Today’s Prompt, Nightmare Nomads, had me puzzled. For the longest time, all I could think of was pastoral steppe nomadic horseback cultures, which would be too similar to what I had planned for day twenty one, Cadaverous Cowboys. In the end, I went with the nomadic culture best connected with Halloween, Gypsies.

Now, at risk of sounding overly politically correct, I get really tired of the racist “Gypsies are evil” stereotypes lazy writers fall back on. So I really tried to keep fantasy gypsies separate from the very real Romani.

Having said that, I think this is one of the weaker sketches of the batch. I rushed the rough sketch a little too much and couldn’t find my dark blue pencil to tighten it up before inking… Let’s just say had to touch it up a LOT in post. I think I salvaged it though.

Day Eighteen of Inktober features a gypsy troop in "Nightmare Nomads".