Tentacle Trouble

There's a ton of free content for digital art available online and that's great, but it's also overwhelming for a newbie. There's stuff I spot that I know I'll definitely use, stuff that I could possibly see myself using so I may as well get it, and stuff I didn't think I'd ever need but now I'm creating an image or a character and wouldn't you know I need that innocuous little thing so back to ShareCG.com or Renderosity I go.

My routine with this material is to unzip it, copy it to my DAZ Studio library folder, scan that folder to load it into Studio, test it, and if I decide to keep it, I categorize it and sometimes add keywords to make it easier to find later. A bit of a time-consuming process, but worth it.

Every now and then, though, I load something for testing and go, "OOOOO!" Either because it looks really cool and/or it immediately gives me an idea for an image. Such was this case with Ghastly's Organic Restraint Table which you see here. I immediately wanted to see Duster in its clutches. Then I wanted to see her naked in its clutches (of course). Then I thought the scene needed something extra and wouldn't you know it I had previously downloaded these wonderful free tentacles and now we're off to the races and so much for loading and testing anymore new, free content today.

The tentacles require a lot of work. I found the best way to give them a truly natural, organic look is to select and pose each individual segment—and each tentacle has 20 of those. Fortunately they look even more organic when each segment has a slightly different twist, bend, or kink. I shudder to think of the day when I'll employ them as mechanical or robotical mechanisms, though, because I know for that too look good each tentacle should have a nice, smooth, orderly curve. That's gonna be a lot of work but I know one day I'll create an image that will require it.

The other free content on display here is the "chunky monkey" item from the free version of Squarepeg3D's Sticky and Stickier Messes. Very clever to market those items as "food". Yeah. Uh-huh.

I considered posting this on Deviant Art but I thought it would be pushing at the boundaries of their community guidelines. So here it is. I don't have a story around the image (yet); I don't even know where Duster is, but I'd say Japan would be a safe bet.