#obscutober2024

[mysticsparklewings]

Anyone got room for yet another October Prompt List? 😉

I really wasn’t feeling the Official Inktober Prompt List this year & deeply miss the Obscutober lists nikolas_tower used to post over on Instagram, so I decided to break from tradition even more than I usually do & make my own! ✨

The main idea is each prompt is an Obscure Word, but I did get a little choosy & try to put a bit of my own spin on it!

Click the "Keep Reading" and we'll talk more about the details + Definitions if you need them. ✨

⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

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Before I get into my usual long-winded description, if you want to actually follow this prompt list—Or the Lite or Weekly version—here's what you need to know:

Here's the "Official" Definition list so you don't have to spend time looking up the words yourself if you don't want to...But also, if you do want to, feel free! The "official" definitions are intended as a time-saving guideline!

The list is open to all mediums! "Typical" visual art (Digital or Traditional), Literature, Sculpture, Crafts, Coloring Pages—whatever you want!

The word itself does not have to be directly included/related to what you make; You can just take inspiration from the way it sounds or looks, or something the sticks out to you in the definition, etc.

If a word or two doesn't work for you for various reasons, feel free to swap-in a different word—Either another "obscure" word of your choosing, or a word from another prompt list that you like better.

I've provided "Lite" and Weekly versions of the list in case the full 31 is too much, but you can pick-and-choose words from the full list however you'd like if you're not crazy about the words I picked for the shorter versions, or if you want to shorten the list in a different way.

Tagging me is appreciated, but not required!

Remember that my views on these Month-Long Daily Challenges is that it's about the challenge of completing a certain amount of creative pieces in the time given...And that's pretty much it, so as long as you're doing that and having fun, I'm really not bothered about how you choose to follow the list! My Inktober motto has always been "work smarter, not harder," and this is no different!

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Well, well, Sparklers—I assume this is quite the surprise coming from me. 🤭 Both because I've been awfully quiet over the past couple of months and this is what I come back with. [And for the record, I intend to explain more about where exactly I've been in a Museletter, but I wasn't able to get it typed up and ready-to-go today; Once I get it ready I'll add the link here.]

Not that me disappearing for a while and coming back with something not necessarily expected of me is all that abnormal, but rather if you've followed me for a while, you might remember I'm not normally super-keen on everyone and their uncle's mother's brother's sister making their own Prompt Lists.

So then, Mystic, what gives? Why make your own Prompt List now?

You can thank nikolas_tower on Instagram for that, actually. 😆 Some of you might also remember that I follow his Obscutober list in October 2021, and I've also swapped in an Obscutober word a couple of times when one of the "official" Inktober words didn't work for me.

I've explained before how much I love the Obscutober concept to its core, so I won't re-hash all of that here. The important part is that I do love it, but to my great sadness, 2022 only got an abbreviated Obscutober list (2 words per week), 2023 didn't get an Obscutober list at all (though I didn't really need one for 2023 because I was busy enough as it was following two other prompt lists at once) and considering just how close we're getting now, I really sincerely doubt Nikolas has/had plans for a 2024 one. Add to that: I was not super jazzed about the official Inktober prompt list for this year. Now, don't get me wrong—I'm normally not thrilled with every single word on the list (and if you've followed my Inktobers' past, you know I say as much during the month!), but I'm not sure I've ever felt quite so unenthusiastic about the whole list before.

Additionally still, some of you might remember I did talk a little bit last year about some...struggles I supposed is the closest word, that I've had with the past couple of Inktobers I've done. And generally, I've had some ideas for really shaking up the way I handle October for the past couple of years.

While, granted, my main "shake-up" idea is totally unrelated even to this list and I never seem to be able to get the necessary prep work it would require done in time, I think the main takeaway is a I've had a low-grade yearning to do something different...but I do still want to stick to my "tradition" of handling Inktober unconventionally.

So in the end, it kinda just made sense to at least try making my own Obscutober-style list this year. It's something different and I've missed the Obscutober lists, so why not?

Worth noting that I did try to put just a little of my own spin on it in my choice of words. While already I did try to stay away from words Nikolas already used for all 4 of his Obscutobers, I also had a couple of "rules" with the words I picked:

No words that are "Obscure" purely because they're not English/aren't found in English dictionaries. For example, "Lunette" is a French word, but it appears in English dictionaries with a definition that's more than just "the French word for..."

