Got my book from Blurb

I got my book from Blurb and I am so happy with it! All the images came out really well and the colours are good too. I was worried that the colours would change but they came out perfect. I'm now less worried about how the business cards will turn out and I'm getting pretty excited for the degree showcase; its all coming together nicely. Now I just have to order a book display stand and get my poster printed off. My friend Connor had a few left over business card holders so he said he'd save one for me for the showcase.
Overall, I am excited for the showcase and I'm really happy that all my hard work is paying off. I'm excited for what I'll be developing next for these creatures and new ones after uni.

Degree showcase poster

Here is my idea of my poster for the degree showcase. The poster is A2 and we're meant to have it as a portrait but Claire said we could have it as a landscape if we asked which I will be doing on Monday. The poster is basically the same as my business card but with my project title. I'm not too sure about having the title on the poster but I have plenty of time to think it over. I really think this image visually explains what my project is about without the use of text.
On monday I will be doing some test prints at the copy shop, I wont be able to blog about it because that is the day my coursework is due in and I plan on handing in my work on the Sunday.

Overall, I'm excited to see my work at the showcase and this year has gone by really fast. I've worked really hard and I can't wait to relax a bit more.

Business cards

Above are tests/developments of some business card ideas. I knew I wanted to use the fully rendered Iratus Horn with the muscles and skeleton showing within my business card, because I thought it showed off this project and my skills really well. I played about with different images such as the final pieces of creature 2 and 3, and some inkblots.
Below is my final business card. I used the final piece of creature 3 because it showed my illustrative skills and it was a good contrast to the other side of the card. I've ordered 250 cards from Vista Print and should get them on the 27/04/16 so I wont be able to blog about it but they will be at the degree showcase. If the colours turnout really bad, I still have the time to change the images and order some more, but hopefully it wont have to come to that.    

Also, the white boarder is not part of the business cards, they are for Vista Print to use as a safe guideline while printing/cutting.

Supervisor Meeting

I had a short meeting with Lynn today, we just went over some questions I had about my dissertation, such as if I needed to print out a hard copy - which I do, as well as the file for blackboard. I do want to print two copies of my dissertation so I can keep one and have my parents read it as they don't really understand what my course is.
We also talked about preparing for the final presentation and the practice ones we're going to have on the 28th in room 3508. I'm pretty nervous about the presentation but with practice, I'm sure I'll do fine.

Overall, short meeting but I got the answers to my questions, we have another meeting same time next week.

Book sent for print

I finally got my book ordered for the degree showcase; above is the cover of the book. It is meant to arrive on the 27th so plenty of time to get here. The book included my final production pipeline and the development work of all three of my creatures. I did leave out the charcoal sketches stage of the pipeline as it didn't actually help me too much when creating these creatures. However, I didn't take it out of the pipeline as I think its better to encourage myself to sketch out designs more, rather than rush through to illustrative pieces etc. The book itself is 68 pages and I've created it in InDesign so I have a PDF version of my book. I will submit the PDF along with my other work for the 25th deadline as the book itself wont arrive till the 27th.
Overall, I am really happy that I got this done in time and I'm pleased with how my creatures turned out like. As I always say, I'm looking forward to continue on researching and learning about animals and creature design and put everything I learn into practice after uni.

Perspective of all creatures

Above are the final creatures beside a human standing at 6,1 to show what size they all are. The Laetus Squid lives in the ocean, I just have it floating there to show the size more easily.
Through this project I have learned so much about creature design and animals themselves. I have enjoyed my research and practical work immensely and plan to continue my learning of creature design after university. I want to push my designs further and start thinking about what type of creatures in a second tree of life would look and behave like.  

Naming my creatures

I did some research into Latin and how animals are named because I've been putting off naming my creatures because I thought it would be very cringe. Mostly Latin is used in a way where the animal is named after its most noticeable feature. It's basically just describing the creature. Then the common name for the animal are sometimes taken from the Latin name too. I decided to do this for my creatures and looked up words that best describe each of them.

Monkey - Simia
Large horn - Est cornu magnum
Light - Lux
Glowing light - Refulgens
Bait - Cibus
Trap - Captionem
Colour changer - Mutante Colores
Heavy foot - Magna pedis
Anger - ira
Angry - Iratus
Colourful - Laetus

Below are the Latin names and common names for each creature.

