# Contemplating on the Cephalopod



## ellaerna (Jun 20, 2017)

After reading a lot of Lovecraftian style works, I really want to make a cephalopod character, probably a squid girl. However, I'm not quite sold on how they are typically depicted.

From my perusing of the main site, it looks like there are a few primary ways that these anthros are drawn:

Just add tentacles- the main feature of this design is to start with a human and add some tentacles onto them, primarily either as hair like the Inklings from Splatoon, or as legs like you'd do for a mermaid. Not a bad route, but feels a bit to heavy on the human side and very light on the actual animal. Those could be any tentacles you're using.
Head Swap- this is where you just swap out your human base's head for the cephalopod of your choice, resulting in a full squid or octopus just sitting on some poor person's shoulders. While this can look really cool depending on art style, and it does show off the creature, it still feels too human to me.
Squidward- a very cartoonish style where you just take a cephalopod and humanize it in a toon fashion, either with big cartoon eyes, or by stretching the whole things upwards like Squidward. Arguably the most animalistic of all, it still feels a bit too.. well, cartoony for what I would like to go for.

To be fair, none of these are bad. Each has its merit. They just don't fit my vision. So I was thinking of doing something else. I can't draw for shit, so you'll have to bear with me through this explanation.

What if we take the average squid, and flipped him upside down so that the tentacles are up and the tip of the mantle is down. Then we reshape the mantle slightly to make it more like a human torso, with the tip being about where the crotch would be, and the fins mimicking hips. For a more feminine character, the curve between fin and mantle would be more accentuated while for more masculine characters we would lessen it and keep the design more streamlined. We would not add legs.

Then we would add  tentacle like arms similar to the looks of this fellow. Hands are optional of course, but it could be neat to do a full human hand encased in a clear webbing so it looks like the tip of a squid tentacle while still being functional as a hand. Next we'd make some shoulders and separate the head from the mantle with a neck so it's a bit more human. The head would be the standard humanized anthro face with lips and human eyes, possibly even a nose if it suits you. However, we'd keep the large squid eyes as a secondary set, sitting about wear the temples would be, maybe a bit farther back and to the sides. Taking from the first design style mentioned above, we'd top it off by keeping the remaining eight tentacles as hair. These could range in style for both personal preference and nods to particular species.

The resulting character would be awkward on land, definitely, but fine in the depths. My big thing is that it would retain the silhouette of a cephalopod while still being an anthro.  It could be creepy, cute, scary or even sexy depending on how you wanted to detail it. I haven't thought about how making the mantle a torso would effect certain aspects of it's anatomy (like, don't ask me how it poops) but I think this is a good start.

Does this all make sense? Does this sound like a remotely good idea? If you are an artist, would this be enough for a mock-up? Should I shut up now?


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## Dongding (Jun 23, 2017)

Do the squid-tentacle hair. That's what I think.

The technical challenges you're going to face trying anything else are going to be daunting. If you're like me and never satisfied with what you've done, you'll cause a disproportionate amount of headaches, creative stagnation, and dissatisfaction than it would be worth to you. It would require considerable technical artistic abilities and an extremely well developed art-sense in order to pull off a non-humanoid squid consistently.

Tentacle hair on a humanoid with some other squid features? That isn't really that hard considering what would be required to take one step closer to what you seem to want. If your concern is uniquness, there aren't many of those kicking around that I've noticed so I think it would be a pretty unique choice based on just the species alone, even if you're not as representative of the species you're personifying as you would prefer to be.


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## ellaerna (Jun 23, 2017)

Dongding said:


> Tentacle hair on a humanoid with some other squid features? That isn't really that hard considering what would be required to take one step closer to what you seem to want. If your concern is uniquness, there aren't many of those kicking around that I've noticed so I think it would be a pretty unique choice based on just the species alone, even if you're not as representative of the species you're personifying as you would prefer to be.


Thanks for the input!


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## Dongding (Jun 23, 2017)

Lol no problem. I feel like a stick in the mud whenever someone asks for opinions about making a new OC. I give the same advice every time: Stay away from complicated markings like zebras or even cows and stuff, pick something simple because you or other people are going to be drawing it a lot from all sorts of angles. I hate to see someone go down a road I know got rocky enough for me to turn around and take the time to warn others not to go that way. Doing certain art requests for certain insanely difficult to draw OCs is not something I'm creatively capable of dealing with on a regular basis so I make sure any topics along these lines get that sort of warning. I never know what the person's experiences are in regards to OCs though and honestly could come off as opinionated/arrogant, so I always make sure to state it's just my personal thoughts too. :3


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## kidchameleon (Jun 23, 2017)

This close to what you're thinking? Wasn't entirely sure how to interpret some of your ideas, so kinda threw my own in there too lol


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## KittenCozy (Jun 23, 2017)

kidchameleon said:


> This close to what you're thinking? Wasn't entirely sure how to interpret some of your ideas, so kinda threw my own in there too lol


Oh my god she's so cute!! <3


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## ellaerna (Jun 23, 2017)

Dongding said:


> Lol no problem. I feel like a stick in the mud whenever someone asks for opinions about making a new OC.


No worries. It's never a bad thing to be a stick in the mud when it's actually good advice. 



kidchameleon said:


> This close to what you're thinking? Wasn't entirely sure how to interpret some of your ideas, so kinda threw my own in there too lol


Aside from the googly eye boobs, yes! Haha.
I had imagined a bit longer hair, with the squid eyes adjacent to her normal eyes. Like Oo.oO
But that' actually super cute!


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## kidchameleon (Jun 23, 2017)

ellaerna said:


> Aside from the googly eye boobs, yes! Haha.
> I had imagined a bit longer hair, with the squid eyes adjacent to her normal eyes. Like Oo.oO
> But that' actually super cute!



Lmao, yeah, I couldn't help myself there XD Was looking at squids on Google and once I saw eye-boobs I couldn't unsee them >_< I'll fix it up for you tomorrow if you want. Will feel safer spending more than 5 minutes on it if I know what I'm doing lmao. Would you have a particular colour scheme in mind?


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## ellaerna (Jun 23, 2017)

kidchameleon said:


> Lmao, yeah, I couldn't help myself there XD Was looking at squids on Google and once I saw eye-boobs I couldn't unsee them >_< I'll fix it up for you tomorrow if you want. Will feel safer spending more than 5 minutes on it if I know what I'm doing lmao. Would you have a particular colour scheme in mind?


Oh wow. Thank you. You don't have to go to the trouble if you don't want to. I wasn't expecting anyone to actually draw me anything. ^////^
Maybe a color pallet similar to this guy?




Kind of reddish purpley?


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## kidchameleon (Jun 23, 2017)

Forgot to check back for your colour scheme 'cause I decided to just do it now and figured you wouldn't reply til morning... so I switched the colours around to red & purple last minute, which is_ kind of _close  Hope you like it lol, trying to get it uploaded was stressful XD


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## ellaerna (Jun 23, 2017)

kidchameleon said:


> Forgot to check back for your colour scheme 'cause I decided to just do it now and figured you wouldn't reply til morning... so I switched the colours around to red & purple last minute, which is_ kind of _close  Hope you like it lol, trying to get it uploaded was stressful XD


I'm sorry it was stressful! She looks great! Thank you! =^.^=


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