Critique: Horror from beneath the sea

Brandross

So, I initially made this image as a joke;  A friend of mine posted a photo they took on a beach one evening, which I thought had a bit of a Lovecraftian atmosphere to it.  I did some quick-and-dirty digital painting, and posted this image in response to the original photo along with the sort of commentary you would expect from someone who decided to visit the beach when the stars were right.  (SWEET MOTHER OF MERCY, WHAT IS THAT THING?!)  Anyway, I got enough of a response from it that I thought It might be worthwhile to get some feedback on it and see if it would be worth turning into a larger project.

In less long-winded terms, anyone have any thoughts?

RN

Hi. I can't see much of the place where this scene is happening, and I think that takes away a bit of the scariness. You want some sense of 'placement', right? Like we're standing there looking at this.

I would use a background that shows more obviously where you are in space and what's the perspective:


I would also change the pose of that thing so it's not symmetrical. Think of it like you're capturing a moment in time and that thing would probably be moving.
If that's supposed to be a photograph, when was it taken (that is, what was that thing doing at that moment, maybe crawling towards the photographer, maybe swimming up to the surface to breathe)?

The monster is unsettling, at first look it's confusing but then --bam-- you understand a bit of what it looks like, so that part is nice. I also think the bright parts are a good idea, feels like bioluminescence like in deep-sea creatures.
Good luck.

miguelnarayan

Hmm. It's too dark, not even a black colored organic material would look so dark under moonlight, especially when there seems to be a light on top of it, between the clouds? It's a cool picture, but there is too much left to interpret/imagine what is not there

Brandross

Finally got back around to working on this.