Sushi

I think what prompted this one was probably a couple of things. First, I recently discovered an amazing, authentic sushi place in Berkeley that's all vegetarian. Second, I visited Monterey, CA recently where they have a huge aquarium. There are really some amazing and beautiful creatures there to see. The curious thing, however, was in the bookstore where I was surprised to find a vast array of seafood cookbooks. It's almost as if the aquarium was saying: "Now that you've seen all of these beautiful creatures, here's how to cook 'em up for dinner." Most meat-eaters don't agree with me, but that's just how I see it from my perspective.

The most fun I had with this one was painting the tongue. There are about 5 layers in there. The dark red under-painting, a layer of bumpy highlights and shadows, a layer of veiny textures, the reflections and finally the bright white highlights. In combination, the tongue looks really disgusting... hopefully more-so than the unidentified tentacled creature.