HARBORING MONSTERS

 

This next cover is something I'm VERY excited about. I was asked to draw 10 monsters inspired by the work of Philip Fracassi that will be accompanied by an essay by the author! This is another Lethe Press project and you can actually preorder it here!

So the first things first, I got a pile of Fracassi books in the mail. While it may sound daunting, I am a huge fan so it took no time at all to read them and find inspiration. Also, the copy of Shiloh is mine and I had read it a few years ago.

After that it was time for the cover. As opposed to the Green Thumb cover I didnt have a super solid idea for this one. I knew the main element I wanted: a "forest spirit" from the story Coffin front and center with huge swooping horns in a triangular panel. The rest came as I went back over the monsters I'd drawn. I realized thematically and aesthetically they didn't fit. BUT I also decided it would be cool to put some monsters on the cover that weren't included in the book. So I pulled from his novella Commodore; It's the story of a group of young boys that go on am excursion to a forbidden junk yard where they encounter a massive gnarled tree and a car that can do some sinister things. They wind up face to face with winged creatures and some vaguely described swimming things. 

I began to gather reference. Because of the element of time/space travel in Commodore I used some prehistoric creatures as a starting point. Namely the scaphognathus (from Charles Whymper's illustration pictured below) for the flying creatures and dunkleosteus for the fish monster on the left. For the other one I looked at pics of a cat skull and  salamander body.

I had also begun to work out how I wanted the text to look. I had an old W.W. Denslow illustrated edition of The Wizard Of Oz in mind (though the end result is pretty different). Side note: I've been to visit Denslow's grave at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla NY!

 

So you can see the really rough thumbnail with just the center panel worked out compared to the pencil drawing.

After that it was time to ink. You can see the cleaned scan on the left. I actually drew the wood bark texture on the tree and his branch "teeth" separately so they'd be easier to manipulate. After that I added all the flat color and the lines for each panel.

Next, I masked off all the various parts so that I could add atmosphere and/or color washes to push things back or make them stand out. Then the long but meditative process or rendering!

The last bits are adding those atmosphere/color wash layers, a background pattern and the hand drawn text!

Don't forget you can preorder Harboring Monsters here
at Lethe Press!

GREEN THUMB

I know this isn't a monster, but I thought it would be interesting to see my process for a larger piece. This is the cover for the anniversary edition of Tom Cardamone's novella Green Thumb that will be published by Lethe Press. I'll walk you through the process from sketches to finish, with some asides along the way. Since Instagram is slowly dying, I thought I'd move even more of my posting over to this blog. I hope you like this because there'll be more of it!

News....

 Hey everyone! I'm excited to announce my book with Lethe Press was a finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Awards! While it didn't win I'm still extremely excited and will brag for a short minute. OK, I'm done now. 

You can still get a copy if you haven't already!

MERCURIUS

MERCURIUS 

“The spiritus Mercuialis and his transformations represented as a monstrous dragon. It is a quaternary, in which the fourth is at the same time the unity of the three, the unity of being symbolized by the mystagogue Hermes. The three are: Luna, Sol and coniunctio Solis et Lunae in Taurus, the House Of Venus. Together They form ☿= Mercurius.” 

Carl Jung, The Collected Works Of C.G. Jung

MINOTAUR

MINOTAUR

“Minotaur, in Greek mythology, was a fabulous monster of Crete that had the body of a man and the head of a bull. It was the offspring of Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, and a snow-white bull sent to Minos by the god Poseidon for sacrifice. Minos, instead of sacrificing it, kept it alive; Poseidon as a punishment made Pasiphae fall in love with it. Her child by the bull was shut up in the Labyrinth created for Minos by Daedalus.” 

Encyclopedia Britannica 

“It was built to house the fearsome Minotaur, a creature born of the union of Parsiphaneë and a white bull, a monster half man and half bull itself. Ringed by a hedge or thorns, it lived in the very centre of the Labyrinth, existing only on human flesh. It was said that no man could survive the onslaught of its scythe-like horns.” 

