In some ways having Inktober now is proving useful for my mental health and sense of purpose as it’s not a good time of year. I usually find it harder to write and communicate with people, and my sketches and doodles are usually filled with spikes and sharp edges

Having a month of artistic prompts necessitating curves and lateral thinking is therefore helping my brain flow into different methods of expression and composition.

Day three’s prompt – roasted – allowed me to take a more humourous vein than the first two days. I could have gone with images of meals, or animals in the oven. Then I thought of comedy roasts, and from there to cartoon practical jokes of things blowing up in faces and lightly scorching the victim.

Between that and my general love of the fantasy genre, and Dungeons & Dragons, I started musing on all the lowly goblins that have ever been depicted as rampaging into an area as a menacing mob, only to be robustly scattered by wizards casting large fireballs or startlingly bright lights at them.

Hence my moderately exasperated goblin with soot across his features, and smoke rising from his clothing, venting about his lot in life…

This led seamlessly into day four – spell – which I hardly had to think about at all. I could have just done a magic circle, or a spellbook, but I wanted a bit more of a dynamic picture as well as something iconic.

An open moor under dark clouds seemed a good setting for mystery and magic – after all it worked for Shakespeare – but with only a small notebook to work in it was going to have to be a view from a distance to impart any sense of scale.

As for the spell itself, well normally standing on the top of the moor with your hand in the air might get you a more shocking experience than anticipated, so I had to subvert that to show the power of the wizard. Rather than him getting struck by lightning, he would be the one striking the clouds and setting off what looks to be a mighty storm.

There’s nothing to say of course that the wizard won’t get zapped in turn if he stays up on that ridge. Learning does not necessarily guarantee wisdom.