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Day Octopus

Day Octopus line art illustration (click image to enlarge)

Day Octopus full color illustration (click image to enlarge)

Artist's notes:

The Day Octopus was completed on 12.7.2011. For a very long time I had been looking for some good reference photos of the Day Octopus. After spending many hours I found an excellent image taken by Chuck Babbitt. Creating the image was challenging, but also very much fun to complete. Something about the texture of this cephalopod's skin is very conducive to the medium of ink and digital tinting. This octopus is the seventh I've completed, and I will likely draw one more in the near future (send me an email if you have a suggestion for the species.)

Information about the Day Octopus:

The Day Octopus - also called the Big Blue Octopus and Cyane's Octopus - is a member of the order Cephalopoda, native to the Indian and Pacific oceans. As the name makes clear, this is an octopus that is active during the daytime hours. They are about 1 to 3 feet long (30 to 90 cm) and are usually brownish in coloration, but like many other octopus they have the ability to change the coloration and texture of their skin to either camouflage themselves or to display emotion. They are very intelligent and this makes them very formidable predators, feeding on fish, crustaceans such as crab and shrimp and bivalves. They are preyed upon by seals, moray eels, large fish and sharks.