Creature One
Common name: Iratus Horn
Latin name: Iratus Cornu Magnum (meaning angry large horn)

Creature Two
Common name: Glowing Simia
Latin name: Captionem Refulgens (meaning glowing light trap)

Creature Three 
Common name: Laetus Squid
Latin name: Mutante Colores (meaning colour changer)

Creature 2: Perspective

Above is the perspective sheet for creature 2 beside a human who is 6'1. The creature on the left is the male who is slightly bigger than the female on the right. The male also has a bigger tail.  

These creatures can overheat easily in the extreme heat of the sun in their environment; humans would also overheat easily. 

Overall, I really like this design and their bioluminescence feature; and they were the only creature that did not need to be redesigned through the production pipeline. 

Creature 1: Perspective

Above is the perspective sheet for creature 1 beside a human standing at 6'1. To the left of the human is the slightly smaller male and to the right, it the female. Overall, I am really happy with how this creature turned out like. 

Creature 3: Final Piece

Above is the final piece for creature 3. The creature has been hiding in the coral and the viewer has startled it. You can see that the creature is gradually turning into its afraid colour while the other half of its body is using the mottle pattern that it used to hide. You can also see there is a second creature that is hiding just below the first one. This one has not been startled and is using the mottle pattern to hide. Overall, I really enjoyed creating and developing this creature, and I think this painting shows off what this creature is by showing the viewer one creature changing colour/texture and the other perfectly hidden. 

Above are the sketches for the final piece and one WIP. I originally wanted the final piece to be bigger with a third creature hidden to the left of the image. However, as I was painting it, I thought it was a bit hard to read the layout and that the main creature which to be the focus of the painting, was a bit small. I then cropped the image and moved some of the coral around to make the composition better. I'm glad I did this as it had saved me a lot of time and the final image reads a lot better that the two images above.

Below are links to the reference images used in this final piece:

http://www.crystalandrox.com/pink-coral/

http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2012/03/our-oceans-coral-is-dying-of-herpes/

Creature 1: Redesign part 2

After the suggestions during my meeting with Lynn, I did some redesigning. I redid the fur on the males neck and used a reference to make it look more matted and thicker because the last design didn't read very well. Lynn also suggested that I tried putting fur on the end of their tails like lions, however, lions use their tail to swat flies away and the fur helps. With these creatures, their tail is for counter balance and it has very limited movement that it could not be able to use it to swat flies. That is why I left that out because to be it wouldn't work and would not make sense.
The neck in the last designs was also a bit low, so I moved it higher. It was a subtle change but I think it worked well. Overall I really like how this redesign turned out. It is a lot better than the previous creature 1 designs and I would be proud to show it off at the degree show.

Final test prints

Above are some of the test prints of done on some of my artwork. Doing these tests will help me see how they print out for when i'm ordering my book. Obviously the printers and paper will be different for when creating my book but it is to see how different the images look compared to the screen on my laptop. I printed a few selected images because I have far too many drawings to print them all out several times. I choose to print some grayscale images like the renders of the muscles for creature 1, some coloured images and all the final pieces.
While studying how these images print out like, I look for details such as the contrast and brightness of the image. If something needs changing, I'll do it on photoshop and reprint it. One time I accidentally printed out a few images in black and white. This actually really helped me to see where in the images it is too dark or too light. In future, I will be doing this whenever I am painting, turning the image grey scale will help me with the contrast of the whole image.
Overall, I have a few images that need tweaking a bit before being sent to print for the book. In terms of business cards, they do not take very long to order and print so if something were to go drastically wrong with them, I can just buy more. But obviously Im trying my best for that not to happen, and im sure it after these test prints, it'll turn out fine.  

Meeting with my supervisor

For my meeting today with Lynn, I showed her my redesigns of creature 1. She liked them and gave me some advice for their structure such as their head might be too low and the mane on the male is not reading too well. She suggested I try to get these fixed and to look up some refs of messy fur such as a lions mane and tail.
I also showed her my WIP of my final piece for creature 3. She liked the setting but said I need to think about the colour temperature more. She suggested adding in more white to the painting, as a lot of it had high contrast, especially with the pink coral. Also I'm recently getting into the bad habit of blurring background objects as doing this losses all the detail in the paint. Lynn suggested that have two layers of the same object, blurring one and with the other layer on top, try to edit in some of the detail that I want. Fortunately I still had the original layer for one of the coral, so I'll be editing that too.  

Overall, most of my work is polishing it and getting it ready for the book. We will be meeting again, same time next week.

