My friend Gretchen commissioned me to paint her a giant squid to go over her mantle. We agreed on 24×36, and after many months of slowness on my part acquiring the iridescent paint (He is about 95% iridescent or pearlescent. Shiny!), working and reworking his background, and finally getting him painted in and then made to not look bad, I have… SQUID!

For the curious, here’s a bit of his process. Note how the bottom edge of the easel matches the bottom of the painting — you can see I’m a very careful, precise sort of artist. 😉

The original Background:

Change #1, plus original smaller squid:

More background changes, and o no Mr. Squid!

The new squid. Sort of.

This is what Jeff calls “past the ass point”, where I am no longer ashamed to have painted it:

Suckers! And pupils! And then he stared at me for a week…

Then we darkened up his fins to match, and gave him lighting. The bubbles you see below were the very last thing added.

And here we see the final squid! His name is Nugget. I will say that none of the photos really capture the color well, and nothing can really make you see the shiny that it is in person. It’s subtle, but awesome.

Click the squid for bigger squid!