"As it is, he merely hinted at the shocking morbidity of these great floundering white things, with black fur on their backs, a rudimentary horn in the centre of their foreheads, and an unmistakable trace of human or anthropoid blood in their flat-nosed, bulging-lipped faces."
"The chief ground for such a supposition was the well-known fact that the vanished inhabitants of Yoth had been quadrupedal."
H.P. Lovecraft & Zealia Bishop, The Mound
Here's the first of two weeks of redrawings of old Lovecraft monsters. This guy is a gyaa-yothn from Lovecraft's revision story for Zealia Bishop called The Mound. The way these worked was writers would have ideas and pay HPL to write them with varying degrees of input. From what I understand, Bishop was pretty hands off and most of this is Lovecraft going wild. That's why his pantheon of gods shows up.
I redrew my original because the line work was too thick and the coloring was too muddy. There were also some subtle changes in anatomy. I also stuck more closely to the text and gave him a "rudimentary" horn as opposed to the full on horn he had in the original.
Here's the first of two weeks of redrawings of old Lovecraft monsters. This guy is a gyaa-yothn from Lovecraft's revision story for Zealia Bishop called The Mound. The way these worked was writers would have ideas and pay HPL to write them with varying degrees of input. From what I understand, Bishop was pretty hands off and most of this is Lovecraft going wild. That's why his pantheon of gods shows up.
I redrew my original because the line work was too thick and the coloring was too muddy. There were also some subtle changes in anatomy. I also stuck more closely to the text and gave him a "rudimentary" horn as opposed to the full on horn he had in the original.
Excellent stuff! I've seen several illustrations of the gyaa-yothn, but this is the only one I can deem as unpleasant and unsettling as Lovecraft's original text! Those vacant eyes with that yawning maw! gggggghhh Bugg-shoggog! And the rudimentary horn does look more impressive than the original somehow. Maybe because it looks like a useful ramming weapon? Or maybe because its length makes it look somewhat comical in a grotesque way? I can't put my finger on it.
ReplyDeleteWill you be drawing that K'n-yanian woman T'la-Yub? She was so unique for a character in Lovecraft's stories, being an active heroine with weird powers (even if she had an unfortunate ending). She has also gained a bit of recognition among Mythos feminists.
If anything, one reason to draw T'la-Yub would be to let loose your imagination, since Lovecraft described the noblewomen as beautiful to an extreme and artistically intricate degree, implying some bizarre clothing and decoration or transformations!
Thank you so much!!! I really appreciate it. I don't have any plans to illustrate T'la-Yub only because I have to limit myself or else I'd be drawing HPL monsters forever haha! From what I remember she was a pretty interesting character, though it's been years since I read it. I'll have to revisit it soon!
DeleteYes, more Lovecraft stuff!, I hope you do more of Robert E Howard and Clark Ashton Smith!
ReplyDeletedefinitely some more weirdness coming up! ;)
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