Inktober 52 - 2021 37

I would have thought, that darker prompts would be easier to produce, but apparently I don't do so well, when it's spelled out to me. Perhaps that's because it doesn't give me anything else to latch onto. Spooky things are nice and all, but as a person that finds abstract concepts more horrifying than any sort of entity, and whose last contact with the word "spooky" was this, I'm at a loss. As such, I went back to my comfort corner that is character design, and stealing motifs.

Initially, I thought I'd go with this old Victorian-ghost-lady thing, since that would allow me to draw a bunch of fabric. I don't however know how those actually look like, so I'll wing it again. While trying to come up with other spooky stuff, I made the conscious decision to enlarge the eyes and add the snake. I wasn't in the mood for a Victorian hairdo, since those seem either silly or very reserved to me, and I thought one might be able to do something more interesting with the hair. Junji Itoh's arguably most popular work Uzumaki featured spiral hair quite a lot, which is what I chose to go with. It's not quite the same, and not just because of the much more visceral style Itoh works with, but I think there's something uncanny about exaggerated hair-features.

Fabric really does look best in pencil. The somewhat frantic style of the pencil layering the disparate items gives it the sort of fuzz that ink just doesn't have. However, I need to start inking this first, least I get confused with the layers.

I realize that this design is unlikely to be anywhere near Victorian, considering the showing of legs, but at this point, I'm not thinking of a different design. Maybe I'm just not that fond of long dresses from a design-perspective, which wouldn't be a surprise. They weren't made for me - neither to wear, nor to admire - and I don't really agree with the society that produced them. This one will just have to do without a historically accurate dress then.

Inking kinda ran away with me on this one, but there's really not that much happening during the inking phase anyways. It's still a little flat, but you may have noticed that I added a light source.

Light sources mean starker shadows, which I thought might be appropriate for the prompt. It does give some 3-dimensionality, which I'm quite happy with, though I'm not sure how this will look outside these very concept-driven pieces. The piece from last week also got this make-over and that too, was mainly concept-driven. This is too stark for natural light, I think, but maybe we'll see next time around.

In deep October's freezing nights,

in strong winds, and in rain,

wait unseen, dark and glowering frights,

for the moon to wane.

Evade the whispers and the hisses,

and deleterious rumors fowl,

because the reach of dark abysses,

extend through obscured night's soft cowl.