The word must have a definition that's relatively easy to find and/or appears in well-established English Dictionaries like Dictionary.com or Merriam-Webster. This rule exists because I noticed pretty quickly a lot of "aesthetic" definition images on Pinterest either don't turn up any other reliable results that a word even exists, or the word may exist but the Pinterest definition is straight-up wrong.

No overly gross/medical/NSFW words. (This wasn't a problem with any of Nikolas' Obscutober picks, this is just a personal preference that did shape my research a bit.)

One of my problems with the Inktober list for this year is too many words feel like synonyms/too closely related, so I wanted to avoid that. A couple of words are still kind of close in the end, like "Vitrine" and "Hyaline" or "Escutcheon" and "Orphrey, but they're still more different from each other than some words that I considered and ultimately turned down. [For example, I considered "Lambent" and "Clinquant" but decided they were too close in meaning to "Scintillate."]

Likewise, aside from the theme of being Obscure, I tried not to lean to heavily on words that fit a particular theme or idea

I tried not to pick "obscure" words that have become decently well-known or popular because they're obscure. The best example is "Aglet" wasn't even considered because it's been mentioned in multiple TV shows that I know of. "Scintillate" might push that boundary a little, but it is one of my personal favorites.

I also tried to pick words that had a little variety in definition length and not pick too many that had really short definitions, which ties into my next point...

More abstractly, I tried to pick words that feel like they both lend themselves to a really solid image but also leave room for interpretation of that image. Historically I've had problems with Inktober words feeling too much like they really only fit one specific interpretation of the word or they only have so many ways to represent the idea. And on the flip side, some of Nikolas' Obscutober picks (at least when I participated in 2021) felt a little too abstract at times. Ultimately, this feeling is probably highly subjective, but I tried my best to find the right balance anyway.

While not perfectly balanced, I did try not to lean too heavily on one type of word, as in Adjectives/Nouns/Verbs. There are still less verbs overall because it was just harder to find verbs that fit what I wanted, but if I hadn't consciously paid attention there probably would've only been 1-2 verbs and like 20 adjectives.

Not really related to adding "my own spin," but also worth noting that it was also important to me to provide "Lite" and Weekly versions of the list the way that Nikolas did for Obscutober II to make it easier for people that just don't have one-thing-every-single-day kind of time to feel welcome to still participate in some way. As stated in the description for those, you can just jump around the list however you like, but I know sometimes it's just easier if someone already lays things out that way for you instead of having to remember to leave things out and such.

And then for the visual list design, I did a mixture of Nikolas' Obscutober list style and my own more typical branding elements, which ended up working out much better than I expected; I wanted the "spirit" of the list to be recognizable to fans of Nikolas' lists without being an exact copy/looking too much like I was trying to "pretend" to be him or something, and I think I landed in a pretty good place. [And in case anyone is wondering, yes I did use my own template to make the list!]

I do have to admit to you Sparklers though that despite going through all that trouble, I'm actually still not 100% sure I'll be following the list myself. 😅 I've gone back and forth over how exactly I want to handle October at all this year so much...I definitely want to (and intend to!) do a Daily Challenge, especially given how spotty my uploads have been over the last year, but I just can't seem to settle on one full-fledged plan that I'm completely satisfied with.

I do have one potential idea I'm considering that already has a very specific alternate list, but pretty much all of my other ideas would normally use the official Inktober list, and so since that list isn't on the table for me this year, and it's really looking like DeviantArt isn't doing Drawtober again this year—Which I find incredibly sad, by the way!—I need another list on-hand that I know I can use and be reasonably happy with.

And for the record, I'm being intentionally coy about that one specific idea and not sharing that list because it's highly specific and if I do decide to go that route in some way, I'd like the main idea to be a least a little bit of a surprise.

But even if I don't use this list myself, I thought at least a few other people might enjoy giving it a try. After all, I wasn't the only one that enjoyed Nikolas' Obscutobers—I originally found out about them through another person entirely. So maybe a few other people are feeling that Obscutober void, or maybe you're just a big Word Nerd™ like me, or maybe you just want something that's a little different still from a lot of the more typical alternative prompt lists that have been floating around.

