I, too, suck at drawing from imagination. But the way I completed this project was just to draw my octopus a number of times until I could replicate it without copying.I guess it’s the same for everything. Like Stan says, you get better at drawing by, well, drawing!

Here are my sketches - the final sketch ended up a little scratchy, but I was struggling with where to put all the tentacles! Plus huge wavy lines.. I read that female blanket octopuses are many thousands of times bigger than the males, so I thought I would play on that...

I did the first 3, then decided they weren't sketchy enough and did them again. Second time around, it took me much less time, and I actually prefer them... they seem to have more life.

Here are my efforts. Snail wasn’t too bad. Boots were a pain. The laces are a little chicken scratchy, but I tried to tidy them up.