Grab the rectangular marquise tool and make a verticle selection, your choice.

Then hit New Layer in the layers pallet..

Using the fill tool select a color from the color palet I used a med color grey
# CDCDCD. and fill the selection.

Then hit control + D to deselect the shape.

Go to EDIT> FREE TRANSFORM>SKEW

Now bring the top right and top left handles together into a point.

It should look like the next image when your done. Hit Enter or the check mark once it does.

Does it look like this? great.

Go to FILTER>DISTORT>SHEAR

A window like this will popup, change the setting to look like you want your tenticles to look like. and hit enter.

This is how your masterpiece should look at this point if it does not.. don't worry :D

Control Click (PC) the layer you made with the tenticle. This loads the selection into memory. Your image should look like this.

Click on the channels tab and add a new layer. It'll be called alpha 1.

Double click on the channel layer called Alpha and name it something you'll remember, I used DUH!

Then fill the selected tenticle with the fill tool and white color.

After you fill the selection with white and your still in the channels palet.

Go to FILTER>BLUR>
GAUSSIAN BLUR

I used a radius of 5.6, you can play with the settings to your liking. Keep in mind you want it to look like a tenticle not a flat thing :D

Click ok.

Click back on your layers tab, now you'll notice the layer we are working on is a different color. Before you do anything else Click on the Layer to select it.

Btw, once you do click on the layer you'll see your gaussian blur disappear. Don't worry this is normal.

Now Click on the Move Tool if its not selected already.

Now Click FILTER> RENDER>LIGHTING EFFECTS

In the Texture Channel scroll to your named layer, in this case its DUH.

Once you've loaded the texture channel you can play with all the setting untill you feel you've got a decelt look with the lights and the direction of them.

Click ok when your done.

Add a layer on top, you choose your favorite color and change the layer properties to which looks the best. I chose orange & overlay.

You can also duplicate the tenticle and use the guassian blur to make it more smooth. Or even use the gaussian blur on the orginal if you want smooth.

Here are my 2 versions, one with a filter (gaussian blur) one without.

I think I like the gaussian blur..

Masterpiece? number 1.

Masterpiece? number 2.

Good luck and have fun..

P.S make it reusable turn it into a brush

or an action or.. heh you decide.