Week 3 - Tentacles

A bit of a late update;

The theme we've been given for this week is tentacles, we have been asked to study real life examples of them and to take influences from media that uses them as well in looking at how different artists approach and design similar things.

Below is a composite of some of the things I found when searching tentacles, as well as things I have thought of when thinking of the theme;

I've used some images of both squids and octopus's as they represent tentacles in nature, alongside some game usage of tentacle like shapes from the game "the darkness" which uses the tentacle itself as a monster. then some additional images from the kraken from pirates of the Caribbean for some movie influences, as well as the very tentacle-esque shapes used in the "Alien" films. To top it all of i also included an image of the imagining of H.P.Lovecraft's Elder god Cthulhu as an inspiration due to the aquatic and tentacle themes it represents.

I opted first to draw some of one of my reference images to give me an idea for the structure and feel of drawing more complex tentacle shapes, it also made me think that the tentacle had a very fruit like texture on it. 

My first design worked with using a similar shape to octopus's using the tentacles and a bulbous head like shape in my design. i was somewhat inspired by the versatile nature of the tentacles to use the idea of the tentacles forming themselves to compose shapes that would give the idea of a different creature; such as using tentacles to look like eye sockets and to arrange itself to have a "jaw" and "mouth" where it otherwise would not have. Its real mouth is obscured within its bulbous head. this was also to encapsulate how often monsters would establish a scale or escalation of its presence by having only a small portion of itself be revealed initially so as to surprise people.

I experimented with more designs for my tentacle monster, the second design i looked into providing a more mammal based monster to base it on, using the tentacles as more identifiable limbs as well as horns, incorporating the spines on some tentacles as part of the design. the twist for the monster is the moth opens horizontally as opposed to vertically.

The second design used elements from things like snakes and cobra's which share design similarities to tentacles due to their lithe and flexible shapes, it acts by using bladed tentacles in a mane shape to show when it is agitated by flaring up. it also uses some of its tentacle suction cups as a butterfly style of illusion to give the idea of it having multiple sets of eyes.

Last design is inspired by the kraken or just bottomless pits as this monster is pretty much just a mouth with tentacles to help feed it, it uses a smaller set of tentacles close to its mouth to blend its food as it lacks teeth, but it typically latches itself underground and uses tentacles as pillars to hold it in place, while it pretends to be a well or underground route of some sort to lure its prey to it

my final design - a slightly modified design or my first sketch, utilising a composite shape made from tentacles, but also providing composite limbs from larger tentacles to create a more threatening image, i coloured this in various shades of green to encapsulate the sea elements as well as a sense of decay or disease in the monster, while the "mouth" has a more fleshy and vibrant colouring to show the difference in toughness between them. Though the "mouth" is actually just the exposed front of the beast where it can see from , from beneath its tentacle jaw. the small figure is also there to show the scale of the monster compared to a person, as being much larger helps establish how threatening it is.