Admin Post: Discussion: Jake Parker and Inktober

[goss]

The Inktober Brand

So ever since drawesome got started, we've been using the annual Inktober challenge as an incentive to not only get more familiar with inking techniques, but also as encouragement to practice drawing through daily/weekly word prompts. It's been awesome to see the productivity and creativity of everyone inspired by this challenge each year. :)

Yesterday during our monthly chat post, olivermoss mentioned Inktober coming up, but also the fact that its originator Jake Parker has become quite protective of the brand name and its use by others online.

Re-naming Our Challenge

As an art comm, we would still like to engage in a month-long ink challenge, but we're thinking of simply re-naming the challenge itself, in order to avoid using a trademarked word without permission. Two options so far are:
1. Drawtober
2. October Ink
Which do you prefer? If you have any other suggestions, please let us know.

This month-long challenge would be to create art using ink, or an inking style. Traditional and digital art would both be welcome. :)

Well, this is...icky.

Er...I was just about to put up the above discussion post, when I stumbled upon this video on YouTube this morning. I think it might be worth it to share with you all:

Watch on YouTube

So in light of all this, I'm conflicted about whether we should even be promoting this particular challenge anymore. I mean, a month of prompts for doing ink drawings is a GREAT challenge, and I would hate to have to abandon the idea altogether, but now it feels all weird to be giving this guy more exposure through the comm.

Here are some options:
(1) Abandon the Inktober challenge altogether
(2) Re-name the Inktober challenge to something else
(3) Keep the inking idea, but move it to a different month - maybe November?
What are your thoughts?

Comments

[goss]

Kind of like the idea of Drawtober as it's potentially more inclusive which was also an issue people had with Inktober.

Absolutely. :)

But what I aimed for last time I tried to participate was more about trying to come up with creative/unsettling prompt fills

This was one of the things I enjoyed most about other people's entries last year, because I personally wasn't able to participate.

[syntheid]

Oh I was reminded there is an actual drawtober hashtag on other social media, though it's a bit different with just six prompts for the month. But thought I'd throw that out since we're considering the name. :)

[mific]

I think we could still use it - maybe in the post about it we could call it "Drawesome's Drawtober Challenge" and tell people not to tag their works just as #Drawtober or (@)Drawtober on social media as there's another challenge called that. (in fact, this year's tag on twitter for the other challenge is #Drawtober2020, but there are a lot of Insta posts tagged with #Drawtober)

[goss]

Ah cool! Good to know that there's already people doing their own thing outside of the Inktober hashtag, but having the same kinda fun anyways. :D