inktober2020 – syb & me

Inktober 2021

I have done the Inktober challenge for three or four years now and loved doing it. I enjoyed it as a daily practice and it helped me to develop style and technique with various ink media. Most of all it disproved my belief that I couldn’t begin to think of a story when I found my characters Cissie and Bea – and last year, Biskit and Mavis. And there’s the value of the Inktober community on social media which brings the opportunity to see so much of other people’s work .

But this year I have decided not to take up the Inktober challenge. Instead I have decided to devote time each day to getting to grips with stopmotion animation again.

Of course … this might mean the occasional drawing crops up – and if it fits the daily prompt … Well it might just appear here in that capacity!

Meanwhile, for those who haven’t seen this year’s prompts yet, here is the official list. Good luck and Happy Inking.

comics, Drawings

Thaddeus & Mavis: Finale

Thaddeus hears that his patrol buddy Coral is dead. Rumour says that the trauma got her and she ended it. He doesn’t believe Rumour.
He still has the lacy kerchief she’d used to mop his brow after some particularly hard drinking. He stares at it and makes up his mind to find out what really happened.
But Thaddeus is so absorbed in his hunt that he doesn’t notice the way Mavis is looking at him. And when the rat guy comes after him and Thaddeus finds her card in the man’s pocket … his heart breaks, a trust breaks.
So Mavis now knows that she has done it all wrong. But neither of them knows if Thaddeus can forgive her.

Maker’s Note: I started out intending to stitch my Inktober 2020 prompts into a crime story. But it turned into a love story. Who knew. Don’t ask me what happens between Thaddeus and Mavis … because for the moment I just don’t know.

comics, Drawings

Thaddeus & Mavis: 3

Unable to sleep, Thaddeus gets a job as a chef in a local nightclub. It’s a throw of the dice and after a while he starts to hate cutting up the dead animals. Then he hears the smoky tones of the club’s singer Mavis and floats away. He is gone. He has to know this lady. From the toes of her sassy shoes to the tips of her lynxy ears, he knows she is the one. The one who will stop the nightmares.

comics, Drawings

Thaddeus & Mavis:2

Filling in the story and filling in the images:

A year or so ago, Thaddeus returned from the war on Landfall 6. He was in a bad way, unable to sleep and waking slippery with sweat from nightmare flashbacks. At the end, his base Dune Outpost had come under rocket attack and a sandstorm buried what was left of the base together with Thaddeus and his fellow troops, dead and living. All he remembers clearly is being hauled out of the sand by his platoon buddy, Coral.

comics, Drawings

Thaddeus and Mavis:1

Filling in my Inktober posts to tell T & M’s story in more detail …

Mavis finds a handkerchief on the dressing table. A lace handkerchief. Enraged by what she thinks is Thad’s “two-timing” tricks, she hires someone to “straighten” him out. Thaddeus can manage some fancy moves and wins the fight. But his heart is broken when he finds Mavis’s card in his attacker’s jacket.