"The Genie that haunts the moonbeams spake to the Demon of the Valley, saying, 'I am old, and forget much. Tell me the deeds and aspect and name of them who built these things of Stone.' And the Demon replied, 'I am Memory, and am wise in lore of the past, but I too am old. These beings were like the waters of the river Than, not to be understood. Their deeds I recall not, for they were but of the moment. Their aspect I recall dimly, it was like to that of the little apes in the trees. Their name I recall clearly, for it rhymed with that of the river. These beings of yesterday were called Man.'"
H.P. Lovecraft, Memory
H.P. Lovecraft, Memory
"They mostly take the shape of a gigantic human but may be invisible or take other shapes, such as that of a vast and grotesque beast."
"Their deception may be detected because they will have vertical eyes and the feet of a goat or a camel."
Carol Rose, Giants Monsters and Dragons
"Surely, I shall fill Hell with jinns and men all together."
I really like my original design for the djinn but wanted to tighten up the linework and really wanted to redo the color. The old one is kinda drab in comparison. The I got rid of a few horns to streamline it a bit and made the camel feet more accurate.
I was inspired by an illustration of a djinn in Carol Rose's Giants Monsters and Dragons. Unfortunately, it's simply credited to the Rose Photo Archive. It took a little research but it's an illustration by J. D. Batten for Arabian Nights. Batten was known for illustrating fairy tales of all sorts in both oil and ink. I loved the horns and wings so carried them over into my drawing.
Tomorrow's creature will be a complete overhaul of an often misunderstood Lovecraftian mythological reference.
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