something wild. This week, it’s time to ink like a squid and make a splash on your page. 🖤"
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As always, you’re free to create a separate post for your own stuff if you wish, or you can post it as a comment in this weekly prompt post. I will corral any individual posts and post them here as a comment.
Rules:
- Please remember to be kind. All skill levels are welcome here.
- AI art is not allowed.
- Submissions must be based on the given prompt, but either traditional or digital mediums are welcome.
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If following the Inktober prompt isn’t your style but you would still like to do a weekly prompt with a community here on Lemmy, please check out and support !52WeeksofArt@lemmy.world by @Okokimup@lemmy.world
There hasn’t been any discussion of the sort, at least for as long as I’ve been involved with the community, but I do agree with what you’re saying/suggesting. I find that I often am a bit disappointed with some of the word selections (this year seems to have a lot of astrology for some reason), and I think that alternative words could help alleviate that disappointment, somewhat.
Tbh, I’ve found it difficult to find a lot of previous years’ Ink52 lists, though I admit that my previous attempts were pretty cursory (just a simple image search). I will try to obtain a few lists though, and seek to implement them as alternatives for future Ink52 prompts. Thank you for the suggestion! :)
Even public voting/participation (average theme scores?) might be good base metrics, assuming it isn’t just higher every single month. Though yeah, a wiki would help here.
I think I like how some game-jams run it, more freely-interpreted themes with choice+combos and about a month of relaxed-pace work. I think a set of up-to 12 entries (4-per week, 3 weeks) is still a pretty good set for a story or setting (for either traditional art or work sessions on a project like a game), for a simple/beginner challenge at least.
A pool of 52 prompts is probably good for choice.
On a personal, non-traditional note
not sure I could get my niche 3D digital format to be very ink-y. Not impossible especially with the palette I’ve been iterating on, but it’d be some mix of:
a. design ‘ink’ lines into the meshes (or as a separate mesh)
b. soft paint all vertex colors in grayscale, add hue via shader parameter (currently 2 colors, 2nd option works via non-opaque and can also be set to emit) in Godot
c. design a shader that stylizes the models further (I sort of have an effect like that, but it’s subtle), perhaps even a texture (not that I really want that)
d. use 2D/semiflat elements in 3D for a layered (or diorama) look
e. 2D polygons or SVG. Similar to previous, CCG set?
Even if I could get a nice ink aesthetic like this for low-poly, I’m guessing it would probably be a no-competitors thing like the equivalent of being the only person to speedrun an obscure 2000s game.
It would be great if an art jam were flexible enough that bigger multimedia project (games/animation etc) entries would be using their own art entry attempts as building blocks (be it directly in-game, a storyboard/cutscene). Though that’s probably a high bar, community-wise.