Horizon: Oceans of the Solar System

This documentary showed how scientists looked for life on other planets by searching for mass amounts of water such as lakes and oceans. That is because all life on Earth started out in the ocean, it is the origin of life. Scientists are look for a second tree of life, organisms that are clearly not related to any life form on Earth - something that we do not have a common ancestor with. 

The part of the documentary I want to focus on is the study of Saturn's moon, Titan. In 2005 a probe took pictures of Titan and discovered that its surface was unexpectedly earth like. It had huge lakes, not made of water but made of methane. The moon is -180 degree C, making it far too cold for any life form with an Earth like chemistry. 

Scientists at Cornell University are researching into whether a methane based life is possible. They took the chemical ingredients that exist on Titan and mixed them up inside a computer. The computer was able to build a membrane, one that functions in methane, not water. This is ground breaking as it is possible for there to be a second tree of like that functions completely differently than any animal on Earth. 

“We tend to think that life would look like us. You just have to look at the star trek movies, all the aliens kind of look like insects and things that we already know. But why not be something completely different? Something that we cannot imagine but something perfectly suited to the conditions that are on Titan.” Prof. Paulette Clancy  

My three creatures have been designed to function in the only way I know how, through water and oxygen etc. Because of this, they are most likely to live on an Earth like planet such as Kepler 186F or even Earth itself. If I was to continue on with this project, I would research into how creatures from a second tree of life would look like, behave, think and exist. Surviving on methane and hydrogen rather than water and oxygen etc. This would require a huge amount of research into these chemical compounds so I could understand them and how it could affect a creature.  

Overall, I have learnt a huge amount during this project and I excited to further my studies on animals and creature designs in my personal time after uni. 

Creature 2: Final edit on final piece

Above is the final edit on my final piece for creature 2. I've made it a lot brighter where the entrance of the cave is, highlight the creature. I've also made the fireflies brighter with the yellow glow reflecting off of the rocks in the background. For the creature, I made the steam of the lure to the back of the head a lot thick so it'll read better and it is clear that its apart of the creature.
Overall, I'm really happy with how this turned out. I originally wasn't sure about it but after all the edits, its a lot better. I feel like this image does show the creature off really well on how it uses its lure and that the colour of its fur can suit this cave environment as well as blending in with the same out in the open.

Creature 3: Perspective

Above shows the perspective of creature 3 beside a human standing at 6'1. Although this creature is actually quite big beside a human, in this creatures world it is quite small for a sea creature. It is quite low on the food chain, but through evolution, it could become very powerful.
I hope to keep developing what this creature could evolve into after uni as it is something that really interests me. But, obviously for now, I do not have the time and it would be drifting away from my actual project aim if I did this.

Creature 1: fully rendered redesign

Here are the fully rendered redesigns of creature 1. Although the physical design of creature 1 has changed, its lifestyle hasn't. This redesign has made the creature more suited to its environment and lifestyle. The colour and pattern of their fur is to help them blend into the dry grass and earth. Even though the females who have lush green grasslands, will standout; they will have a fully grown horn making them very intimidating to most predators.
Overall, this redesign has greatly improved and looks more alien like rather than looking too similar to earth animals.

Creature 3: Disruptive

This is the disruptive pattern and the silhouettes of how the creature changes its body to further confuse what ever is looking at it. As this creature does not have anything to defend itself, changing into this pattern is its only hope when a predator has its eyes on it. The predator will become confused as to what this creature is, and will more than likely not risk its life to investigate what it is.

Creature 1: Muscle correction

While rendering out the muscles, I realised I forgot an important one in the front leg. Above I've outlined it out in red. It's a simple mistake and easy to fix; I just need to be more careful next time. I'm actually happy that I spotted this when I did, it shows that I've learned a lot about anatomy because I really think that before this year I wouldn't of been able to spot a mistake like this.

Creature 1: Anatomy

Above is the Skeleton and muscle structure of the redesigned creature 3. This creature is a lot more suited to its aggressive behaviour of charging at other animals by having a bigger and stronger body. The weight distribution is more balanced than the previous design and it can hold the weight of the horn more easily - therefore, a more believable creature design.
Next I will be fully rendering this creature, its fur colour and pattern will still be the same as its environment hasn't changed, just the body suit its world more.

Creature 3: Turnaround sheets

Above are the turnaround sheets for all the pattern templates. The order goes as Mottle, Uniform, Disruptive and the Afraid template.

Creature 1: Redesign

After speaking with Lynn about how I could use what I've learnt the past few weeks and apply them to creature 1, I started to redesign it. At first I wanted to change a little bit of the creature, mostly just the feet but I ended up changing the whole body. I began with the original silhouette and developed it from there. It is easier to see the weight distribution of the animal when it's just the silhouette.