So, whatever the case, here the list is (and the Lite and Weekly versions, too); Let us all do with them what we will! 😉

Before I go, I will offer an apology to anyone who's disappointed or frustrated that I'm posting the list so close to time to use it—Believe me, if I'd been 100% sure I wanted to make it in the first place sooner, I would have gotten it out much sooner, too! But I'm doing the best I still can by getting out with this very tiny 2-day cushion instead of just dropping it right on the 1st. If the list turns out to be something you Sparklers want to see again next year, I promise I'll do my best to get it out with a lot more advance notice next time!

With that, there are still two days left in September and as semi-implied already, I still have a ton to do to be anything close to ready for October, so I'll leave you Sparklers to the list and your own October plans, whatever they may be; Hope to see you all again hopefully very, very soon...! 🤗

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List Design  © me, MysticSparklewings

Obscutober Concept Inspired by nikolas_tower

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⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

[potatoinalovelyhat]

Scintillate Mage

For this year I've decided to mix two different October prompts lists together.

The first list is the Obscutober list made by @mysticsparklewings https://www.tumblr.com/mysticsparklewings/762909713497309184/mysticsobscutober2024?source=share

The second one being the 30 Character Design Challenge made by Parakeetty https://www.furaffinity.net/view/22445508/

[mysticsparklewings]

Obscutober 2024 Day 5: Sklent

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Sklent (n.)

any slanting surface, as a slope

a sideways or oblique movement

a sideways glance

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Obscutober Day 5: Sklent 📐

Maybe you can "see" by my posting time that things went fairly "sklent" for me today. 🙃

But, I admit despite that, this may well be my favorite mandala so far—At least a small win for the day! 🙌

⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

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Well Sparklers, if you thought for a moment that me uploading yesterday's Obscutober a bit early in the day [for me, at least] meant earlier uploads were going to continue, you've been bamboozled about as much as I was last night when I came home and thought, "I'll just work on tomorrow's mandala a bit before bed..."

Because I said that, and then I sat at my desk and spent more time just trying not to fall asleep than actually getting any work done, considerably worse than the fight I had on Day 3. 😫 It was so frustrating!

And then, naturally, I woke up this morning and have spent most of the day struggling to string more than 5 minutes together at a time to actually get it done. Lately, it never seems to fail—If I'm already under pressure have something time-sensitive to do, suddenly there is just no time to do anything. 🙄

Still, you can see I did pull together something. By some miracle, I'm also actually really happy with it—This is probably the weirdest mandala and also the weirdest color palette yet!

Clearly, I opted to keep the mandala lines mostly simple. The definition for today is the most simple so far, so combined with my difficulties in actually this done, that was just the course of action that made the most sense. However, me being me, I did have to find some way to still make it interesting and not just an otherwise plain but very triangle/diagonal line-heavy mandala.

I assume it's easy to see—ha ha—that I opted to make a very angular side-glancing eye to go with the third variation of the word. The side-glancing part was made a little bit easier by discovering what the "rotational symmetry" toggle in. Procreate's guide settings actually does—I really could've used that back on Day 2 if I'd realized what it did then!

That eye shape guided the rest of the piece once I had it down. The outer most mandala border was vaguely angry-eyebrow inspired, the inner one was sort of makeup and sharp cheekbone inspired, and then it's difficult to see but there's a little bit of hatching shaped like tears under the eye portions. Worth noting that I almost didn't have the one lower "lash"—That was a late addition while I was just trying to fill out some of the empty space, but I think it was one of the most important additions in the end; It kinda ties the whole eye shape together in way that just wasn't happening without it.

The rest was mostly random and just whatever felt like it worked well. I didn't want to get too carried away with stuff that wasn't more directly related to the eye shape and make it too difficult to recognize, in addition to just not wanting to take too long working on the art as a whole because of the aforementioned time-related struggles I've already been having today.

I was very resistant to adding any curves at all, but they ended up there anyhow because I was running out of ideas for filling the space with angles. I do kind of like how it contrasts with expectations a bit though; That you'd expect eyes to be curved and soft but accented by angles, so this is the other way around.

