Arttrober 2026 (Collage and Post-Mortem)

Another year, another October art challenge finished. A month of drawings of characters from anime, comics and videogames based on the Arttrober prompt list published by Stanley Lau for 2026. It was fun, even if I was getting really quite tired by the end. One final task remains though: compiling all 31 drawings into single poster image. So that's what I've gone ahead and done, with some post-mortem thoughts added after the image.

Any favourites?

Arttrober 2026

Overall I'm fairly happy with the results this year: not every drawing is as good as it could have been (but that's always true, and always will be), but at the very least my consistency as an artist appears to have improved, so that's heartening. I think I had a bit of a slump around the middle of the month, but I feel that I rallied by the end. That's also normal.

Some thoughts. This was an unusually recognisable list for me. Usually for Arttrober I say that I know a third of the characters, vaguely recognise another third when I look up their names, and don't know the rest. This year, I recognised everyone up until Reze (Day 13), and there were only five other characters I had no knowledge of (Shenhe, Mirko, Kang-Jin Star, Tina Armstrong and Yoruichi, for the record).

What else?

A big part of the fun of doing the Arttrober list is learning about new characters, and occasionally even following through with actually reading/watching the series they're from. In previous years, this has included Frieren, Spy x Family and Dandadan. This year, after drawing my fourth Chainsaw Man character, I finally took the time to actually watch the Chainsaw Man anime. I enjoyed it, dark and bloody as it was.

I probably won't ever get around to watching Bleach though—but Yoruichi seemed an interesting character, at least.

My personal 5 favourite drawings (not in any order but chronological, and subject to me changing my mind anyway):

1. Black Cat (day 3)
2. Kitty Pryde (day 6; what's with all the cats?)
3. Starfire (day 27; pairs nicely with Raven from Day 18)
4. Morrigan (day 29)
5. Poison Ivy (day 30)

My least favourite drawing I think would be Atom Eve (day 21). The pose was too awkward for its portrait orientation, and the composition just doesn't quite click. I wasn't too happy with the colours either, but of course I didn't have much flexibility there.

Another thought. At the risk of stating the obvious, 31 days of drawing with a new character every day is a lot. In future, I think I'd prefer to do more of this kind of character fan art on a weekly basis rather than daily, in the Inktober52 mould. I'd need a way to determine who to draw each week though. As already mentioned, half the fun for me is drawing characters I'd probably never have considered drawing on my own initiative—so I'd basically need someone else to generate the list for me, or find a clever way to derive a list that would mix the kind of characters I would like to draw with the kind of characters I would not normally think to draw. Not so trivial, I think.

It would also be nice to not only be drawing women all the time.

Yes, anyone familiar with my art knows I like to draw attractive women (often with add-ons like horns and wings, apropos of nothing). And the Arttrober list has always been female dominated, so it's not like I don't know what I'm getting into using the list every October. But it would be pleasant (and good for myself as an artist) to draw something else now and then, and after 31 days of drawing variations on much the same body shape every day for a month, I can safely say that I can see the potential benefit in having some variety in drawing prompts.

Having said that, don't be shocked if my first new drawing in November turns out to be another devil lady. I often revert to what I'm comfortable with after a break, after all.