'Eight' octopus commercial

Early last year, I had the chance to work on an octopus for the Shoosmiths 'Eight' launch out of the UK, with Aspect Film. It was a fun commercial to work on and gave me some good creative freedom while working closely with Adam Etheridge at Aspect. The Octopus had to be out of water but the client didn't want a slimy look to it. It almost had to have a bit of a 'magical' presence as well as change color in one of the shots.
I was given a rough base model as a starting point but I had to change it up quite a bit in Maya (to meet the director and client needs) before bringing it into Zbrush for a sculpt. I also built out a new eye setup for it, as what was originally there would not work. After a Zbrush pass, I worked within Mari and Substance Painter to get the necessary maps for setting up the look dev. We wound up using an array of various masks, including a chromatophore mask, to help with the color variant change. I then did the initial look dev in Arnold before Adam took it over for final lighting and look dev as well as compositing. He also setup the rig and animation for the octopus to give it an ethereal feel within the ad.