The eyes also shaped the color palette; I was actually very tempted to do this one with white lines instead and fill in the whites of the eyes as solid instead—And I'm still thinking about doing that as a bonus verson for my Ko-fi Members if I have time, but we'll see; I'll add the link here if I do—but I ultimately chose black just so the eye shape would be more obvious. From there, the natural choice was to do something that kind of colored the eyes "properly," and just to make it more interesting I did the "big 3" eye colors. So we're up to black, white, blue, green, brown. Already a slightly unconventional palette. I polished it off by making the background a pale pink. [This is also a bit of change of form—So far I've picked the background color and then colored on top of it.] I didn't want to pick a natural skin color because that felt both boring and just generally not right, and for some reason the idea to just continue to pick something weird was calling to me. Pink was the first option that came to mind, and I was almost startled but how much I like the way this looks when I first tried it, so my decision was made.

Thing DONE, yay! 😃

It may have taken far too long and far too much unrelated, external frustration to get it done, but I am grateful that I like the end results as much as I do. Considering how it got started, I did not go in with high hopes. 😅

Next we'll see how much additional frustration I incur in trying to cross-post it. 🙃

Hopefully, tomorrow will go more smoothly, but I'm keeping my expectations low—I know how Inktober season usually goes. 🫠 But we'll find out one way or another, won't we...

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See the Prompt List

Artwork  © me, MysticSparklewings

Obscutober Concept Inspired by nikolas_tower

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⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

[mysticsparklewings]

Obscutober 2024 Day 3: Horology 🕰️

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Horology (n.)

the science of measuring time

the art of making instruments for indicating time; clockmaking

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I assume real clock-making is rather time-consuming 😉 Making a clock-making-inspired mandala sure was!

...It took more time than I care to admit to come up with that joke. At least the art turned out nice? 😅 Bad puns aside: Click the "Keep Reading" and we'll talk more about my thoughts/process for this piece ✨

⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

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I'm a little bit conflicted with this one, Sparklers. (But hey, at least I should be getting this one posted a little bit earlier! 🤷‍♀️ ) I am happy with how it came out, and I was pretty excited to see what I could do with the ideas of gears and metal that immediately sprang to mind for this word, however...The act of making said metal and gears ended up being a lot more trouble than I anticipated. 😅 Those emotions are so equally matched it's hard to separate them. The biggest hurdle was the fact that in order to look "right," I had to be more careful about getting curves looking circular-ish and uniform with each other. For full circles, that's generally not so bad. For semi-circles and arcs, it tends to be a big pain. 🙃

It also didn't help that I chose to make the outer ring of gear teeth a size that was really "too small" for Procreate's symmetry tool to help me out as much as I needed it too. So I also had to be more careful with those as I worked me way across what area the symmetry tool wouldn't fill in for me. The background was a bit more challenge than I expected, too. If anyone remembers how I mentioned yesterday I had decided some spot color "within" the mandala lines is okay but I still want to keep things loose: This one definitely pushed the boundaries on that. I tried leaving things more abstract, but I kept going back and re-defining certain color areas because it felt wrong otherwise.

I think that's a conflict between the general clockmaking concept and the abstract nature of how I'm approaching these prompts; Clockmaking, or at least the physical components needed to do it, is so very rigid and precise. Although, on the other hand, there's a kind of irony in that, isn't there? Since the way we humans measure time is something we made up—it's pretty arbitrary as far as nature is concerned.

...I seem to be wandering away from talking about the art and into higher concepts I am really not an expert in. 😅 Let me try to get this derailed train of thought back on track...

My point was that it felt like I needed more color, placed more carefully, to help with the definition between the different gear and cog pieces. This was not helped by how a lot of the images I kept seeing when I looked up clock/watch insides did usually have pieces that stood out because they were differently colored metal. Two related asides: 1. I apologize to anyone that does work with watch/clock components and may be getting a headache from my lack of proper vocabulary to describe said parts...Or the general lack of sense the "clock parts" I tried to draw here make compared to the actually insides of a time-telling machine. Many, many artistic liberties were taken! 2. I do actually kind of recommend looking up watch/clock insides sometime when you get a chance if you're not familiar with what that looks like; I found a lot of the pictures oddly soothing for reasons I don't fully understand. But even so—A lot of them are pretty even though I don't think they're trying to be. The screws on this one make me think of tiny gemstones! [I did consider adding some spots of color to background to mimic that jewel-like feel I just mentioned, but ultimately I didn't want to over-complicate the color palette.]