I took inspiration from a Parasaurolophus, which is a herbivore dinosaur who also carries a lot of weight. I wanted to give this creature more fat around the feet and legs to act as shock absorbers due to its huge size. It's legs are now a lot stronger for charging at competitors or predators. The final creature is the last silhouette; this creature is now a lot more balanced. 

Next I will be creating the skeleton, muscle structure and the final renders for this creature. I don't think I will be able to do full turnaround sheets because of time constraints but I will do my best. 

Creature 3: final colours/textures

Above are the final colours and textures for creature 3. From left to right I'll go through each of them.

Mottle
This is the colour and texture of coral. The creature uses this amongst the coral as it hunts for food and hides from predators.

Disruptive 
This pattern is used to confuse whatever is looking at it. The creature moves its fins to hide its face and change its silhouette, creating even further confusion. I really like how this one turned out like because even in its neutral stance, the features on the creatures face are hard to read, which is the whole point of this pattern - to confuse whatever is looking at it.

Uniform
This is probably one of my favourite colour and texture for this creature. This pattern is the colour and texture of sand and some rocks. The creature can also use this to hide while hunting or from predators.

Afraid
With this pattern, the creature turns into when it is afraid or startled. It can't help changing into this colour and it is very dangerous when it does as it is very easy to spot. Once the creature calms down, it will change into one of the other three colours.

Pygmy Seahorse

Above are images of a Pygmy Seahorse. I think these little guys are so cute and as you can see from the second image, very very small. What I found interesting is how even a creature as small as these guys, still need to blend into their environment to survive and hide from predators. I really like how they even physically resemble their environment with little red bumps to match the coral they live in. I can take these creatures and use them as inspiration for creature 3 as these creatures are good examples of an animal using its body to camouflage into its environment.

Creature 3: Colour/texture variations

Above are colour and texture variations that creature 3 could have. Because of the the amount of different colours and textures, I won't have the time to fully render them out on the creature so I've done them like this. When I pick out the best ones, I'll test them out on a fully rendered creature before doing final turnaround sheets.
The different groups are the pattern templates that Cephalopods have. They are:
a) Uniform - little to no contrast to the pattern
b) Mottle - small scale light and dark splodges
c) Disruptive - to interfere with the recognition of what the animal is

I will be picking one of each for the creature and an added fear template that the creature turns into when they are startled.

Supervisor meeting

I had my meeting with Lynn today, I showed her all the work and research I've done since last week. we talked about the layout of my book and how to make things as clear as possible to the reader.
She also said I should get my feedback from my contextual review this week, so as soon as I get that I'll be working on it.
Overall it was a short meeting but I have plenty to do with Creature 3 and editing creatures 1 and 2. Lynn's going to be off next week so the next meeting we have together will be on the 11th April at 1pm. By then I should have the majority of my practical work completed and starting to put it all together for the book. As well as corrections of my dissertation.

Creature 3: Anatomy

Above is the skeleton and muscle turnaround sheets for creature 3. This creature does not have a huge or complex muscle structure as it has very limited movement because it spends most of its life either hiding or lurking. It does have a small skeleton that helps support the body and will be an advantage for when its tail develops as it will allow the whole creature to evolve fast and bigger.
This species is full of potential and in a few thousand years, could even become the seas top predator.
For this creature I wanted to explore what it would be to not fully evolved, as in it has a lot of potential to become a much more bigger and complex creature. I want to continue on with this creature after uni and explore its development.

Artist Pipelines

Concept Artist and Creature Designer, Brynn Metheney shares her techniques on warming up and creating inspiration on her blog. Metheney uses a website called Pinterest where she collects references and inspirational images of nature and animals. The collection allows Metheney to view a variety of animal species at random, showing the differences and similarities of different animals. Metheney states that during her warm up doodles, she has a tendency to incorporate the same traits of forward facing eyes and leathery hides into her designs because those traits is what she likes the most and is more comfortable with. To help combat this trait routine, Metheney uses her collection of references on Pinterest and scrolls through the large collection of animals. She would scroll through the collection fast and wherever the page lands on, she’ll use those animals on that page and create a creature from it.         

“Smashing up different animals is essentially the essence of what creature design is. You're taking what you know about the natural world and using those traits to create something new and exciting.”

