Last year was nice and all, but by the end of it I thought, this is nothing like what I ‘usually’ (implies free time) do; if part of the goal is to practise then next time I should do something more in line with my typical approach. So, more about shapes and shading than lines and stark contrast.

Hence were born the RULES:

• one hour

• one layer

• one colour

• one scale

• one attempt

Basically a bunch of things to focus on streamlining the drawing process and not get hung up on diversions. It’s not really ‘ink’ besides the lack of saturation but shush, I used the same prompts anyway. Last time I think it turns out most actually took less than an hour, but some definitely took longer so I had a hard limit here. Usually ended up using all of it, too.

Also I did remember to start recording timelapses from #4 on, which were fun at the time but I reckon you probably don’t care much for 20 minutes of timelapses back-to-back, so I’ve thoughtfully gone through and exported still images of everything and might just include the odd timelapse for particular favourites.

1. Dream

Well, it’s what came to mind. A decent start; the sort of thing I was after for this year. ROCK COUNT: 1

2. Spiders

NOT TO SCALE. Also, mate, I don’t think she’s your type.

3. Path

It’s around the bottom right, see? ROCK COUNT: 2

4. Dodge

The first time I remembered to try recording! Didn’t really get the ‘dynamicness’ of the pose right but I guess it turned out better than I remember.

5. Map

I’d spent the whole day thinking the prompt was ‘golden’ and had a brilliant idea. But the prompt was actually something completely unrelated. Shading’s pretty lacklustre; I consider this Almost Bad (unsurprising considering it features a stinkin’ mammal).

6. Golden

In retrospect, looking at this in the gallery of completed stuff, it’s actually pretty flat too. But otherwise it is Good and the sort of thing I was after in this endeavour, after a woeful lapse over the last few. ROCK COUNT: 3

7. Drip

Kind of a rip off of ‘spiders’. Took a bit to get the leaves looking good.

8. Toad

It’s a cane toad. You uncivilised folk wouldn’t get it.

9. Bounce

One of those awful prompts but I prevailed. See the ricochet? Ha ha. I might have been playing a bit of Titanfall 2.

10. Fortune

I've had a change of luck, I found the twenty bucks I thought I lost under the sofa …

… okay the face is a bit bad but honestly it’s a miracle I drew not one but two without committing sudoku. The one on the note actually looks pretty bad but you can’t tell because it’s upside-down. It wasn’t even supposed to be there but I buggered up the framing and drew far more note than intended. Also please don’t use this for counterfeiting; I didn’t bother with the microprint.

11. Wander

ROCK COUNT: 4

12. Spicy

Technically the prompt was ‘Spicey’ but I didn’t feel like drawing a Marriam-Webster dictionary.

13. Rise

ROCK COUNT: 5

14. Castle

The appropriate soundtrack for reliving the experience. I don’t think this counts as a rock for the rock count. Also I didn’t notice at the time but there’s a bit of a perspective derp here. I didn’t bother with guidelines because I somehow made myself believe the RULES were more restrictive than they were. Guess I was just getting into the spirit.

15. Dagger

Well dang if it isn’t a Stinkin’ Mammal that actually looks alright. Cunning sea of black in the bottom left so I didn’t have to deal with the consequences of poor framing. Also I was mirroring horizontally back and forth like mad while doing this and lost track of which reality was the real one, so the first attempt at writing the title actually had it backwards.

16. Angel

Ha, like I’m going to draw an angel. No, you get Northstar. Basically the same. Actually I’ve ‘wanted’ to draw something involving her for years but didn’t know how to do it justice, so it’s good that this came out alright. Railgun might be a bit short but shhhhhhh

17. Demon

Can I get a ‘hell yeah’? Well, it could be better. I did run out of time. ROCK COUNT: 6

18. Saddle

blergh. It was meant to take up more of the frame but maybe it’s for the best you can’t see much. Death of the author that rule of thirds.

19. Plump

The grey butcherbird has two modes: Bird, and Fluffball. Here is a butcherbird in fluff form, though perhaps the neck should be more hunched to attain the true triangle.

20. Frost

I feel climatically discriminated against. Where’s the prompt for ‘oppressive humdity’, huh?

21. Chains

Not entirely what I had in mind but came out close enough. Bonus foreground chains just to drive the point home.

22. Scratchy

I’m sure it’ll be fine.

23. Celestial

How many stars or constellations can you identify? Hint: if you live in a shithole from which the centre of the galaxy is not visible, you might find this a bit difficult.

24. Shallow

This might be where I started to use burning and dodging to enhance contrast. It might be!

25. Dangerous

📸 I’m pretty sure that’s not meant to be like that.

26. Remove

Regular refueling. Probably the control rods should stick out more than zero after being detached from the drives but I’m sure it’ll be fine, so long as they don’t contain any graphite.

27. Beast

I was going to just do a previous sketch but polished, but then was all nooo it has to be original or unique somehow but I don’t actually have any ideas for uniqueness. Well I guess it’s alright. I recall it being worse.

28. Sparkle

This was going to be on fire, because I actually got here from sparkle→fire, but then I thought, you know, that’s nice enough. I’ll just add some lights and say it counts. Also, silhouettes are cheating.

29. Massive

I once sketched a massive crater in the middle of a cityish thing and drawing tiny squares for buildings took ages. And it didn’t even look good. So the real challenge was making a passable city with its endless local contrast in less than an hour. ROCK COUNT: 7

30. Rush

The idea was, someone getting impatient watching paint dry, so instead of doing something else they just try to make it dry faster. A camera filming the wall might have helped convey that but I had the dual problems of Time and Space.

31. Fire

I love a sunburnt country… Definitely made use of ‘burn’ blending here, though perhaps not as much as it might warrant…