"Octopus Wants to Fight" Coat Hook update

 

*TLDR*

I've pretty much burned my retinas out trying to make something cool.

I found this project super fun, but my half tortoise brain has struggled to properly formulate coherent thoughts. Quite a challenge, to be sure.

Version 2:

    As you can see from these progress pics, a lot of effort was made trying to make tentacles for this guy. After using Sweep to create the base shape, I made the suckers, trying to add important details as I went. One small Cylinder was used, then a small Sphere was Boolean Differenced with the Cylinder. Many copies were made, and I was even able to place them on the rough tentacle form a lot quicker than the first time. Had a bit of a time trying to Flow the right tentacle shape though. Trial and error here, mostly error. Tried to use both Mirror and Spiral to make the "fists" and coiled tentacle ends with mixed results. Did my best to Union these ends that didn't line up properly, Finally gluing them together with a sphere. It looks awful, but I continued on. It wasn't until trying to Union a new, more detailed bottle into the coils that I had my biggest challenge. There seemed to be a fatal flaw in there somewhere, and I just couldn't continue on.  

Version 3:

 Starting over (again) hoping to build an Octopus that doesn't absolutely suck (the will to live out of me.)

     A fellow student came in to the computer lab as I was working on Version 2 one evening. He was super impressed with the concept but asked if it was a UFO?? Good effing gawd are you serious?! I didn't say that but immediately thought it. Interesting question though, can the interpretation of the viewer have a detrimental effect on the pursuit of a finished product? Yes indeed. Fail! 

So, keeping this in mind, if I was going to start over, I was going to start from the beginning.

However, Rhino was being super glitchy from the get go. Flashing screen/ freezing up, long delays when sending commands or trying to manipulate shapes with the Gumball. Terribly frustrating when already feeling under pressure. After Exploding and sorting out the pieces I wanted to keep from the Copy of the Ver 2 body, I basically deleted everything on the screen, but the glitches persisted. Started with a new body shape, really trying to be intentional with my choices here. I didn't Union everything together like last time. Choosing to just leave things hanging in space loosely while I went along. I created new shapes for the body and tried to create better tentacles Started experimenting more with Flow, discovered that I could combine both the Spiral and specific Target Curves to Flow interesting shapes. Big win here!! I made a bunch of potential tentacles with coiled ends, finally settling on 8. Moved them all around with the beak in the center, not wanting to crowd the underside by accident. After finalizing the layout of the tentacles, I finished with the body, even Filleting the curve at the bottom of the body's Cone which is what cause the UFO comment in the first place. Began organizing all the shapes, moving them into position with the Gumballs, nonstop glitching here. After Union-ing the bottles onto the tentacle's ends (huge win, perfect fit with random tentacle shapes)  I encountered more issues. Couldn't Union the tentacles to the body. Tried multiple times to manipulated the shapes but nothing worked. Frustrating end to a long ass boring story.