Project Description

INKTOBER 52 2023 Day #26: CUDDLE.

“Little known fact of the animal kingdom: squids are the best cuddlers around. Even the stuffed ones. It’s because they have so many arms. And they’re squishy. Those are the two most important metrics when determining cuddle-ability: number of limbs and squishiness quotient.

I went a little ambitious with this one after struggling with an idea (I seem to say that a lot). I was pretty happy with the overall sketch and composition (though in hindsight maybe the stuffed squid should have been a stuffed cuttlefish…am I right?), but I ran into a major mental block when it came to the lighting. Theoretically, it should be dark, as PMD is asleep. But, I didn’t want to lose the elements that I really liked. I ended up taking a picture of this with my iPad and did a few digital lighting variation sketches before settling on this one. It’s late morning, and just off the page on the left is a set of sliding glass doors with the curtains open, casting this light. It’s not unlike the layout of my own bedroom, but we don’t have a PMD headboard (though my wife has been saying we need a headboard for the bed that I built…). We don’t have plunger lamps or bananas on the nightstand either. I’m not sure what my wife would say to a giant stuffed squid for the bed. I mean, it’s kind of like one of those body pillows, right?”