2025 e-inktober roundup

A mere few months ago I was lusting after some kind of Supernote gadget, a kind of e-ink ‘paper tablet’ that I could carry around and write maths on and definitely do drawings and sketches more than never, without needing to plonk myself in front of the computer and start up Krita for any of it. I went through a bit of a cycle, deciding that I really did want one after all, then moving towards buying one only to find that it would be even more than I expected, sit on it some longer and start again. That repeated about three times until I actually had a Supernote A5 X2 Manta in my hands.

Anyway, given the nature of the device and the timing of all these events, it set an obvious theme for this year’s inktober challenge: e-inktober! It’s inktober but I do everything on the Supernote, because even I am capable of a portmanteau for e-ink and inktober. No more shading or colours, we’re doing things black-and-white.

It’s supposed to be some kind of lizard wearing a fake mustache and glasses, but the image doesn’t really convey that

Mustache

A terrible start. Legitimately embarrassing. Just keep scrolling.

dragon deftly manoeuvring amongst the highrises of an inner city

Weave

Prominent and pointed mountain peak with stark contrast highlighting its jagged folds. Smaller mountains surround it with a lake in front.

Crown

Suddenly remembering that black exists!

A crystal ball on a table with dice, a candle and a deck of cards. The ball is cloudy and hard to discern the contents of.

Murky

A deer seen from the front drinking from the edge of shallow water

Deer

A guy drives a spear into some kind of demon rhamph mid-air. It’s not having a good time.

Pierce

Big robot with a central body low to the ground and five sprawling legs

Starfish

Someone leaves a room with the door left ajar. Underneath the lightswitch, a note kindly asks that occupants turn off the lights when leaving. But the lights are turned on.

Reckless

A title like that obviously had to be a joke. The hard part was working out what that joke should be.

A large and bulky rail gun sitting on two tracks

Heavy

A group of helicopters fly over a coniferous forest towards distant mountains and rivers

Sweep

Some large arthropoidal monster/cutie pins a helpless person to the ground, impaling them with its front limbs.

Sting

A werewolf pulling at its tattered former clothes

Shredded

A plant with long, slender leaves in a muddy puddle during rainfall

Drink

I wasn’t looking ahead in the prompts to avoid spoilers, which meant coming to this one and being mad that I’d already drawn something having a drink on the 5th for ‘deer’. But I worked it out in the end.

A tree stump with prominent roots and various mushrooms growing on and around it

Trunk

The head of a Rhamphorhynchus, with many pointed teeth

Ragged

Cutie!!

I could never be a palaeoartist, you have to be so pedantic with fairly limited material to make sure you do it all Accurately™. You wouldn’t dream of drawing the wrong number of teeth, after all. Even then they’re probably too small.

A toilet suffering some kind of explosion, as water bursts from the seals, and the seat and cistern cover fly off.

Blunder

A bipedal lizard clad in fabric and jewels looks to the sky with its arms outstretched

Ornate

A dragon hangs from the wall of a ruined and burning fort, looking at a person standing with a flock of sheep

Deal

Here the virtue of the portable tablet reveals itself. I spent that Saturday on the road and away from home, and to knock off an inktober late at night amongst all the other things to do upon returning would have just been obnoxious. Instead I managed to do it earlier in the car, so the lines are a bit rough.

Under a wispy cloudy sky, a small iceberg floats in the ocean. To the right, a tall sailing ship approaches. Don’t worry, they’re not on a collision course.

Arctic

A small winged dinosaur with outstreched wings looks up to a swooping megabat of the same size

Rivals

The long-awaited Neopteryx versus Archaeopteryx! This is an idea I’ve had rattling around for years, though unfortunately the thing that got the name ‘Neopteryx’ just so happens to be an endangered bat limited to just a few patches of forest and with almost zero photos available on the internet. The kind of thing where when you do see a photo, you can’t even be sure it’s the right animal. Fortunately I had already embarked on that fascinating research journey years ago and collected bookmarks. Also someone published a more obvious source in the meantime.

A rocket or perhaps a missile launches vertically upwards, obscuring the ground with a huge plume of smoke

Blast

Some kind of control room adorned with panels, computer displays, consoles and all manner of indicators lights, buttons and switches

Button

It was bloody hot and after drawing all this, any kind of shading was the last thing on my mind. Not that it really needs to be too discernible to get the point across…

In the evening twilight, a lighthouse atop a cliff overlooks the ocean. In the foreground a leafy bush covers half the image with its bottom half in shadow. There are also some fairly subtle specks of light dotted around it.

Firefly

Two tanks and a large quadrupedal robot face off amongst the ruins of a city street. The facades of buildings have all collapsed. Two more robots prowl the wreackage in the background.

Rowdy

Can’t sleep; bloody neighbours causing a ruckus again

A view of a large rocky cavern, with a large molten lake and burning fires illuminating the interior and casting strong shadows amongst the rough rock formations

Inferno

A fridge-freezer combo unit with the freezer door open. Inside is a fire.

Puzzling

There’s been some confusion on the content of this image depending on the context people see it in – so in case this display size is too small, the idea is that there is a fire in the freezer.

A chopping board with a kitchen knife and, from left to right: half an onion, a sixth of an onion, a few pieces of onion, about a sixth of an onion, and a final sixth of an onion.

Onion

A lonely ship resting on the sand, missing all its exterior covering to reveal its metal framework

Skeletal

A dark room with rows of ceiling lights, a large board in the middle of the wall and a bench in front of it. The open door and windows cast strong shadows.

Lesson

Spent hours racking my brain because how else to draw a ‘lesson’ than some thing that is doing the learning, and perhaps another that is doing the teaching; neither of which I wanted to draw. Eventually I found a cunning resolution, so of course after drawing that I then see that the next prompt is ‘vacant’.

A row of at least four portaloos with closed doors. A man looks down the isle, hunched over with crossed legs and hands held tightly in front.

Vacant

A trophy held in one hand, with the plaque “No. 1 Bestest E-inktober Champion”. The left of the image is detailed and shaded while the right side of the trophy is a mere sketch with incomplete lines. Another hand holding a pen fills out the rest of the trophy.

Award

It’s me! I’m winner!