DWELLER

DWELLER

"It had been old when Babylon was new;

None knows how long it slept beneath that mound,

Where in the end our questing shovels found

Its granite blocks and brought it back to view.

There were vast pavements and foundation-walls,

And crumbling slabs and statues, carved to shew

Fantastic beings of some long ago

Past anything the world of man recalls.

And then we saw those stone steps leading down

Through a choked gate of graven dolomite

To some black haven of eternal night

Where elder signs and primal secrets frown.

We cleared a path—but raced in mad retreat

When from below we heard those clumping feet."

H.P. Lovecraft, The Fungi From Yuggoth

Another really obscure creature this time from HPL's poem The Fungi From Yuggoth. Like the obscure creatures from the Commonplace Book, guys like this are fun for me because I can really let my imagination go. Based on the description of something tremendously old and 'clumping' I wanted this creature to be hulking. I also wanted to experiment with a design inspired by a carnivorous plant but transposed onto a mammal. The long, thin upper jaw and wide bell-shaped lower jaw is a reference to that. 

In the old vs new, you can see, I fixed the anatomy, linework & rendering. Specifically, I beefed up it's arms, hunched the shoulders and make the hands bigger to give it more weight. The old version was way too much of a profile and I wanted to give it a more three dimensional look.

Tomorrow's my last monster for a bit and it's another obscure weirdo from HPL!