“He gave Ariadne a ball of silken cord with which Theseus would be able to find his way through the Labyrinth. If she tied one end of the cord to the lintel of the maze doorway, the ball would unwind itself, threading its way through the twists and turns of the passages to the spot at the very centre where the Minotaur waited for its prey.” 

Michael Gibson, Gods, Men and Monsters

CAMAZOTZ

CAMAZOTZ
“In the Quiché Popol Vuh, the Underworld Camazotz or “death bat,” cuts off the head of the Hero Twin, hunahpu.”
Mary Miller & Karl Taube, The Gods and Symbols Of Ancient Mexico and the Maya

 “Camazotz; A vampire bat god of the Quiché Maya in Guatemala. They Maya considered him a terrible god who served death and ruled twilight. He lived in the bloody caverns and other dark places that people tried to avoid for fear of disturbing him.”
 Ann Bingham & Jeremy Roberts, South and Meso-American Mythology A to Z

“He is said to have a leaf-like nose, an anthropomorphized bat whose name evoked fear of darkness and the unknown.”
Sebastian Berg, Maya Mythology

QUINOTAUR

QUINOTAUR 

“The Quinotaur has the head, chest and forelegs of a bull and the body and tail of a fish or serpent.”

Nicolle R. Murray, Naturally Monstrous and Magical Creatures of Western Europe 

“A far older legend of the Merovingian bloodline exists. Meroveus, the progenitor, was said to be sired by the Quinotaur, Neptune’s half-bull, half-fish sea-god or demigod.” 

Nialla Ni Macha, The Witches’ Almanac

AMMUT

AMMUT 

“Creature in the netherworld, usually depicted with the head of a crocodile, the foreparts of a lion (or panther) and the rear of a hippopotamus, whose principal epithets were ‘devourer of the dead’ and ‘great of death’. She is portrayed in vignettes illustrating Chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead. The scenes show her waiting beside the scales in the Hall of the Two Truths, where the hearts of the dead were weighed against the feather of Maat. It was Ammut who consumed the hearts of those whose evil deeds made them unfit to proceed into the afterlife.” 

Ian Shaw & Paul Nicholson, The Dictionary Of Ancient Egypt

CHNOUBIS

CHNOUBIS

“This ringstone bears the name of the Egyptian Gnostic solar god Chnoubis, a lion-headed serpent.” 

The Penn Museum

“The lion-headed serpent was popular in magic and is often found pictured on amulets. The daimon is a syncretistic combination of the Egyptian creator god Khnum, the serpent Kneph and the star Knm.“ 

Hans Dieter Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri

“Kneph, a winged egg or globe with serpent or serpents.” 

James Stevens Curl, The Egyptian Revival

GLYCON

GLYCON
“In the middle of the 2nd century CE, on the shore of the Black Sea, any visitor could have had his future foretold by a divine snake with a human-like head, called Glycon. The serpent and his prophet Alexander were so respected, even the philosopher-emperor Marcus Aurelius asked them for help.”

“The serpent’s head looked out from Alexander’s beard and it bore a striking resemblance to a human face.

Viktor Susnyak, Glycon, The Fake Snake Oracle and Alexander, His Prophet

“When they went in, the thing, of course, seemed to them a miracle, that the formerly tiny snake within a few days had turned into so great a serpent, with a human face, moreover, and tame!”

Lucian Of Samosata, Alexander The False Prophet

“The next morning he leapt forth into the city’s marketplace frenziedly hailed the city as blessed for being on the point of receiving the manifestation of the god, ran to the temple side and scooped around in the mud until he dredged up the egg, breaking it in his hand to reveal the young snake, to the amazement of the bystanders, who raised a shout, welcomed the god, called the city blessed, and cried out prayers for riches and health.”

