Tentacle Assignment

For this assignment we had to create our own tentacle based creature using digital drawing techniques on Photoshop. The rules were the creature had to either be realistic or stylised and suitable style for entertainment concept, nothing cute or cartoon like. The creature had to have at least 4 tentacles but other than that we were free to create a concept as we wished.

To start the assignment I first created a visual mood board using found images from the internet, some photographs and some other artists work that inspired me in my own concept. I particularly liked the idea of combining a fox with tentacles and having the tentacles come out of the tail section as this was the most obvious and naturally flowing place for them to come off the fox.

After researching and deciding on my rough concept I then started sketching out some rough studies of tentacles and foxes in my sketchbook based on my research for reference purposes and to work out exactly I was going to create this concept.

I then took my rough studies forward and combined the fox sitting with some of my tentacle studies to create my rough final concept.

After editing and creating my final concept I then scanned this piece in and loaded the image up in Photoshop to start creating my digital painting, I started my making some swatches of my base colours and then applying these colours to my concept drawing to roughly see what this would look like.

Once I was happy with my final colours and cleaned up the edges with the eraser tool I then created another layer and hide the current layer with my base colours on and added 60% grey to create shadows and add a 3D effect to the piece.

Once I was happy with my shadows I then un-hide the base layer and created a new layer on top of these two layers to start my details such as blending the shadows into the base colours and highlights to bring the piece to life and create a more 3D look.

I am really pleased with my final outcome as being one of my first pieces of digital painting in Photoshop I feel I have applied the skills taught to me and put these into practice during an assignment to create a really effective final outcome.