Uncle Octy – An Octopus Art Creation Process
- Jun 2
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 25
On the same day I drew Mr. Squid, I kept the momentum going and also drew this art piece, which illustrates Uncle Octy, an octopus who hates squids so much. Both squids and octopuses have many tentacles and lack skeletal structures. The differences are that squids have two extra specialized tentacles, octopuses have larger and rounder heads, and their tentacles appear thicker and sturdier.
Inspiration - Why Octopus?
In the article about Mr. Squid, I mentioned why I wanted to draw these two characters. Mr. Squid runs a takoyaki booth to express his rage against octopuses. On the other hand, Uncle Octopus does the same by openning a grilled squid booth. He offers two types of dishes: squid skewers and teppan squid. I’m not sure if your city has night markets, but here in Vancouver where I live, there’s one every summer weekend, and the smell of teppan squid is always in the air, even from afar.
Beyond the food aspect, from the very beginning, when I decided to have sea creatures to run the booths, I immediately thought it would make perfect sense to picture animals with multiple tentacles managing a busy booth, using their tentacles to efficiently handle various cooking steps at the same time.
Octopus Art Painting Process
Challenges
Just like when I drew Mr. Squid, I forgot that Uncle Octopus’s “mouth” isn’t on his face. I corrected it afterwards too.
Interesting Fact
I encountered a question after I posted my artwork on Cara. Some people may think squids eating octopuses or octopuses eating squids are some kind of cannibalism. The fact is squids and octopuses are not the same species. So theoretically, they eating each other doesn’t count as cannibalism. In the nature, scientists have found them eating each other as well.
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