“The marble and the bronzes portray Glycon as a rampant snake with sami-humanoid face and human hair, compatibly with Lucian’s description of the god. They also tell us things Lucian does not, namely that Glycon wore his hair long in the Pythagorean fashion of his sponsor, that he boasted prominent humanoid ears with which to heed his petitioners, and a final tail that was either bifurcated, trifurcated or leonine.”

Daniel Ogden, Drakon: Dragon Myth and Serpent Cult In the Greek and Roman Worlds

PAZUZU

PAZUZU

“This amulet took the form of either a grotesque head of [Pazuzu] carved in the round or a bronze or stone plaque of the whole creature, with a bird-like chest, human arms and legs terminating in talons with one hand holding a thunderbolt aloft, four wings and a curled tail.”
H.W.F. Saggs, The Babylonians

“Pazuzu is represented in statuettes and engravings with bulging eyes in a canine face, a scaly body, snake-headed penis, the talons of a large bird, and enormous wings.”

Joshua J. Mark, World History Encyclopedia

“He stands on two legs and has human arms ending in claws, with two pairs of wings, a scorpion's tail, a snake-headed, erect penis, and a horned, bearded head with bulging eyes and snarling canine mouth.“

Sarah Graff, Pazuzu: Beyond Good and Evil

LEONTOCEPHALINE GOD

LEONTOCEPHALINE GOD

“Where the lion-headed figure, 'this cruel, ugly deity, clearly appears with his serpent, his four wings, as the master of the world’.”

Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin, The Western Response to Zoroaster

“The Mithraic lion-man was usually depicted entwined by a serpent with the serpent's head resting on his leonine visage, which often appeared menacing if not infernal. The lion-man was variously portrayed with keys and scepters.”

Yuri Stoyanov, The Other God: Dualist Religions From Antiquity to the Cathar Heresy

ABRAXAS

ABRAXAS

“"The Basilidian sect of Gnostics, of the second century, claimed Abraxas as their supreme god, and said that Jesus Christ was only a phantom sent to earth by him. They believed that his name contained great mysteries, as it was composed of the seven Greek letters which form the number 365, which is also the number of days in a year. Abraxas, they though, had under his command 365 gods, to whom they attributed 365 virtues, one for each day. The older Mythologists placed him among the number of Egyptian gods, and demonologists have described him as a demon, with the head of a king and with serpents forming his feet. He is represented on ancient amulets, with a whip in his hand. Many stones and gems cut in various symbolic forms such as the head of a foul, were worn by the Basilidians as amulets.”

Lewis Spence, An Encyclopedia Of the Occult

“In describing Abraxas, C. W. King says: "Bellermann considers the composite image, inscribed with the actual name Abraxas, to be a Gnostic Pantheos, representing the Supreme Being, with the Five Emanations marked out by appropriate symbols. From the human body, the usual form assigned to the Deity, spring the two supporters, Nous and Logos, expressed in the serpents, symbols of the inner senses, and the quickening understanding; on which account the Greeks had made the serpent the attribute of Pallas. His head--that of a cock--represents Phronesis, that bird being the emblem of foresight and of vigilance. His two arms hold the symbols of Sophia and Dynamis: the shield of Wisdom and the whip of Power."

Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings Of All Things

DEMON-LIKE SEA MONSTER

 

DEMON-LIKE SEA MONSTER
"In the same year (1427), a sea monster was caught and its image was distributed in the country. The upper part up to the navel was of human shape and below it was a fish. Except that the lower part was divided in two, lengthwise. It had, above the ears two growths similar to horns. It had two large breasts and a wide mouth. From the hands to under the armpits and further to the belly it had webbing suitable for swimming. So this monster was trapped: In a city by the sea there were several women walking on the shore, and to one of them - the same cruel beast came and wanted to drag to him. But the woman resisted splendidly and asked the other women for help. These ran up and seized and slew the monster with sticks and stones and pulled it ashore. it was so ghastly to behold that many were frightened by it. Its length and size were more than that of a man. It is thought to have come to the town to eat, for many children of the town who had gone swimming in the sea were lost in it and never returned. therefore they must have been eaten by the beast.

