Inktober has come and gone, and I’m not going to lie: this year’s prompts were bad.

I’ve had a dubious relationship with Inktober for the past few years. For one thing, I rarely finish them before the month is out. For another, the creator’s trademark shenanigans and suspicious “parallel thinking” left a bad taste in my mouth years ago. But I was craving a drawing challenge last month, so I said, why not.

And, hoo boy, were these prompts stinkers.

Usually there are a couple of related prompts in the list, and I like this, because it gives you the challenge of trying to figure out how you’re going to differentiate them. But this year’s list was almost entirely travel themed, which resulted in a lot of redundancy.

I did my best to make them weird, gave up in the middle, and just started drawing octopuses based on my Twitch chat’s suggestions — a tradition we might continue as Octo October next year. In the meantime, enjoy my efforts! And no, almost none of these were done on the appropriate day, nor did I finish until November. I’m a rebel that way.

Day 1: Backpack

This one was based off an angler fish. If you look closely, you can see where the male angler fish bit into its skin, becoming nothing more than a pair of gonads for its indifferent hostess. (I didn’t actually draw this, but it’s there.)

Day 2: Discover

Here’s where I knew this Inktober was going to be rough. I drew a creature based on a pair of binoculars, not realizing Binoculars would be the prompts for day four. I was the kid who rarely read the directions all the way through, in case you’re wondering.

Day 3: Boot

I like to imagine this one is a benevolent parasite who eats your callouses and toe fungus when you wear him. Try getting that out of your head now.

Day 4: Exotic

This is about as exotic of a pet as I could imagine.

Day 5: Binoculars

Since I already drew a creature with binoculars, the only solution was to draw a creature even more ocular than that.

Day 6: Trek

This one was the “live long and prosper” Vulcan hand sign turned into an alien face.

Day 7: Passport

I don’t know where these stamps are from, but given how carnivorous they look, I assume they’re all from Australia.

Day 8: Hike

This ended up looking like Sasquatch on Ozempic for some reason.

Day 9: Sun

This one ended up being my favorite. Imagine this looking down at you on a beach day. Put on that SPF one billion.

Day 10: Nomadic

Carcinization is the tendency of crustaceans to evolve into crab-like species. But I like to imagine it as a human wizard’s spell that accidentally backfired.

Day 11: Snacks

Watch where you snack!

Day 12: Remote

Spider Turtle would like to know why you disturbed his slumber.

Day 13: Horizon

Thus continuing my obsession with drawing horrifying space orbs.

Day 14: Roam

This dragon salesman (salesman dragon?) ended up looking a lot like Trogdor.

Day 15: Guidebook

This is the exact moment I gave up on the Inktober prompts and drew skull mushrooms instead. This, also, is one of my favorites.

Day 16: Grungy

I drifted slightly back towards the prompt with this one.

Day 17: Journal

This was the nail in the prompt coffin. Journal? Really? After passport and guidebook? How many bibliographical prompts can you have in a single Inktober? Anyway, this weird creature is better than a journal.

Day 18: Drive

This is where things started drifting octopus-ward.

Day 19: Octocat

From this point forward, I started taking prompts from Twitch chat to draw octopuses.

Day 20: Octospaghetti

Now, that’s a spicy meatball.

Day 21: Octohorny

This could have gone a very different direction, and you’re welcome that it didn’t.

Day 22: Octofairy

This one grants you eight wishes.

Day 23: Octo-I-Refuse-To-Say

All I’m going to say is, this one is based on a notoriously feared meme from the late 90’s, and you can blame TheHamOfficial for the suggestion. (They’re also a phenomenal illustrator, so go follow them, even if it’s against your better judgement.)

Day 24: Octocollision

Kersplat!

Day 25: Octogossip

Spilling the tea while looking fabulous.

Day 26: Octoshakespeare

Alas, poor Yorick. I straight up ate him, Harukio.

Day 27: Octoscream

Munch on that.

Day 28: Octofurbie

Behold, the horror.

Day 29: Octofan

Day 30: The End

Chat told me to draw poo poo pee pee. I can think of no better conclusion to this year’s Inktober. Until next time!