The Opuntioid Alien

This is the Opuntioid an invasive alien plant. In real life the Opuntioid cacti is truly an invasive plant that is difficult to handle. That is my inspiration for this character that I drew for my entry to the Digital Drawing Contest of @dzoji. You may read about the contest on this link: @dzoji/digital-drawing-contest-alien-plant

How I made this entry:

I started with base colors right away after browsing online for reference. The lines need not be perfect and I left some narrow gaps intentionally these will help give definition to the character

Then I added the thorny structures around the body which is very common to most cacti. I also did a bit of line drawing on some areas to give emphasis to the creases and folds

The theme for this week is alien plant and the Opuntioid cactus is considered as one. I think it would be better to turn this plant drawing into a real alien from out of this world so I added these eyes in the middle of the drawing process.

Time to identify the source of light then add the shadow and highlight

The background is plain but I avoid adding too much small details like stars and asteroids because the cactus character has small speckles to it that may compete for attention. So,I thought that this nimbus above will make up for it.

It was an unexpected outcome and I like it. I am glad I was open to possibilities and made some edits otherwise this could be just an ordinary drawing of a cactus. Thanks for your time and support hope you enjoyed reading.