Anyway, going back to the lines/mandala portion for a moment: I knew going in that the fact I'm taking up the center for the word definitions would make a time/clock-themed one more difficult. After all, one of the primary things you think of with those concepts are the clock hands in the center of a clock face. Usually, even if you don't read analogue clocks that often that's still true!

For that reason, while I normally make the mandalas from the inside-out (aside from adjustments/tweaks that happen later), this time I started more on the outer edge. The clock hands hanging out there were still one of the very last things, but the gear teeth and general round "clock border" were the first and I more or less worked my way inward.

And at a certain point I realized so far I really just had a "gears" or industrial-themed mandala that showed no hints of being tied to clocks specifically. 😅 You can see from that, I ended up opting to put roman numerals in the 4 primary "clock" positions—12, 3, 6, 9. If I'd had room, I might have gone for the full set of 12, but by that time (ha-ha) I'd spent way too long making those four "gear spoke" semi-circle things that hang over right where most of the other numerals would go and I was not of a mind to either re-do or erase them. 😵‍💫 I then spent way too long trying to figure out how to "compensate" and fill the "clock face" just a little bit more because the big 4 numerals weren't quite enough for me. It's not very exciting but I landed on just some small lines—Tick marks, you might say. 😃 You may also notice that, true to something else I said yesterday, this is now the first example of one of the Obscutober mandalas in black rather than white. I did start out with it in white, but as I was moving into work on the background I thought the white was coming off a little too "soft" or too much like the mandala was glowing. Black felt like a better fit for the illusion of depth and the more "rigid" feel overall.

Although while I was in the process of changing the lines from white to black, I was very tempted to leave it in a half-state where some of the uppers layers were in black and the lower ones were still white. That got vetoed for consistency's sake, but it did cause me to go back and play with some of the contrast in the background a little more to kind of echo the idea.

I was also very tempted to try dark brown or sepia lines for this one, but, say it with me: I decided not to to keep things simple and consistent.

The final product doesn't necessarily look that much like what I originally had in mind...But to be fair, my original vision was pretty fuzzy. At least unlike yesterday, there isn't too much I feel like I'd change or do all that differently if I had to do it over.

I do hope I can say at least that much about tomorrow's piece—Tomorrow is shaping up to be a busy day in my offline life, so I'm a little bit concerned about how I'm going to fit Obscutober in...But that's a key point of the challenge, right? 😅

There's definitely a joke in here somewhere about "use your time wisely," but I can't quite put it together, so you Sparklers will have to think on it and let me know if you can figure one out. 😉 Until tomorrow, Sparklers... 🤗

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See the Prompt List

Artwork  © me, MysticSparklewings

Obscutober Concept Inspired by nikolas_tower

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⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

[mysticsparklewings]

Obscutober 2024 Day 2: Littoral 🏖️

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Littoral (adj.)

of or relating to the shore of a lake, sea, or ocean

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Good News, Sparklers: I’m still happy with this as my #Inktober approach so far! 🎉 (Hopefully that continues🤞)

This one definitely turned out more “general beach/ocean” than “shoreline,” but oh well! 🤷‍♀️

Click the "Keep Reading" and we'll talk more about my thoughts/process for this piece (including part of why this word made the prompt-list cut)! ✨

⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

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Well Sparklers, I seem to once again be writing this description (and therefore posting the art) later in the day than expected again today, but y'know I'm still early enough I don't feel such a rush to just get everything done, as was an extremely bad habit for me during Inktober last year...But we're only on Day 2 so it's still very possible I'll end up in that situation at some point later in the month. 😅

Either way, since we covered I think what was left of the background information for my how/whys for October this year yesterday, I think today I'm free to focus just on today's piece.

And I'll start with the admission that one of the primary reasons this word made the cut when I was putting together the prompt list is because I personally find it more amusing than I probably should that "Littoral" can very easily sound like "Literal" depending on your accent/pronunciation; And while I haven't figured one out, I just know there's a delightful pun or wordplay hiding somewhere in that association. 😆

Does that have anything to do with my choice of shapes for the mandala or colors for the background? Not consciously, no. But I mention it just in case someone for some reason finds the idea as funny as I do!

