Week 2 - Tentacles

So this week the task was to create some kind of tentacle. We needed to take ideas from already designed tentacles from films or art work and design our own creature which has tentacles. The original sketches still had to be in traditional media, but the final piece could be made on digital. I decided to use the exact same workflow which we had completed in the lesson when copying the Alien Caterpillar.

I did some initial research into various types of tentacles, from traditional designs, real photos of octopus tentacles and even some sci-fi robot tentacles. I really liked the idea that the tentacle could have some kind of grabbing or holding ability other than suckers. I liked the idea that the tentacle could possible have a head or some other function than just acting as a limb. Some of these pictures have tentacles with armour, tongues or even full mouths.

I started with some very quick 1-2 minute sketches of whatever came into my mind. Here you can see the common theme of them having some way to grab or hold. I initially liked the top right design as it had a tongue, claws for holding and armour for protection. I similarly liked the middle idea but decided it resembled a viper a little too much. The bottom right design was the first one where I took a lot of the ideas I liked and tried to combine them all. This is the design I continued with into the next stage.

I took that design and evolved it a bit. I gave it clear armour plating in sections like a lizard or maybe a beetle. I had given it a snake like tongue so I thought that maybe this tongue could be used to search for food by feeling vibrations in the air just as a snake does. If that was the way it was to search for food then I thought that the main creature could be submerged in tar pits or deep mud for the entirety of its life. The tongue would search for prey on the shores, the fangs connected to the main mandible would hold on and the powerful limb would drag the victim into the mud/tar to the creatures main mouth (that has never been seen!)

This is my final design for one of the tentacles. Each animal would have multiple tentacles poking out from various parts of the swamp/mud/tar pool all facing different directions to maximize chance to catch its prey. Each creature would probably have from up to 8-10 tentacles and the main body with the mouth would be very large and most likely there wouldn't be room for more than one of these creatures in each pool.

So this is my final coloured version, using the same techniques as the alien in the lesson. I first used the levels to get rid of the lighter pencil marks and then picked a palette to use. I used very plant like colours as I thought that it would be a good way for the creature to deceive its prey into thinking it's a simple plant then it could strike. I then used a multiply layer to block in the main colour and added a light grey shadow layer to give it some depth. Finally I added an overlay layer and began to paint and blend. I wanted to work quickly while painting as I usually have a tendency to keep blending until every square inch is perfect. I did manage to keep myself from over-painting and I think it turned out alright.