The challenge in learning how to draw an octopus is keeping track of its arms. One crosses in front of the body, another curls underneath it, and several may disappear behind rocks or each other. Following those overlapping paths is more useful than trying to arrange eight complete arms around a central shape.
When I sketch an octopus, I begin with one recognizable feature, usually an eye, and work outward through the visible edges. An arm can stop where another passes in front of it. I don’t need to invent the section I cannot see.
This observational approach works in pencil, pen or charcoal. It also allows the drawing to remain exploratory. If I discover that an arm turns differently than I first thought, I add a new mark and leave the earlier one visible.
Find a pose with overlapping arms
An octopus reaching across a rock or moving through open water provides a more useful drawing subject than a diagram with eight evenly spaced arms.
Look for a photograph that clearly shows at least one eye, the larger mantle behind the head and several arms passing in front of or behind one another. The entire animal does not need to be visible.
I particularly like references where the arms behave differently. One might stretch across the foreground while another curls tightly beside the body. A third may point toward the camera and appear unusually short.
These differences create movement and give each arm a recognizable path through the composition.
Choose a photograph with enough contrast to distinguish the animal from its surroundings. Octopuses can closely resemble the color and texture of nearby rocks, which is fascinating to observe but can make a drawing reference difficult to interpret.
If you’re choosing between several photographs, my animal drawing reference guide explains what makes an image useful for observational drawing.
Begin with the eye and mantle
The eye gives me a fixed landmark before I begin following the arms. I observe its direction, the dark shape of the pupil and the folds of tissue surrounding it.
Place the strongest visible marks first. You may need only a short curve and a small dark area to establish the eye’s position.
Now look behind it at the mantle, the larger part of the octopus’s body that contains its internal organs.
The mantle changes considerably in appearance depending on the pose. It may look elongated when the animal is moving or appear compressed when the octopus turns toward you.
Follow the observed contour without trying to make it perfectly rounded. One edge may curve smoothly while the other is interrupted by an arm or hidden against the background.
It’s important to understand how the head, mantle and arms connect. An octopus does not have a separate round head with eight thin tubes attached to its perimeter. The arms emerge together beneath the head, with webbing between their bases.
Look for visible folds and changes in direction around that central area. Those marks will make the arms appear connected to a living animal.
Follow an arm until it disappears
Choose the arm with the clearest visible path. It may be the nearest arm, the one with the strongest contrast or the one that extends farthest into open water.
Start where the arm emerges from the body and follow one edge. Watch how it changes direction, narrows or twists.
Then return to the base and observe the opposite edge. The two sides may behave quite differently. One can form a broad sweeping curve while the other folds sharply inward.
When another arm crosses in front, stop drawing the hidden contour.
Look farther along the reference for the point where the original arm becomes visible again. Continue from that point, using the surrounding forms to judge its direction.
You may find that an arm disappears several times before reaching its tip. There’s no need to connect all those sections with an imaginary line. The overlapping edges already explain much of its position.
Decide what passes in front
At each crossing, the drawing needs to communicate which form is closer to the viewer.
Three observations are especially useful:
- The uninterrupted edge: The arm in front usually has a contour that continues across the overlap.
- The disappearing edge: A line belonging to the arm behind should stop where the nearer form covers it.
- The change in value: A small shadow between the forms can give the crossing depth without requiring a heavy outline.
Once these relationships are clear, you can follow the remaining arms without making every crossing equally dark or complicated.
Use the empty spaces to keep the arms moving
The gaps between an octopus’s arms deserve as much attention as the arms themselves.
A narrow opening between two curled arms can make them feel tightly gathered. A large stretch of water beneath an extended arm emphasizes how far it reaches away from the body.
Before continuing with another arm, compare its direction with those already on the page. If every arm curves in the same way, the drawing can become repetitive even when the individual contours look convincing.
Observe the differences in the reference. One arm may travel almost straight before bending at the tip. Another may fold back beneath the animal. An arm extending toward the viewer might appear shorter and thicker because of foreshortening.
Let these changes determine the movement of the composition.
I often leave broad areas of open paper between the arms. Those spaces allow the eye to follow individual forms through an otherwise complicated subject.
The principle is closely related to what I discuss in my guide to drawing movement: direction becomes more convincing when neighboring forms do not all behave alike.
Draw the suckers according to the arm’s rotation
An octopus has eight arms rather than the combination of arms and specialized feeding tentacles found in squid and cuttlefish. The suckers are arranged along the underside of the arms.
This makes them useful for describing how an arm twists.
When the underside faces the viewer, the suckers may appear clearly as a series of rounded cups. As the arm rotates away, those forms become narrower or partially hidden. They may disappear altogether when only the outer surface is visible.
Begin with a few of the largest, clearest suckers near the foreground. Observe their actual shapes. Depending on perspective and lighting, they may appear rounded, flattened or partly enclosed by shadow.
As the arm recedes or tapers, reduce the size of the marks. Their apparent spacing and orientation should also respond to the turning surface.
Avoid covering every arm with identical circles. That creates a pattern but tells the viewer very little about the form.
Instead, allow some suckers to be fully visible, others to appear as partial marks and still others to vanish behind the curve of the arm.
The suckers should help explain the direction of the arm, not compete with it.
Let the skin change with the surroundings
Octopus skin can change color and texture, sometimes making the animal difficult to distinguish from the rocks and other surfaces around it.
In a drawing, this creates an opportunity to work with areas of different contrast rather than outlining the entire animal.
Look for the largest dark patches first. You might see a broad shadow across the mantle, a dark fold beneath an arm or a cluster of markings around the eye.
Place these areas before developing the smaller spots and raised textures of the skin.
With pencil or charcoal, changes in pressure and broad tonal marks can describe the surface. With pen, varying the spacing and direction of your marks creates a similar range of values.
Don’t distribute texture evenly. Some areas may contain closely grouped marks while others remain almost empty. Follow the reference and concentrate detail where it helps explain the volume or direction of a form.
An arm crossing open water may need a clear edge. The same arm passing over a similarly colored rock may become difficult to separate from its surroundings.
Allow that edge to disappear where the reference becomes ambiguous. The drawing can remain readable because the viewer has already followed the arm through its clearer sections.
Which lines are worth strengthening?
An octopus offers almost endless details to draw, but adding more of them does not always improve the result.
Step back and look at the paths established by the arms. Can you distinguish the nearest forms from those receding behind them? Does the eye still provide a recognizable focal point? Does the mantle feel connected to the rest of the animal?
If a section becomes difficult to read, strengthen the edge or shadow that explains an important overlap. A darker accent beneath one arm may clarify several neighboring forms.
If the pose is already convincing, leave the remaining marks alone. Not every sucker needs to be counted, and an arm that disappears behind the body does not need to be completed.
I like keeping some of the lines made while searching for the correct direction. Their variations record the process of observation and suit an animal whose body is constantly changing shape.
The key to a convincing octopus drawing is making its overlapping forms understandable without making them rigid. Follow the visible arms, use their suckers to show rotation and allow the surrounding space to remain part of the composition.
For more drawing subjects from the ocean, visit my collection of sea animal drawing tutorials.