Inktober 2025
I completed Inktober 2025! My entire art goal for this month was to make it to the end of Inktober and now that it’s done I feel like I can finally exhale. While difficult at times, it was still a lot of fun. I’m just happy that I made it to the end.
If you’re not familiar with Inktober, it’s a yearly art challenge that takes place every October. The organizers put out a list of prompts for each day of the month and artists do a new drawing each day (usually in ink, but some use different mediums), then post it to Instagram or any other social media platform. You can check out Inktober’s Instagram page to see the full prompt list and highlights of the month.
I’ve done Inktober before. I completed it once a few years ago but most other times I did a few days before falling off. This year I was determined to finish no matter what. It challenged me in ways I didn’t think it would, but overall, I think it was extremely beneficial to me as an artist.
Inktober Challenged Me To Be Creative As An Artist
This year’s Inktober pushed me to the limits of my creativity. I really underestimated how difficult it would be to do a different drawing every day and to create something based on such random prompts.
For the most part, my art process involves one main art project a week with maybe a few small sketches here and there. I work full time and have other hobbies like reading and playing music, so I’m not used to dedicating the time to doing a new drawing every day. Some of the prompts were obvious to me (of course I was going to do Inuyasha and Sesshomaru for “Rivals,” or Jack Skellington for “Skeletal”), but I really agonized over what to do for some prompts like “Murky,” “Shredded,” or “Onion.”
Sometimes I would browse Instagram to get inspiration from other Inktober artists, but I also didn’t want to do something that I saw a lot of other people doing. For example, a lot of people drew Blastoise from Pokemon for day 21’s “Blast.” While I like Blastoise, I wanted my Inktober set to be somewhat original.
In the end, I’m glad I didn’t skip days and that I came up with something for each day, no matter how random it ended up being. Honestly, I’ve felt like the well of inspiration for my art has been dry for quite a while, so this challenge really pushed me to search the depths of my mind for things I normally wouldn’t do and I’m grateful for that.
Inktober Helped Me Immerse Myself In The Art Community
I’ve been in and out of the online art community for years. I think every artist is aware by now of how hard it is to get engagement on social media for your art and that has discouraged me a lot in the past. Although I’ve decided to be more serious about showcasing my art online this year, it can still make me question why I even post at all when it feels like no one is seeing my work.
Part of why Inktober has been fun this year is because it gave me a chance to feel like I’m part of a larger art community. It was exciting to be part of a group that’s all working toward the same goal of completing the challenge by the end of the month and also to see what everyone was posting each day. A lot of what these artists were posting was truly amazing and many of them made me laugh out loud or gasp in awe each day.
I’m also grateful to everyone who liked or commented on my own art. Even just a few likes or a comment here and there encouraged me to keep going when I felt like giving up.
Inktober Gave Me Pride in Myself For Finishing Something
I fell behind multiple times during Inktober. The idea is to do one drawing per day but I would often skip days and I ended up being at least two days behind for most of the month. Very quickly, my Inktober goals shifted away from doing the prompts every day and just making sure I completed everything by the end of the month. That definitely took some pressure off.
I’m going to be a bit vulnerable here and admit that I have a hard time sticking to things. I say I’m going to do something and I’m going to be really good and successful at it, but all too often I don’t see it through until the end. I was determined to change that with this challenge. A simple drawing challenge might seem a little insignificant to some, but for me it’s huge that I completed every drawing by the end of the month and wrote a blog about it. I’m proud.
Would I Do Inktober Again?
I would definitely do Inktober again. Maybe not next year (I need a long break!), but sometime in the future.
Throughout the month, I saw a handful of anti-Inktober posts and I get it. It can be a lot of pressure for an artist to commit to something like this and even I was getting exhausted halfway through the month. However, I think it’s important for artists to push themselves sometimes and for me, this was just the push that I needed right now.