Aesop's Fables: With Aviani, Adelfonsi and Pogii, as well as Doctor Sebastian Brant

VLÉTIF

VLÉTIF

"The vlétif/Uletif is an imaginary animal strangely resembling a sea unicorn or narwhal (Monodon monoceros). This strange animal had a gigantic fish body, a toothed whale head and above the eyes a very long saw-like bone."

"Among others the utelif, which has like a saw on its forehead, three feet long or more, and four fingers wide, and has of two very sharp edges, some of which points are in my possession."

André Thevet, La Cosmographie Universelle

SIRENA

 

SIRENA

"The sirens are deadly animals. They have from the head to the navel the shape of a woman, powerful in size, cruel face with long hair and a fine head. But they appear with their feet/flippers, which they carry in their arms, because with the feet/flippers they point to their breasts, which they have big on their chests. When the shipmen see them, they are almost afraid. So they throw her a cringle (like a sort of hoop for ropes of the sail to pass through -Imi), with which she plays until the ship can sail away."

 Conrad of Megenberg, The Book Of Nature

SIREN-LIKE DOLPHIN II

SIREN-LIKE DOLPHIN II

"The dolphin has its eyes on the back and the mouth on the opposite (on the opposite side) therefore they probably did not see their prey and food because of the clumsiness of the mouth from the eyes. Therefore they turn their mouth towards the sky, back and eyes towards the earth, so that they can catch their prey. If a thunderstorm is about, they play on top of the water, so that one sees them. One also says that they do help those who are in need in the waters. And one says that they cry when they are caught."

Hortus Sanitatis

SIREN-LIKE DOLPHIN I

SIREN-LIKE DOLPHIN I

"The dolphin has its eyes on the back and the mouth on the opposite (on the opposite side) therefore they probably did not see their prey and food because of the clumsiness of the mouth from the eyes. Therefore they turn their mouth towards the sky, back and eyes towards the earth, so that they can catch their prey. If a thunderstorm is about, they play on top of the water, so that one sees them. One also says that they do help those who are in need in the waters. And one says that they cry when they are caught."

 Unknown Author (often attributed to Johann Wonnecke von Kaub), Hortus Sanitatis

The dolphin is very fond of its children, which is why it feeds them for a long time. Alone among all fishes it gives birth to a perfect animal and has breasts and suckles its young. And when a dolphin dies, the others gather together and carry the dead one into the depths of the sea and bury him so that he will not be eaten by fish. 

The small dolphins all stay together as they take each other by the hand and two large dolphins are their guardians. And if one of them dies, they carry him on their shoulders and armpits, protecting him so that he is not attacked by other fish, and when the storm of the sea throws the dead one ashore,  they hold each other affectionately, that is why it is said (as Pliny states) that a dolphin was caught by King Carie and a great multitude of Dolphins came to the harbor where he was caught and tied up. They sobbed and mourned as if desiring mercy, so the king let him go.
Aristotle, Historia Animalium

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CARRION CRAWLER

CARRION CRAWLER

“Carrion crawlers strongly resemble a cross between a giant green cutworm and a huge cephalopod. They are usually found only in subterranean areas. A carrion crawler moves quite rapidly on its multiple legs despite its bulk, and a wall or ceiling is as easily traveled as a floor, for each of the beast's feet are equipped with sharp claws which hold it fast. The head is equipped with 8 tentacles which flail at prey;”

Gary Gygax, Monster Manual

MONGRELFOLK

MONGRELFOLK

"They are a mixture of many different creatures, each mongrelman having possibly the blood of humans, orcs, gnolls, ogres, dwarves, hobgoblins, bugbears, elves, bullywugs and others flowing through his or her veins."