Above is an example of how Metheney uses Pinterest to inspire new creature designs. She uses this technique to warm up and to encourage her to keep using fresh and unusual animal traits within her designs. This method is slightly different to Terryl Whitlatch’s work, as Metheney takes traits of different creatures and put them together, whereas Whitlatch creates a creature with its environment and purpose in mind. Both methods are credible, and it is up to the designer to develop their own understanding of nature and how they see the world.  

Ken Barthelmey is a creature designer who uses both digital painting and 3D to create his work. On his website he answers commonly asked question about his work, his pipeline and his advice for student artists. Below are the questions and answers from Barthelmey’s blog.   

What is a typical pipeline you go through as a concept artist, after receiving an initial brief for a creature?
I always start with very rough scribbles. I do these mainly for myself in order to get ideas and to find a specific look. After that I start with more detailed pencil sketches which I present to my client. If a sketch gets approved I start enhancing the design and colour it in photoshop. However in my recent jobs, I immediately jumped into Zbrush after the approval. Zbrush is a fantastic and very powerful tool, I always enhance my designs when I work in 3D.

How do you strike a balance between making something look ‘cool’ versus something that is believable?
If you design a creature too 'cool' or fantastical, it will look unbelievable and silly. And vice versa. If you make a design too realistic, it will look boring. In order to make a good design I think it's important to have a good taste of realism and imagination. I love seeing an actual anatomy in a design, even if it's mechanical. Using reference photos from real animals is always a great help to accomplish that.

Besides creating believable anatomy, what else do you consider while creating a creature?
I always consider creatures as characters. Even bloodthirsty beasts with long teeth should have their own soul and backstory. What is its motivation? What is its goal? What evolutionary functions does it need in order to survive... The more thoughts go into a design, the better the result.

How long does a typical design job take?
That's very difficult to answer, since it depends on many factors. I like to have a fixed deadline from my clients, that way I can easily structure my working process. Depending on the project, this can range from one day to six weeks or even more. I like to have at least one day for sketching ideas and additional 1-2 days for a beauty render. A complex creature with over a thousand arms takes longer, of course, than a simple blob creature.
 

You are an artist who likes working with pencil, why?
It's a great and fast way to present early ideas. Working with traditional tools has a different feeling. For me it's the first meeting of the image that I had in my mind. I was fortunate to work with very creative clients who immediately saw the potential in early sketches. Sometimes however it can be difficult to judge an early pencil sketch. So presenting ideas in a compelling way is very important. A sketch should never be seen as the final design thought, it's only the first brick in the wall.

Do you have any advice for students? What makes a good Artist/Designer?
You shouldn't have dreams, you should have goals! Simply follow your passion, you can only do the best work when you are motivated. You don't need expensive softwares in order to make art, start with pencil and paper and learn the basics.
From the technical side, I think everyone can learn how to paint. It's all about how hard you are working on your skills and how disciplined you are. But what a good Artist/Designer marks is creativity. Creativity makes every artist unique; you need to be able to come up with singular ideas and solving problems in the easiest way.

Overall, these artists use very different methods and pipelines to create their creatures. It is clear that each artist has their own routine and reasoning behind why they use certain techniques. It is up to the designer to develop their own pipeline that makes them comfortable and able to create new and interesting creature designs.  

Creature 3: Head close up and texture studies

I tried to draw the head close up for creature 3 but I wasn't certain how I wanted the texture to be. I've never drawn a sea animal before and although I've seen them in real life, I wasn't sure how to render it out for this creature.
To solve this problem, I decided to do some texture studies of different sea animals. Different animals in the sea have different textures. Dolphins have smooth/rubbery skin texture, fish have scales and animals such as sting rays have a rough, sandpaper type texture. The creatures that I wanted to study for creature 3 are fish, seahorse and octopus skin.












This was really good practice for me in general and I learned a lot. I also need to sort out my brushes in photoshop because I have far too many that I don't use. This'll most likely happen after uni though.
I really like the textures of the octopus and the seahorse; I like how parts of the seahorse look a bit like jelly and I like the roughness of the octopus. I want to explore the anatomy of creature 3 before deciding on a texture; I also want to explore different types of colours and textures the creature could turn into so I need time to think what the best way to develop it is.  

Book Layouts

I've been thinking on how to layout my book for the showcase. I want to finish all artwork at the beginning of April so there is enough time for the book to be printed and delivered. A lot of concept art books look very busy, there is a lot of sketches on one page and then a huge landscape covering two pages. There is a lot for me to experiment with, I do know that I want the layout to be clear and the design development of each creature to be linear, as well as the book itself, I want it to be landscape. As soon as I finish development of all creatures, I'll produce some layouts and experiment a bit. Blurb, the company I'm using to print my book, has a few templates which I'll be using to create my book.

