I went through a lot of iteration trying to figure out the cafe. At first it was a tree house. But something was off…I think I tried two or three designs like that before I got set on an island as a location. Through sketching…and I often draw airships and onion domes…but that making it a port gave me possibilities for so many characters. I will do another blog on character ideation, But for now…

The intererior came first. I had seen those eagle headed espresso machines on a trip to San Francisco years ago.

When I did this I drew the floor plan in a bird’s eye view then deformed that and kind of “popped up” the elements from that sketch when painting.

Earlier versions of the inside were trying to establish mood and color. But in a more expressionistic way, not really understanding the structure/architecture.

This was one of the first exterior sketches. The title of Octopus Cafe had come to me in a dream. And I was stuck on Octopus…so the walk ways to the cafe we like the tentacles. But I knew it wasn’t working.

So This was the next iteration. I liked it a lot more. But the cafe even though it looked more like an octopus, didn’t feel right. So I kept pushing. I was teaching a digital illustration class at the time, and had given an assignment for thumnailing so I did 20-30 thumnails in 5-10 mins.

I had been looking at houses in Normandy France where they had turned old boats upside down. So I think I turned a tug boat upside down for the roof. The overlay sketch is an attempt at how the ventilation system could work. I also knew I was going to have a giant in there so I needed a really high interior ceiling. It’s been a while since I finished this project, and I think I would approach rendering very differently. But I stopped using photoshop. When I was using photoshop I would take pictures of lots of different textures, or scrap that I had laying around and make brushes with that. Lots of watercolor, but also things like circuit boards and textiles. Now that I’ve divorced myself from adobe and tried to limit my interactions with AI….90%of what I’m doing is in procreate. I’ve been using procreate for 7 years or so and I’m just starting to play with making brushes. Keep making art kids!