That said, this one is—at least I think—a lot strong on the specific images in the mandala that tie back to the theme than yesterday's. Granted, I probably leaned a little more heavily on general beachy/ocean themes than is really appropriate for a word that's really more about shorelines for multiple kinds of waterbodies...

In my defense, I started working on this one around 2-3 a.m. before I went to bed and was struggling to stay awake for the area between the inner circle of seashells and the round with the tail-fin shapes. What were supposed to look more like fish scales underneath those fin shapes came out looking a lot more like the edges of stacked sand dollars as a result. 😅

That might kinda be for the better though because I think if they did look more like scales, the tail fins might be a little too mermaid-y. Sand dollars probably fit a little better for a shoreline focus. Or, this way they kinda also make me think of like...ridged rocks that you might see either along lake edges, or as like the "drop off" point where the ocean shore "ends" and the deep sea more or less "begins," if that makes any sense.

I also tried something...I want to say "different" but we're only on Day 2, so that feels a bit odd. 😆 But it is something I don't usually do with mandalas when I make them. You'll notice that the round with the tail fins features only 2 additional sea shells, not 4, 6, or 8 as would be more typical for a mandala pattern, and on either side of that same round where you'd expect another pair of shells to be are instead some different wave shapes.

This was just a small experiment in what I'm going to do "non-traditional symmetry" (because "asymmetry" isn't quite right). So far I'm just using Procreate for these, and Procreate's built-in symmetry tools can only be pushed so far vs. an app made more specifically for mandalas, so I was trying to get a feel for where exactly my boundaries with Procreate's tools are. Obviously I didn't get too crazy with it because I was tired, but I did learn a few things and intend to carry them forward.

To that end, for what it's worth, I am considering trying a mandala-making-specific app, but I haven't pulled the trigger just yet. I thought I'd try a couple more with just Procreate and see if I still want to. I have a feeling even if I do try another app, I'll end up tracing over whatever results I get in there in Procreate anyway just to make sure all my Obscutober pieces are stylistically consistent. [That's a me thing, I don't expect anyone else to care about the style consistency even half as much as I personally do.]

I will also say the "splash" shapes that end everything off weren't really what I originally had in mind, but I'm not bothered about it because I think they came out great and give the effect that I wanted really well. 😄

Oh, and before I move on from the mandala part: If you look closer, you can also see I tried just a little bit of hatching on this one. I wanted to "fill in" some more of the mandala lines for visual interest, but I didn't like the solid-fill look in those areas when I tried it. It's still not quite what I wanted but I was too tired to be bothered re-doing it. I'm also not sure how much I'll use hatching (or other "traditional" inking techniques) for the rest of the month, though it is a tool I'll be keeping in my metaphorical back pocket just in case.

This may as well be a good time to mention that not necessarily every Obscutober piece will use white mandala lines; I don't want to overcomplicate my choices too much, but I am planning on allowing black lines as well, if they'll suit that day's themes better. So far we've just had two days in a row where I thought the white worked better. 😉

As for the background: This one is one of the things that motivated me to go with this particular format for this year. I didn't start working on this piece until after the decision(s) had already been made, but during those last couple of days of September when the mandala idea finally started to form, I was going back and forth over the words and landed on "Littoral" again; The idea of having a kind of "island" in the middle surrounded by "water" for the background popped into my brain—Nothing but shoreline all 360º around. 🤗

That wasn't the deciding factor alone, but it was definitely a strong nudge in that direction! This background was also a good "test" in that it pushed me to consider there might be days—like this one!—where it's tempting to color the background less abstractly and more tied to whatever is happening with the mandala lines. Somehow, I hadn't really considering that yet. From that, you can see I decided that some spot color is okay, but for consistency purposes, I am still going to keep it largely soft and abstract. Since I'm toying with the idea of making coloring pages out of the finished mandalas later anyway, if I really want to color right inside the lines, I can worry about that after Obscutober.

Besides, keeping it abstract will be faster anyway; I have a tendency to get way-too-perfectonist when coloring inside of digital lines. 🫠

The longer I think about it, the more there are things I might do a bit differently if I gave the mandala part another go. I am still happy with how this one turned out and think the background is really solid, it's just that usual "hindsight is 20/20" artist problem—Sometimes great ideas for a piece only come after it's already done and you really don't feel like going through the trouble if changing what you have!

