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.

Larry Squiddman

While I was drawing Larry, I thought about having his tentacles holding stuff, like his Starbuck's cup and cell phone, but then I remembered I already did that shtick earlier, and decided to skip it.

Drawing Tip: If you want an object to look moist and slimy, all you have to do is draw a solid white highlight on the side facing the light source. Works every time.

Drawn in Photoshop on the graphic tablet.



Here's the original sketch of Larry. Mostly the same, except for the final drawing I evened out the size of his hands.