The idea for this was very clear in my head when I had it: I wanted a poster of a freaky alien dude to be smoking from funky alien pipes. This came as a suggestion from my buddy, who asked me to do exactly that. I sketched out the initial alien design, then worked out the basic composition. 
After I got a solid idea of what I wanted, I took this over into blender, then modeled the scene. I've been experimenting with this work flow, and this particular project seemed a good place to utilize it. The hardest part of it this time around was figuring out how to model the tentacles, and how best to light the scene, but in the end I think I've got a better handle on it.
Eventually I started playing with color, settling on the palette I have now. After that, I began doing a final rendering pass, unifying the marks on the page into a more uniformly painterly style. During that process, I brought detail to certain sections I thought were lacking it, like the background or smoke. I ended up turning the background in a thick fog, and made the smoke more obviously resemble smoke. The text also got cleaned up, getting more incorporated into the reality of the piece as a result.
Once I had the "final" piece, I still had to do color adjustments. I played around with making it harshly saturated and brightened, and I do think it definitely also works, though I wound up going with a slightly more balanced look with my third version.
As a quick final component, I decided to include an optional frame for use in merchandise. I quickly modeled a basic version in blender, then did some quick detail work around its perimeter for flavor.

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