Ah well. Maybe I'll have more ideas actually come to me in-the-moment if I can be bothered working on the future mandalas when I'm not falling asleep at my desk. 😆 It still beats being wide-awake because I'm rushing to get it done at all, but it's definitely not the ideal way to be! 😅

In any case, aside from delays in writing this description, I've been enjoying seeing a few people (mostly on Tumblr) decide to try out the Obscutober list for themselves, so the month is off to a pretty decent start as far as I'm concerned! I hope it is for you Sparklers too, or that if it isn't, that things get better soon! 🤞

I'll leave you Sparklers with that for today, and hopefully see you again in cheerful spirits tomorrow. Toodles! 👋

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See the Prompt List

Artwork  © me, MysticSparklewings

Obscutober Concept Inspired by nikolas_tower

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⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

[potatoinalovelyhat]

Sklent Rogue

Any slanting surface, as a slope

A sideways or oblique movement

Day 5! Today's image can forth fully completed in my mind. Super pleased with it.

The first list is the Obscutober list made by @mysticsparklewings https://www.tumblr.com/mysticsparklewings/762909713497309184/mysticsobscutober2024?source=share

The second one being the 30 Character Design Challenge made by Parakeetty https://www.furaffinity.net/view/22445508/

[potatoinalovelyhat]

Apricate Paladin

To bask in the sun

To expose to the sunlight

Day 4! An honorable warrior who brings light to a world of darkness.

The first list is the Obscutober list made by @mysticsparklewings https://www.tumblr.com/mysticsparklewings/762909713497309184/mysticsobscutober2024?source=share

The second one being the 30 Character Design Challenge made by Parakeetty https://www.furaffinity.net/view/22445508/

[potatoinalovelyhat]

Holology Warrior

Day 3! With a warrior who uses time as a weapon. Removing her opponents from the timeline completely

The first list is the Obscutober list made by @mysticsparklewings https://www.tumblr.com/mysticsparklewings/762909713497309184/mysticsobscutober2024?source=share

The second one being the 30 Character Design Challenge made by Parakeetty https://www.furaffinity.net/view/22445508/

[potatoinalovelyhat]

Littoral Ranger

Day 2! With a little turtle ranger. His aim is slow, but steady.

The first list is the Obscutober list made by @mysticsparklewings https://www.tumblr.com/mysticsparklewings/762909713497309184/mysticsobscutober2024?source=share

The second one being the 30 Character Design Challenge made by Parakeetty https://www.furaffinity.net/view/22445508/

[mysticsparklewings]

Obscutober 2024 Day 1: Scintillate ✨

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Scintillate (v.)

to give off sparks; to shine as if emanating sparkle; to twinkle or glow

of a star or other celestial body: to vary rapidly in brightness; to twinkle

---------- Happy October 1st everyone! In case you missed it & it’s not painfully obvious, I’m doing things a bit differently this year, starting off with a personal rare-word favorite of mine. 😉

Click the "Keep Reading" and we'll talk more about my thoughts/process for this piece. ✨

⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️

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And so we begin another October, another month-long daily challenge—This time and even further break from tradition than is typical of me. 😆 So before we go any further, you might want to check the description for the prompt list I'm following this year—and you can follow it too, if you want! There's some background information about how/why that's the list I'm using so I don't have to repeat myself here (or 30 more times this month, for that matter). All done/don't care? Alrighty then, let's continue: As I hinted at before, I normally break from Inktober traditions by doing a mini-magnet poem on an Ink background—So I still get ink in there somewhere, but ultimately my final results look super different from what you'd expect an Inktober to look like. I've done it this way for years, partly to honor the memory of Katherine Mackenett ( better known as @FridgePoetProject on DeviantArt), and partly—most largely, at this point—because I do genuinely enjoy the format and it's proven to be something I can do every day successfully. That's a key point to how I've been able to participate in Inktober at all over the years that loyal Sparklers have probably heard me talk about before: I know I 1000% do not have the hours in the day and the mental stamina to do "normal" art every single day for a month. There's just no way. I'd probably give myself a mental breakdown if I tried. The thing is this has already been a super-duper chaotic year for me, as my super-spotty art uploads should reflect. Add to that there are some obstacles that would make my mini-magnet format more difficult to use this year—External things like my ink supplies being expensive to replenish, not having a dedicated space to lay out the magnets, etc...And as I discussed when I posted the prompt list, I have been kind of feeling like some kind of shake-up was in order anyway.

