Inktober started in 2009 and is the brainchild of illustrator Jake Parker, the concept is 31 days—31 drawings, with monochrome ink drawings at the heart of it all. This year our social media has been lit up with an amazing array of digital ink drawings tagged with #Inktober, which have been created in Affinity Designer or Photo. The iPad versions being a popular choice! Here’s our pick of our favourites and a little bit about the talented people behind the art…
Aleksey Rico
Aleksey ‘Rico’ Solovev is an illustrator based in Russia. Obsessed with smooth vector lines, his work is inspired by old Soviet propaganda posters and references their use of colour and composition and use of dramatic shadow and light. He is also inspired by comic book art. This piece was created using Affinity Designer.
See more of Aleksy’s work on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Behance
Dominique Rose
Dominique is a freelance illustrator from Sydney, Australia who specialises in black and white illustrations and imaginings. Dominique started out by working with traditional pen and ink and was reluctant to move over to digital illustration until she realised that it was possible to replicate her hand-drawn ink look in Affinity Designer. Since then, she has created all of her illustrations digitally, including her current project, the Blind Tarot Deck and all of the wonderfully witchy art prints, stickers and other goodies in her Etsy Store.
See more of Dominique’s work on her website, Instagram and Twitter.
Laurent Zimny—aka BigZim
Laurent is a self-taught French illustrator. He first started drawing by studying comic book greats John Byrne, Jack Kirby and William Vance and more recently, Darwyn Cooke. He has worked as a Flash animator, a 3D illustrator and as an architect for 12 years. In 2015 he left architecture to concentrate on his comic book art, developing a free, minimalist style that uses bold forms and colour. The work he has created for Inktober this year has been a way for him to experiment with storytelling and explore a hand-drawn style with Affinity Designer.
See more of Laurent’s work on Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr.
Juan Carlos Montes—Mox Studios
Juan Carlos’ work in Affinity Photo really shows off the potential for drawing in the app. A 3D modeler and illustrator who occasionally dabbles in animation, Juan Carlos currently lives in Chicago but is originally from Puerto Rico.
Follow his work on his website, Instagram and Twitter.
Parth Trivedi
Parth was excited to discover Affinity Designer and Photo were coming to iPad as he’s been dabbling with digital illustration since 2014. Based in the UK, with a masters degree in Advanced Engineering and Management, his spare time is spent exploring his love of drawing and taking photos which is where his journey with Affinity began. Being able to edit his photos and do amazing illustrations on his iPad Pro has been a game changer and this year he has used Affinity Designer to create artwork for Inktober. Parth says “In the past, I have failed to complete all the prompts but this year I am not going down without a fight!”
You can check out his work on Instagram and Twitter.
Margherita Mottana
Mergherita was born in Milan and raised amidst the art and culture of the city. She attended ACME European Academy of Fine Art and Media in Milan, where she got a diploma in Illustration. Her creative work is inspired by emotions, brought to life through handmade drawings mixed with digital art. Her favourite colour is blue as it represents the sublime beauty of the sky and sea.
In her Inktober illustrations she uses black and white and line art embedded in a colour to enhance the most important details.
See more of Margherita’s work on Instagram.
Toni Kasurinen
Toni is Finnish artist from Heinola. Toni works almost exclusively in Affinity Designer, with the iPad and Apple Pencil being his preferred platform. Being very technology orientated Toni is constantly looking for new digital tools to try out—both software and hardware. He likes to experiment to find out how closely they can emulate the look and the feel of traditional media and loves the compact nature of working on iPad.
See more of Toni’s work on his website and Instagram.
Natalia Grebesheva
Natalia is a professional photographer living in Vienna, Austria. She also loves to draw, especially in vectors, so was really excited when Affinity Designer launched for iPad and filled the need for a professional vector drawing program in the App Store. This year she decided to do Inktober in vectors and has really enjoyed it.
You can see more of Natalia’s work on Instagram.
Renato Pedrina
Renato is part of Numa Estudio, a design studio founded by himself and two friends that creates a combination of graphic design, product design and works with technologies such as laser cutting and 3D printing. Based in Paraguay, Renato’s passion for art and design stems from childhood and led him to study illustration and industrial design.
Illustration for content creation and merchandising are one of the things that Numa Estudio create a lot. “As a creator being able to use the Affinity apps allows me to create files that I can easily use for multiple purposes and apply to many products”. The illustrations that Renato creates are often about his country, they have a cultural background which he is proud to be able to show through digital art.
See more of Renato’s work on Instagram and Facebook.
Brad Colbow
Brad Colbow calls himself an ‘aspiring illustrator’. A couple years ago he started posting a video a week to his YouTube channel as a way to make himself draw more and improve his skills. That channel took on a life of its own and now he creates tutorials, plays with new software and tests drawing hardware for illustrators. We love the video he has created using Affinity Designer for iPad!
See more of Brad’s work on Instagram and his Website.
For more Inktober inspiration check out #inktober and #inktober2018 on social media.
For more Affinity user art and photography on social media check out #affinitydesigner #affinityphoto and #madeinaffinity. Don’t forget to visit Affinity on Instagram where we post user artwork 5 days a week.