K.O. Squid - An Octopus Art Creation Process
- Jun 10
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 25
K.O. Squid is a booth owned by an octopus, which I call Uncle Octy. After finishing Mr. Squid’s booth, painting Uncle Octy’s booth felt like a natural next step. Both make full use of their many tentacles, just doing different tasks.
Inspiration for this octopus's booth
Even though I set up Mr. Squid and Uncle Octy as enemies, somehow I’ve always had this bias in my heart that Uncle Octy holds a deeper, more personal grudge against all squids than other octopuses do. And he’s more ruthless too, which is why:
He sells whole grilled squids.
He set up a corner of his booth specifically to display the little squids he has caught.
He named his stall K.O. Squid because he really has K.O.’d a lot of them.
But my “bias” against Uncle Octy doesn’t end there. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen so many studies about how smart octopuses are. I just imagine him as a very business-savvy marine creature. His booth doesn’t just sell one type of grilled squid. There’s the whole squid, and also a spicy cumin flavor version on the teppan. He also knows that lights can draw more sea creatures’ attention, so he asked the night market for extra lights for his stall.
Speaking of lights, when I first imagined this Night market Under The Sea, I naturally thought each booth would need lighting to show off their food. But when I started drawing, I realized what kind of lights would even work underwater? So I did some digging and found that some jellyfish can glow (you’ve probably seen them at aquariums). They’re the perfect choice for lighting:
They’re the right size.
They’re brainless (sorry, jellyfish), which makes them easy for schemers (like me lol) to take advantage of.
So that settled it. Every booth in the market uses glowing jellyfish provided by the night market itself. Take as many as they want. If the jellyfish stop glowing? Just swap them out. All booth owners need to do is tie them in place with some seaweed. Simple and effective.
Octopus Art Painting Process
Challenges
When I was painting the cumin grilled squid, I realized that since the squid was all cut into pieces, people might not even recognize what it was. I thought if I don’t say it, would anyone really know what they’re looking at? So in the end, I added a menu board. And since I was already making a menu board, I figured I might as well throw in a little “#1 Seller” label next to the whole grilled squid too.
In reality, Uncle Octy probably hasn’t done much market research. He likely has no idea whether the whole grilled squid is actually the best-seller. But he wants customers to think it is, because he enjoys making it the most.
That said, I do sometimes worry people won’t understand what I’m drawing. If my work needs texts to explain it, does that mean I didn’t communicate clearly enough through the art itself? Even as I write this post, I still think getting the message across clearly through illustration alone is a real challenge.
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