I just love octopus and I´ve been postponing for several years a personal artwork exploring the underwater world somehow.

After living for a couple of years around the island of Malta and Albania, I had the chance to encounter dozens of octopus and I´m amazed by their behavior. I can say I had one of my best "contact" experiences with them in a couple of times. Once I met a small octopus inside its home and I started piling up some stones underwater, after observing me for ~20s it also piled up some stones... other time I swam with a big one that changed color and texture for a few minutes around a big rock, like an exhibition dance.

This piece has nothing to do with those exact encounters but it´s a beginning of my underwater world from inside out.
It started from an original sketch and was developed into a full photoreal matte painting using multiple stock images.

The workflow combines Matte Painting + AI Hybrid Workflow:

- Traditional photobashing and paintover
- AI enhancement (Nano Banana & Magnific) for detail and realism
- ChatGPT-assisted critique and prompt development
- Kling 2.6 for short cinematic animation using start/end frame interpolation

The focus was to maintain full artistic control while using AI as a refinement and acceleration tool—not as a generator of the core image.

The final result blends concept art, matte painting, and AI-assisted finishing into a cohesive cinematic piece.