Octopus Cornhole Board

The final drawing with some digital painting on top.

So for the second Cornhole Board I was asked to make, I was basically told to have the Octopus sort of reaching for the hole, coming out from the corner of the board.

Before starting right away on the board I wanted to learn a little about the octopus. So I watched a lot of documentaries on youtube and did a lot of sketches and a couple little study paintings. Here's a few of them:

Ink and wash on some watercolor paper

a really small oil painting.

I made an entire folder full of octopus sketches. Apparently I had no idea what an octopus looked like until i started researching it. 

After I finished the final drawing (which took awhile), I went to Staples and had them print it out on a huge piece of paper, the same size as the cornhole board. I covered the back in pencil and then traced it straight onto the board.

The final drawing. about 2.5 x 5 in.

The final drawing blown up and getting traced down to the board.

And then of course I painted on top of that for about two weeks...

This is me, probably ruining my back with that posture.

And here it is finished.

Angler Fish Cornhole Board part 4

I decided to take a quick break and just kind of paint a little angler fish for no specific reason. It was more of a sketch I guess. Just for fun. Thats what this guy is. I used ink and wash.

Just a little painting for fun. 

But then I went back to the cornhole board...

I had to figure out what colors I wanted to use, so i did a few smaller paintings just to try things out. I kept it almost monochromatic because I really don't understand colors at all and i was afraid it would get to be too complicated when I was having enough trouble already.

So here are the much smaller practice paintings in oil.

about 6 inches tall.

about 12 inches tall 

These also helped me get used to the oil paint a little more. Or at least they were suppose to.

One of a few reference photos I used.

After realizing I couldn't put off the final painting forever, I did the finished drawing that had to be transferred directly to the cornhole board.

The finished drawing

So this was scaled up and drawn straight onto the board. Which I painted over on top of.  And then... After painting for a few weeks (which actually seemed like decades) The painting was finally finished... And that was that.

Here's the finished painting again, incase you missed it in Angler Fish Cornhole Board part 1.

Of course, finishing this only meant I was halfway done lol... So stay tuned for the octopus board coming up next!