Gary Gygax, Monster Manual II

CATOBLEPAS

CATOBLEPAS
"This nightmare creature is loathsome beyond description and has no redeeming features. Its body resembles that of a huge, bloated buffalo and gives off an offensive odor. The catoblepas' neck is long and thin, and perched atop it is a big head uglier than that of a warthog. Its legs are thick and stumpy, much like a hippopotamus. The creature's tail is strong and snakey, however, and moves with amazing swiftness to strike enemies. The gaze of the catoblepas is equal to a death ray, extending 6" from the eyes (even into the astral and ethereal planes). Any creature which meets this gaze dies without any chance to save itself."
Gary Gygax, Monster Manual

KOBOLD

KOBOLD

"The hide of kabolds runs from very dark rusty brawn to a rusty black. They have no hair. Their eyes are reddish and their small horns are tan to white. They favor red or orange garb. Kobolds live for up to 135 years."

Gary Gygax, Monster Manual

SPIDER-HORSE

SPIDER-HORSE

“Spider-horses, as the name suggests, are magical crossbreeds of a riding horse and a giant spider. The body is primarily horse-like, although a spidery abdomen, complete with spinnerets, sticks out at the end. Four of the spider-horse’s legs are horse-like, down to the hooves, while four more spider-like legs grow out of the horse body. The spider legs are situated between the front and rear horse legs. The head is equine in nature except for the eight eyes which are compound.”

Johnathan M. Richards, Dragon Magazine #243

WOLF-IN-SHEEP'S-CLOTHING

WOLF-IN-SHEEP'S-CLOTHING

"This predator comes from the same planet that the abundant rabbitoids seen all over the level come from. It has developed a fleshy growth atop its body which exactly duplicates one of these harmless herbivores, and it wiggles and displays this bait to lure others of this kind - or creatures which prey upon them - to it. The wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing has likewise adapted its body form to resemble a tree stump, while its mobile and grasping tentacle roots appear to be nothing more than gnarled tree roots, and its eyestalks appear to be vines or plant growths. The rabbitoid lure will seem to look at approaching creatures, and then crouch and “freeze” in order to pass unnoticed. When prey comes to within 8'-10' of the creature, the root tentacles will strike to grab, crush, and draw prey to the maw."

Gary Gygax, Expedition To the Barrier Peaks

THOUGHT EATER

THOUGHT EATER

These monsters are basically unintelligent dwellers in the ether. Their senses, however, extend into the physical plane, and any psionic or psionic-related energy use in either area will attract their attention. The thought eater appears to be something like a sickly grey, skeletal-bodied, enormous headed platypus to those who are able to observe it. Its webbed paws allow it to swim through the ether. It can be attacked only by ethereal creatures. Its only desire is to feed on the mental energy of prey it is attracted to, and if it comes within 6" of any creature in the ethereal or physical planes it will be able to absorb any psionic or spell energy they attempt to use; at a range of 1" the thought eater is able to begin feeding on the actual thoughts of even non-psionic creatures. 
Gary Gygax & Brian Blume, Eldritch Wizardry

EYEWING

EYEWING
"Three hideous creatures soar through the clouds about 100 feet overhead. Their bodies are oval balls of matted black fur about 5 feet wide dominated by a single, bulging 4-foot-wide eyeball. The eyeball is black with a blood-red pupil that continually leaks bluish fluid. Leathery bat wings, each 5 feet long, extend from their bodies. Each wing ends in three razor-sharp talons. An 8-foot rat’s tail hangs limply below. These are eyewings, evil servitors of Artha, scouting the city for victims."
Rick Swan, Dragonlance: Dragon Magic

"Eyewings are loathsome inhabitants of the Abyss. They are obedient, loyal, and dumb -- perfect servitors for the dark gods and their more powerful minions.

