I am still behind on inktober. You'd think I could bash two of these out in a day, but so far 1.5 is my top speed. I claimed I wasn't going to spend more than an hour or two, but they are taking 3-5+ hours each, roughly. Because I just don't like cutting corners.

"Raven" was fairly straightforward - just a raven holding a small moon in his beak. I gave the moon a native stylized face.

"Spirit" got inspired by some random art browsing. I found this black and white illustration of a woman lit from within, so the light illuminates the bones of her skeleton. It struck me as so lovely I opted to do spirit as a skull illuminated from within, with spirit-smoke threading from the eye sockets and more smoke in the background. Spouse says it looks very Ghost Rider, which I'm not mad about.

So interesting and cleverly done.

"Fan" is still a bit in progress. For lack of any better ideas, when I think of fans I think of fancy spanish ladies and that leads me to a quote from the movie Everafter: "...except some spanish pig they have the nerve to call a princess." So I drew a spanish pig princess holding a lace fan. I found a photo ref of a very happy hog with excellent lighting. I have a little more work to do on her gown and her trotters holding the fan. I ran out of steam last night.

Next is "watch" and I am conflicted. I want to do a clockwork creature, but I also know clockwork is a hellscape of tiny annoying details that must be perfect. Gears = guaranteed bad time, every time. Never go full clockwork. But I don't know what else to do that isn't stupid. Watch as in clock, watch as in guard or watchtower, watch as in eyeball ...

Anyway assuming I finish watch today I will still be three behind. Like, once you get behind with inktober it is so hard to catch up. You think you can make it up easy-peasy but then you're going to have some low quality work in there and I so dislike a substandard effort. Theoretically I'll make a wall art thing with these and I don't want obvious rushed pieces in the mix. C'est la vie.

I told spouse in the spring I want a pocketknife for my birthday and I got around to finding/buying one. Pocketknives are so practical but I have never had a proper one. I had a little keychain swiss army knife but it doesn't really count. Spouse carries a pocketknife so usually I just ask to borrow his, but I'm not comfortable with it. Lately I've been wanting a pocketknife for sharpening pencils. I'm fed up with crappy pencil sharpeners. Electric sharpeners suck, hand sharpeners suck, I have different sized pencils and leads and I could waste a shitton of money trying to find One Sharpener To Rule Them All, so screw it, I'm going old school. (The only problem is figuring out what to do with pencil shavings without a handy wastebin, but I'm working on that.) Lately I really like using 2.3mm clutch pencils, which are sort of fat daddy mechanical pencils popular with the drafting/engineering sorts. They're awesome because you can get lead in different colors, so I have one loaded with non-photo blue and one with red and another with regular graphite. But since it's not a common thing, there are only so many sharpener options and the three I have are miserable and never give me a good point. I've been using an exacto lately, which is not ideal.

I ran across the higo no kami knife because some other artist had one to sharpen his pencils, but it doesn't have a lock and I think I need something more dummy proof. That led me to the kiradashi, sort of a japanese utility knife. I liked the short straight blade. There's a pocketknife version of the kiradashi and it suits my needs - has a good lock, short 2.5" straight blade, looks comfortable to hold, and is under $30 'cause I don't know how much I'll use it or if I'll misplace it somewhere. It looks like a pencil sharpening utility knife. So I ran it by spouse and he liked it so much he wanted one too. They have a knife policy at hogwarts and I think the blade has to be short so he couldn't take his normal pocketknife.

It's an inexpensive knife so the blade steel is not great. Supposedly the manufacturer is known for good heat treatment, and the blade is made in taiwan and not china, so that should be decent enough for me. I may upgrade if I find myself getting frustrated over dullness, but that's good because it means I am using it a lot. Another mild bummer is that the pocket clip is not adjustable (spouse is lefthanded). The CRKT pilar looks like a good alternate option, should I want another of higher quality.

I got the kiradashi and so far it seems like exactly what I need. Blade size is perfect, I can get a good solid grip on the handle, lock seems good, straight blade will be easy to sharpen, not gonna cry if I lose it. Feels safe and easy to control. Good beginner knife esp for people with small hands and small pockets.

So I am going to send a package to spouse with his kiradashi. I think I'm going to make a halloween luminary for him, like I did with the christmas cards. Got some spare LED tea lights. I figure he can use it as a bathroom nightlite. I got some orange and black cardstock and found a decent mandalorian stencil design that should look cool. The big challenge is finalizing and printing the artwork without resorting to his windows machine. Pretty sure I can get gimp to do the image processing I need. Printing might be interesting.

Apparently yesterday at hogwarts they carved pumpkins. Come for the fancy govt training, stay for the arts & crafts? Spouse said it was his first time carving a pumpkin. My parents were poor and so christian I've never been trick-or-treating, but at least I've carved a few pumpkins. I've got a dim view of spouse's parents, to be frank. They didn't take him to denali national park and they didn't get him a pumpkin to carve. Pretty shitty parenting if you ask me.

So spouse's original roommate (Ron I) went home. Poor guy was injured in a previous training class and he figured out he still wasn't healed enough to make it through this class so he opted to bow out and try again later. Rough. Spouse just got assigned a new roommate (Ron II), one of the ones they had quarantined individually, which means this guy got vaxxed very very recently, probably only because of the mandate. And he's from texas. Spouse says he's probably going to have to bite his tongue on some topics, and I said that if this guy is a classic texan he'll want to do all the talking anyway. I told spouse to make sure the new guy doesn't panic and burn the furniture if it gets cold. But it's good for spouse to have a roommate, even an irritating one. Spouse is extrovert-curious. He'll do better with another person.

I took a walk yesterday and got another ziplock bag of black walnut husks. They are all over the place - I could collect a bushel of maggoty walnuts if I wanted. I should have plenty for ink and dye. I got a $7 stock pot at walmart - so cheap it's basically only good enough for craft project use. The recipes I was looking at said to use rubbing alcohol or vodka in the ink to keep mold from growing. Since it's my birthday, I figured I'd get some liquor, and when I got to the liquor store I thought, why not get something in a fancy bottle? And what comes in the prettiest bottles? Gin. I've had gin & tonics but never picked up a bottle because it doesn't mix with coke, but I'm staying away from coke now so why not. I picked this japanese gin that comes in a beautiful hexagonal bottle with flowers and leaves embossed on the sides. Will be gorgeous filled with homemade syrup later. And I'll have gin scented ink, which doesn't sound terrible.

So my birthday drink is gin-fizzy water-lime and it's perfect. I've read about a gin drink called a florodora I want to try, but I'll need to make some raspberry syrup and ginger syrup first.

I should get going - these inktobers won't draw themselves.