As a kid, I collected newspaper cutouts from the Gulf War. One plane that stuck in my mind was the F-14 Tomcat—its iconic swing-wing design allowed it to flex or tuck its wings, completely changing how it flew.
Among my cutouts, there was a photo of an F-14 parked on the ground with all its missiles and payload laid out beneath it. Now that was the ultimate "flex"—a display of raw firepower. (Ironically, ground display jets usually keep their wings tucked in to save space, so it was flexing its power by not flexing its wings! 😅)
That brings me to today’s topic. I was initially planning to draw another warplane, but this morning, my neighbor brought home a bundle of peacock feathers to prepare for Diwali 🎇. That sparked my curiosity, and I ended up down a rabbit hole researching why peacock feathers are linked to the Festival of Lights. (I’ll leave the deep dive for you to ask your local AI 😉).
Connecting the dots between military flexes and natural reflexes, I decided to FLEX my drawing skills on the final day of #inktober2026 by drawing a peacock instead. Peacocks flex their feathers for two main reasons: to attract mates, and to intimidate threats using those mesmerizing "eye" patterns.
I started with a simple penguin-like body shape to budget the layout and see how much space the feathers would need.
Since the feathers are the main attraction, I didn't spend too much time on the body. I loosely penciled a seashell shape around the outline.
Next, I added a fan grid inside the seashell outline to plan the placement of the "eyes."
Real peacocks have a much denser pattern of eyes, but I decided to go with a simplified grid that fit my imagination.
Once all the eyes were mapped out, I filled in the feather textures and rendered the main body.
Finally, I added pops of yellow to the eyes, touched up the details, and signed off with my handle.