Creature 3: Animal Anatomy

Above are anatomy studies of a Seahorse, Lionfish, Yellowtail Snapper and a Salmon. The anatomy of fish and other sea creatures is very different to animals on land, the Seahorse for example almost has an exo-skeleton structure. It is supported by this outside structure that is common in insects.
The other sketches show the skeletons of the Yellowtail Snapper and the Lionfish, both of these fish are medium in size; although I see creature 3 as a small creature, compared to Earth animals it'll be medium size.
The study of the Salmon shows its muscle structure, it is pretty simple as this fish has limited movements compared to animals on land. This creature does not have to worry about keeping balance or falling over. Creature 3 will also have a simple muscle structure as it spends most of its life either still while it hunts or hiding from prey.  

Creature 3: More development sketches

I decided to develop the creature even further after critique from Lynn during one of our meetings. With the last development sketches I liked how the creature looked head on, but from the side I was not happy with it as it began to look like I was just bashing creatures together, which is not what I wanted to do with this project. I played about with the proportions and weight of the body until I developed something that was more balanced. I kept the tentacle at the end of the face but now it can roll it up into a ball for when it is not in use; I also kept the beak mouth.
I am a lot more happier now with the last 3 designs, my next step is to start thinking about the colour and skin texture for this creature. I plan on doing some studies on octopus etc because I have never painted any animal with that kind of texture, so I think I need to practice before doing anything final for creature 3.

Supervisor Meeting

With my meeting today with Lynn, we talked about how creature 3 was developing. The creature appears to be top heavy and we discussed about developing the creature further and pushing its design more. As I research into sea creatures, some of them are able to change colour such as some octopuses, I should do some more research into how and why some sea animals do this. 

I talked about how I thought I wouldn't be able to create a 4th creature in time for the book to be printed and delivered. We discussed using the last few weeks on finishing creature 3 and redesigning some traits on creatures 1 and 2. Using what I've learnt through the year and apply that to the first two creatures. I also need to do some more editing to creature 2's final piece by adding more highlights from the light coming through the cave entrance. I need to create a perspective chart of each creature, showing them beside a human and other creatures so people who are viewing my book, can get an idea of how bog/small each creature is. 

We discussed about how I haven't received any reply from the industry experts and that I should focus on other artists professional pipelines so I'll be broadening my knowledge of other artists workflows. We also talked about how I want my book to look like and that I should create a mood board of different book layouts to help focus my ideas.   

Overall, a lot of discussed today. I have a lot of work todo and I don't have much time left. Lynn and I will be meeting the same time next week, monday 1pm. 

How do Cephalopods change colour?

A Cephalopod are creatures that can change colours such as Squids, Octopuses and Cuttlefish. Their skin contains cells of the colours red, yellow and brown with reflectors underneath to create the greens and blues. These cells are called Chromatophores and are made to change colour by the contraction of muscles (see image to the right). This action is very fast, and they can change colour in less than a second. These creatures can also change the texture of their skin, to resemble rocks and other bumpy surfaces and they can change their body position to mimic other creatures for protection. For example they can mimic a Lion Fish which is poisonous, meaning a lot of predators learn to stay away from them.  
Today, scientists don't know how exactly they change colour because these creatures are colour blind, how do they know what colour to change into? What is know that it is a conscious action made by the creature to contract its muscles to copy the colour and texture of the environment. These colour changes can also change depending on how the animal is feeling, it can change to warn potential predators or even when they are startled, they turn completely white.
Some Cephalopods can produce light - bioluminescence. However, I've already explored and created the bioluminescence trait in my second creature design so I want to focus the skin colour changes for creature number 3.

Cephalopods have around 3 pattern templates that they use. Above is an image of 3; camouflage for these creatures is about fooling whatever is looking at you, not looking exactly like the background. 

pattern templates:  

a) Uniform - little to no contrast to the pattern 

b) Mottle - Small scale light and dark splodges 

c) Disruptive - to interfere with the recognition of what the animal is. 

Overall, researching into how and why these animals change colour and texture is very interesting to me and I can't wait to explore how my creature will look. Below are links to the websites where I got the images from and did my research. 

http://ocean.si.edu/ocean-news/how-octopuses-and-squids-change-color

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-do-squid-and-octopuse/