An eyewing's body is a fat, egg-shaped ball covered with matted black fur. The 5-foot-wide body is supported by a pair of five-foot-long leathery bat wings. Each wing is tipped with a set of three razor-sharp talons. An 8-foot-long rat's tail dangles from the back of the body. The tail ends in a small, sharp spur. It has no feet and has never been known to land.

The body is dominated by the single, bulging, 4-foot-wide eyeball. The eyeball is black with a blood-red pupil. A vile blue fluid continuously leaks from the eye, soiling its fur. Great leathery eyelids squeeze this fluid out and away from the creature. The stench is unbelievable. It gives off an acidic smell that scorches the sensitive tissues in other creatures' noses and mouths."

Mike Breault & Kim Mohan editors, Monstrous Compendium Volume II

YOCHLOL

 

YOCHLOL

A yochlol must materialize to do physical damage. The form taken can be an amorphous column with 8 pseudopods, the form of a giant spider, or that of a beautiful human or elf. In humanoid form, a yochlol can use its psionic abilities as if it were a 6th-level fighter. In spider form, it conforms in all but armor class and psionics to the specifications of a giant spider. In its natural amorphous form, it can use psionics or attack with its 8 pseudopods, 1 blow from which does 5-8 points of damage, as the strength of a yochlol is effectively equal to 18/50.
Gary Gygax, Monster Manual II

GIANT VAMPIRE FROG

GIANT VAMPIRE FROG 

“The giant vampire frog is a particularly noxious reptile which grows to weights of up to thirty pounds. Its bile-green body is covered with mucous and two transluscent membranes of slimy tissue connect its fore and rear limbs, enabling it to glide from treetop perches much as does a flying squirrel. Its forelims are fingered with small claws which enable the vampire frog to climb and to hold prey, and it possesses two large front teeth - each up to three inches long, sharp as needles.” 

Alan Fomorin, Dragon Magazine #50

DHOLE/DOEL/BHOLE

DHOLE/DOEL/BHOLE

 "Below him the ground was festering with gigantic Dholes, and even as he looked, one reared up several hundred feet and leveled a bleached, viscous end at him." 

H. P. Lovecraft & E. Hoffmann Price, Through the Gates of the Silver Key 

"Now Carter knew from a certain source that he was in the vale of Pnath, where crawl and burrow the enormous bholes; but he did not know what to expect, because no one has ever seen a bhole, or even guessed what such a thing may be like. Bholes are known only by dim rumour from the rustling they make amongst mountains of bones and the slimy touch they have when they wriggle past one. They cannot be seen because they creep only in the dark." 

H. P. Lovecraft, Dream-Quest Of Unknown Kadath

VENUSIAN

 VENUSIAN
"I reached the main landing on Venus March 18, terrestrial time; VI, 9 of the planet’s calendar. Being put in the main group under Miller, I received my equipment—watch tuned to Venus’s slightly quicker rotation—and went through the usual mask drill. After two days I was pronounced fit for duty."

"I doubt if they even have a real language—all the talk about psychological communication through those tentacles down their chests strikes me as bunk. What misleads people is their upright posture; just an accidental physical resemblance to terrestrial man."

"When they drew nearer they seemed less truly reptilian—only the flat head and the green, slimy, frog-like skin carrying out the idea. They walked erect on their odd, thick stumps, and their suction-discs made curious noises in the mud."

H.P. Lovecraft & Kenneth J. Sterling, In the Walls Of Eryx

SPAWN OF CTHULHU

SPAWN OF CTHULHU 

"Another race - a land race of beings shaped like octopi and probably corresponding to fabulous prehuman spawn of Cthulhu - soon began filtering down from cosmic infinity and precipitated a -monstrous war which for a time drove the Old Ones wholly back to the sea - a colossal blow in view of the increasing land settlements." 

H.P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains Of Madness

VOONITH

VOONITH

"And all through the night a voonith howled distantly from the shore of some hidden pool, but Carter felt no fear of that amphibious terror, since he had been told with certainty that not one of them dares even approach the slope of Ngranek."

