Weekly Photoshop assignment - Tentacles!

Before jumping to sketching some designs, i did standard research on various artist to gather ideas.
I was excited to do this as there are many different routes and loads of design possibilities. 

Octopus, squids and the like are pretty fun to draw, suckers, spikes, goo and many arms.I tried by thinking what creatures would have tentacles and how that would affect the way the tentacle looks.

Here is where i started designing different compositions and page layouts, quite a few designs here that i wish i did instead of my final. 

Here i tried several techniques and colour schemes that i might use in my final design. Sketching some suckers and wrapped around tentacles. 

The first main rough stage i got too, most of the values and shadows are in place. My vision was to try and produce a cartoon with realism, defining extra detail and gore that wouldn't normally fit with a cartoon styled design.

I felt after the initial stage that i had trouble colouring on top of the greyed version i had before. Using Photoshop techniques like using an overlay layer, seemed to give it a washed out look. Wasn't sure where else to go with it other then add more detail, i think the main thing i need to learn is using a wider range of colours to bring out the contrasting values more. I think in the future i will try going straight in with colour and see if i achieve desired effect.