This week's dev diary (#230) comes courtesy of the main artist behind the design for the Aquatics' ships, plus one of the artists who worked on the Leviathan for the "Here Be Dragons" Origin:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/stellaris-dev-diary-230-the-art-of-aquatics-ships-the-drake.1495959/For as much as I generally don't find dev diaries about artwork to be terribly interesting, this one was actually kinda fun to read. The guy doing the concept art for the ships & space stations is apparently an experienced diver and (amateur) underwater photographer, so he was actually pretty jazzed about this project. His enthusiasm for the subject is obvious, and it was hard not to smile while reading him talk about it.
The 3D artist who helped work on the Aquatic Dragon talks about the process of developing the creature, and how it ended up being more that just a reskin of the existing Ether Drake leviathan already in the game. It was kinda cool getting a glimpse at the process, especially since they ended up taking a different approach than originally intended.