Cloudy With A Chance Of Tentacles

This drawing started out as a sketchbook doodle of a little monster guy staring up. When I was drawing him for real, it felt like I should show what he was looking at, so I thought, "Tentacles, of course!"

Things I learned drawing this illustration: drawing tentacles is hard. Luckily I draw a lot of monsters, and they never, ever have tentacles.

Seriously, those tentacles gave me a lot of trouble. At first I was drawing them very thin and skinny, and no two were touching one another. It made for a dull and lifeless layout. Next I tried draping some of the tentacles over others. That helped a bit, but it still just didn't look right.

Finally I got the idea to make them thick and plump looking, almost like earthworms rather than tentacles. That finally worked (well, for me anyway).

Drawn in Photoshop on the graphic tablet.

Here's the original much simpler sketch.