As far as technique, i'm not sure that I'm using a specific one lol. But the technicals are this. Using multiple referrence pictures, I created the outer parts individually, then once I have a rough shape I like, I fine tune positioning and general look and feel. After that, I parent the individual parts to eachother and then to the central sphere, using it as a rotation reference point. Paste in a few copies, build your color schemes. Then move on to the organism once the "shell" is built. For the organism, I find that a torus shape is perfect, randomize the verticies, and smooth, rinse and repeat until you get a single ring of smooth, natural, bio-material. For extra smoothing, after i have the general shape i want, I then subdivide the verticies once to allow for an even smoother look when I smooth it out. Repeat a few times, and you have approx 20-30 rings to make up the organism. Flatten out and streatch a few torus rings to give some filler between the organism. Then start on the animation. Setting each ring slightly offset on the z axis and using thhe sphere as the pivot point, it's just time consuming to set a key, then move each ring to where you want it, and set another key. Render the animation, and you're done.
