I MUSTACHE You... Is There a Bat On My Face? Spooky Illustrations 2025 Begins
Welcome back, Friends, and welcome to Spooky Season. I know. I Know... I KNOW... I haven't been really writing very much this past year. A lot has/is happening in the world, and it has kinda stunted my creative process, hindering my mental ability to write or suppressing the desire to.
I have been working on things, and as they get completed, I will share them with you all. It's just BEEN A YEAR... and it hasn't even been a year yet... oy.
Anyway... Spooky Season is upon us. I love this Season so much. I love Autumn so much as it kicks off Holiday Alley from now until the end of the year. It's such a magical time of year... Apple Picking, the Pumpkin Patch, Apple Cider, Candied Apples, Apple Pie, Apple Crisp, Apple Butter... I'm getting hungry now, lol. I went apple picking this past weekend, so apples are definitely top of mind. Candy Corn, Candy Corn Pumpkins, Making spooky costumes, decorating your house in spooky things, an appreciation for the Macbre, Making Tributes to past ancestors... There are SO MANY WAYS to participate and celebrate in Spooky Season. Take your pick.
As many of you may know, I participated in Inktober last year, and it almost killed me lol. Well almost... Which is appropriate for the season. It's such an intense and dedicated thing to participate in. I've done it twice and, to be honest, I think I'm "done" with that. I've done it and that's enough for me. It was such a grueling art challenge, just thinking about it gives me the "chills."
It made me miss the Good Ole Days of Illustration Friday... I know. I talk about IF ALL THE TIME and whine about its absence from this dark and horrible world we are now living in. However, I really did enjoy those art challenges. A week is a perfect amount of time to develop and complete an Illustration. So, this year, when Inktober was gearing up, I decided that I would do something a little different to participate. I decided I would do weekly Spooky Season-themed illustrations based on one of their daily prompts as if it were Illustration Friday. I would make an illustration, blog about it, and post it.
I have made one additional new discovery regarding Inktober. It's Inktober 52. A weekly drawing challenge that is year-round. I may participate in 2026. As for now, I reviewed their weekly prompt, reviewed 7 of the daily prompts for regular Inktober, and then chose one of those prompts to base an illustration on. Now, I know what you may be thinking... that's cheating... and maybe it is, a little, but it's not like I had anything in my head for any of the prompts as I was reviewing it, then picking the one that closely fit what I already had in mind... I didn't have ANYTHING in mind. I just picked the prompt that most appealed to me, and then I brainstormed illustration ideas for it.
So, now, Spooky Season Illustrations 2025 is on... like Donkey Kong. I think I want to make this a regular annual thing. I am having a lot of fun with it. The first prompt I chose was "Mustache." I thought that sounded fun and began to come up with silly and fun and, most importantly, Spooky ideas for it. I love drawing Victorian people or personifying inanimate objects and dressing them in Victorian clothing. Maybe it's more "goth" than "Halloween," but I still sort of associate antiquity with Spookiness or potential hauntings.
As I was doing research, I noticed the fine and laborious care that men from that time period gave to their facial hair. They really went to great lengths to shape and refine the aesthetics of their mustache and beard. I began imagining all kinds of things that the mustache could be transformed into. And I began to imagine a very gaunt figure that seemed almost vampire-like, whose mustache was shaped into the form of a bat with its wings spread. The idea really tickled me and made me laugh to myself (I'm always cracking myself up.) I wanted to make it light and fun and whimsical too... but, most importantly, very spooky.
I found my reference for all the elements and began to draw. I toiled over whose mystery mug I'd base the face off of, what image had the hair I wanted, who had an interesting outfit that I could augment with other spooky things (like the skull and the Jack-O-Lantern). I knew I wanted to use a lot of purple (I tend to use purple and blue, more so than a flattening black [aside from the black in the inkwork]), and I knew that I wanted to focus on making the linework look like bristles of hair. So, a lot of time and care was spent on the drawing of that mustache and the direction the hairs would go in, etc. I also wanted to reflect the way I was treating the mustache within the fur coat he was wearing.
I knew that overall I wanted this to be a "photo" in a "picture frame" that might sit by a bedside or hang on a wall during that time period, so I also studied shapes and common elements of Victorian picture frames. I knew I didn't want too much detail in the frame as I wanted the mustache to shine as the star, but I needed something that fit the time period. I actually had to digitally correct the oval of the picture frame later on in the process. I apparently can't draw a proper symmetrical oval to save my life. lol. And the eyes... I wanted gaunt and "almost dead" eyes. SO, they have that sunken look to them. They also make him look wild and crazy, which I love.
Once I got all the drawing elements done, I inked him and brought him into my digital studio. I then toiled over the colors I wanted to use for it. Took about a whole day on this one as I was so indecisive about some things with it, and in some instances, I wasn't able to quite get the color I saw in my head. But after a while, I was successful enough with it... After all, you aren't supposed to think "too hard" on these types of illustrations as they are meant to be fun: a reprieve from the normal illustration work I do. I then did "my thing with the digital collage work that I love doing these days with my illustrations.
That pretty much sums up everything there is to say about this week's illustration. Stay tuned for next week's edition: Squid. ;)
As always, Friends, take care of yourselves in this dark and stormy world and hang on to the little joys we have, because that's all we can do right now. Enjoy your Spooky Season in whichever way you are participating or celebrating, and maybe drop a line in the comments to tell or show me about it. I'd love to know!
Until next time, friends,
Keep dreaming, keep sketching, keep thinking, keep laughing, and most important of all, keep making art.
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