H.P. Lovecraft, Dream-Quest Of Unknown Kadath

CROCODILE-HEADED BEAST

CROCODILE-HEADED BEAST

“And God! The shapes of nightmare that float around in that perpetual daemon twilight! The blasphemies that lurk and leer and hold a Witches’ Sabbat with that woman as a high-priestess! The black shaggy entities that are not quite goats—the crocodile-headed beast with three legs and a dorsal row of tentacles—and the flat-nosed aegipans dancing in a pattern that Egypt’s priests knew and called accursed."

H.P. Lovecraft & Zealia Bishop, Medusa's Coil

BUBBLE CREATURE

BUBBLE CREATURE
"Two of the less irrelevantly moving things - a rather large congeries of iridescent, prolately spheroidal bubbles and a very much smaller polyhedron of unknown colours and rapidly shifting surface angles - seemed to take notice of him and follow him about or float ahead as he changed position among the titan prisms, labyrinths, cube-and-plane clusters and quasi-buildings"
H.P. Lovecraft, Dreams In the Witch-House

YADDITHIAN

YADDITHIAN

"Without definite intention he was asking the PRESENCE for access to a dim, fantastic world whose five multi-coloured suns, alien constellations, dizzy black crags, clawed, tapir-snouted denizens, bizarre metal towers, unexplained tunnels, and cryptical floating cylinders had intruded again and again upon his slumbers."

"He was, as many a night before, walking amidst throngs of clawed, snouted beings through the streets of a labyrinth of inexplicably fashioned metal under a blaze of diverse solar colour; and as he looked down he saw that his body was like those of the others—rugose, partly squamous, and curiously articulated in a fashion mainly insect-like yet not without a caricaturish resemblance to the human outline. The Silver Key was still in his grasp—though held by a noxious-looking claw."

H.P. Lovecraft & E. Hoffman Price, Through the Gates Of the Silver Key

FUNGUS BEAST

FUNGUS BEAST 
"I seemed to be looking down from an immense height upon a twilit grotto, knee-deep with filth, where a white-bearded daemon swineherd drove about with his staff a flock of fungous, flabby beasts whose appearance filled me with unutterable loathing." 

"No, no, I tell you, I am not that daemon swineherd in the twilit grotto! It was not Edward Norrys’ fat face on that flabby, fungous thing!"
H.P. Lovecraft, The Rats In the Walls

Y'M-BHI

Y'M-BHI
"These, Gll’-Hthaa-Ynn explained, were what men called the y’m-bhi—organisms which had died, but which had been mechanically reanimated for industrial purposes by means of atomic energy and thought-power."

"Those which most repelled Zamacona were those whose mutilations were greatest; for some were wholly headless, while others had suffered singular and seemingly capricious subtractions, distortions, transpositions, and graftings in various places. The Spaniard could not account for this condition, but Gll’-Hthaa-Ynn made it clear that these were slaves who had been used for the amusement of the people in some of the vast arenas."

H.P. Lovecraft & Zealia Bishop, The Mound

GYAA-YOTHN

GYAA-YOTHN

"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

SQUAT MUSCLED THING

SQUAT MUSCLED THING

"It was squat, not quite reaching Yaw's shoulder, but it bristled with muscles, like a perverse rendering of an Enraged Ingonyama. It snarled at Yaw, its thick lips dripping ichor and revealing blunt, crushing teeth." 
Evan Winter, The Rage Of Dragons

CLUB-HANDED MONSTER

CLUB-HANDED MONSTER

“The creature was hidden and indistinct, but Tau could see more than enough. It moved in a lurching run on two feet, its balance aided by club-like hands on arms so long they could touch the ground. It had a flat face, red eyes, and a slavering mouth, and its skin seemed diseased. The monster had Tau in its crimson gaze and roared.”
Evan Winter, The Rage Of Dragons