Now, for what it's worth, what I've settled on here is nothing like what I spent most of September wracking my brain over. The general idea here didn't really fully occur to me until a few hours after I posted the prompt list, if you can believe that. 😅

Don't get me wrong, I did still want to use and heavily considered my usual mini-magnet format, but to make a long story short and hopefully not give any of you Sparklers the same headache I spent most of September with: Ultimately, I decided what I need for October this year is something simplebut it also does get me back in a creating & posting habit [since that's been a bit of a struggle for me lately; That's largely why I felt the need to still do some kind of daily challenge at all this year instead of just skipping out.]

And—again, to make a long story short—I've decided the best format to accomplish that is to simply, digitally, make a mandala and abstract background that relate in some way to the prompt word for each day, accompanied by the word/definition itself. I just thought the word-inclusion part was a cute idea, plus I'm also kinda posting the word as a "reminder" for anyone else following along with the prompt list. [...Y'know, ignoring the fact that today and probably many more days I'll be posting too late for it to really be a "reminder" for most people, but I digress...]

The last time I was making mandalas regularly was actually for NaPoWriMo 2020 and while I do genuinely enjoy making them, I was pretty burnt out on them for a while after that. 😆 But I've already talked about why I may never attempt NaPoWriMo again at length before, so I'll spare you those details here. (Suffice to say it was mostly the poems that were the problem, not the mandalas!)

Note that this is my first year tackling an October challenge digitally, as well. I did seriously consider sticking with traditional, but I may be doing more traveling this October than I'm used to, so I need something that can travel with me as easily as possible, just to be safe. Remember—I'm a "smarter, not harder" kind of gal with these daily challenges. But, as a bit of bonus, that does mean I may be able to re-purpose some—maybe even all!—of these pieces as mandala coloring pages when it's all said and done. We'll see! And I'm explaining all of this not because I'm worried about criticism from others—It's my challenge and I'll do what I want!—But to give the insight that I'm used to giving when I make things, and also partially as reassurance to myself that while this is so different from how I'm use to October looking, I'm trying to do what I feel is best for my own well-being. Best to complete the challenge successfully, best to not unnecessarily stress myself out, best to still get me back into more regularly creating and posting things, etc. "Work smarter, not harder," includes taking care of yourself so you can both be smart and work hard when you need to, after all. So yeah. We're starting off with one of my personal favorite obscure words—I just love the way "scintillate" sounds, and would you really expect anything less when you're talking to someone who's middle name is literally "Sparkle"? 😆

I do think this will be one of the "less involved" mandalas since I could only think of so many shapes/lines that reasonably fit with the idea of sparks, twinkling, stars, etc. So the background has to help sell the theme more, but that is part of how this format will still actually be a challenge. 😉 Although, it is probably better that leaves me with not as much to say about the mandala today so I could give you Sparklers all that additional context as to how we got here. And for the record: I do not intend for every piece to look this similar to the design I chose for the prompt list! 🤭 That was just a not-super-well-thought out coincidence on my part. And, to be fair, it actually looked even closer to the prompt list at first until I realized what I had done and shifted the background colors around a bit. 😅 Still, I'm very pleased with how it turned out and when I finished the image, I have to say I felt a pretty strong sense of, "See? It's going to be okay," in response to the constant, "OH NO WHAT AM I GONNA DO??" I was feeling for most of September. I cannot emphasize enough how much I needed that feeling; So I'm much more confident now that this is the way to go. If today was any indication, my biggest challenge this year is probably going to be getting these descriptions done in a reasonable amount of time...and not delayed 50 times by other things in my life. 🙃 But I'm hoping the rest of them won't take quite as long as this one did, now that we've gotten a lot of context out of the way...But there's only one way to find out...!

I think though that's everything I wanted to say for now, so I'll leave you Sparklers to it—Here's to (hopefully) starting October off strong, everyone! 🙌

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See the Prompt List

Artwork  © me, MysticSparklewings

Obscutober Concept Inspired by nikolas_tower

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⭐️ Like My Art and Want to see more of it? Here's All My Links! ⭐️