Having skipped it last year I have finally committed to, and completed, Inktober 2026. For those of you who are not aware, Inktober was originally conceived as a month long analogue challenge for creating art with ‘pen and ink’ and posting one illustration a day throughout the month of October.
As devoted fans of Inktober will have noticed, I haven’t followed the official subject list and instead chosen a theme of ‘Mutant Beasts’ (made up creatures) and then using fountain pen friendly pigment inks for all line work and then colouring in with dye base inks with bleach highlighting. I used this approach for each illustration.
For inking in the line work I used a Desiderata Daedalus Zebra G fountain pen or a Serendipity dip pen with a Jowo number 6 feed and a Kanwrite ultra flex nib. For the painting and highlights I used a number 2 half rigger brush. The paper used was a Seawhite multi medium stock.
The fountain pen friendly pigment inks used were Diamine Forever Inks and Octopus Fluids Write and Draw Inks. Both ranges are wonderfully extensive with a huge choice of hues. As you can see from the above image the inks dried waterproof with NO smearing when overpainted! Both pens behaved beautifully with no feed blockages or any other impediments from the pigment inks! I can strongly recommend both of these ranges.
The dye base inks used were from a range of brands including: Diamine, Octopus Fluids, Ferris Wheel Press, Sailor Ink Studio, Robert Oster, L’Artisan Pastellier, Noodler’s, de Atramentis, Waterman and my own Nick Stewart range. There was the complete mix of ink types: standard, shading, shimmer, sheen and chameleon. See the images below for the exact inks used for each creature.
Thanks to all of you who have followed along. It’s been good fun and good for me to get illustrating again. The initial concept was conceived from a reaction to a discussion about AI and fears of what might happen if used inappropriately. A thought was then triggered that it might be interesting to create a animal mutation for each day of Inktober. NOTE: This is probably, more than likely, not just a discussion any longer and already happening somewhere on the planet with AI willingly assisting and accelerating things. Somewhat concerning and definitely food for thought!
Should you want the narrative for each illustration, please follow me on Instagram and/or Facebook as that’s where you’ll find it. If you’d like to download an A2 pdf poster featuring all the mutant beasts in my ‘old school’ style, click here.
AND HEY! If you’re interested to know more about how to use fountain pen inks in more creative ways – whether it’s simply to observe their chromatic behaviours, or, to recreate one of my swatch cards, or, to learn how to use them in watercolour painting, illustration and calligraphy, why not check out my online course or attend a workshop?
