Sketches 14

For the last day of sketches I selected three Gods In Human Form which have been some of my favorite things to draw as of late. I really enjoy doing the research into various world myths and imagine I'm reading some of the same info that HPL came across when he was writing. I don't know if you guys find these as entertaining as I do, but I hope so, because Lovecraft wrote about a TON more......

 

There's not much difference from start to finish on Quetzalcoatl  here, except for the addition of the two headed snake. I really like how imaginative and violent Mayan/Aztec mythology is and how utterly alien it is to the Western mindset.

 

 Huitzilopotchli varies a bit from one to the next. The sketch is basically just a really rough idea of what I wanted. The pose is really different and the heart switched hands. Plus, I had to interpret what I thought Mayan outfits would look like after researching their glyphs. I hope it's not too inaccurate.

Finally we have a 'Umr at-Tawil. I changed a few things, like the layers of robe and the swirly, unnecessary ribbon encircling him but other than that, they look pretty similar.

Hope you guys enjoyed the sketch posts..I'll make one more first attempt/redraw post and then in March it's three weeks of new monsters and zines!

Sketches 13

This batch of sketches are some Great Old Ones and are maybe the funniest/worst sketches I've posted. I'm really happy with the monsters themselves though.

 

As you can see this K'thun sketch is dummmmmb. The eye being where it i sand the proportions of the mouths and the lack of tentacles make it look really goofy for some reason. I do like the final version though. I got he idea for this one while staring at the tree outside Grindcore House last summer, but hopefully it doesn't look too tree-ish to be creepy. 

This Cthugha sketch is super rough but the basic concept is there.  Fire and water are two things I have a lot of trouble portraying in my style. It doesn't come up too often so it's kind of hard to perfect. However, I think I finally go it with this thing and hopefully you guys like it too!

Sarall is one of the more obscure HPL deities (if you can even actually call him that. I did but I like to stretch the canon a bit). The sketch differs quite a bit from the final version aside from the basic pose. The arms, stegasaur-type tail and razor-clam shell are all missing from the sketch. It's more of a straight forward worm on the left and then some sort of (hopefully) 

terrifying grub monster on the right.

Tomorrow's the last of the sketch posts and it's full of Gods In Human Form. Don't forget, new guys coming in March!

Sketches 12

More sketches as we countdown to new posts in March. Her are two more small dudes that got redrawn. I may also do a post of first attempts and redraws later in the week.

 

This new Wamp is way better and weirder than the original version. The sketch has a few differences from the final version. Mouth in the finish is way creepier and weirder.  I also thought too many creatures I've drawn have had claw hands, so I wanted to try a more brutal appendage, haha...Skewer hands seem pretty gnarly to me.

 

I've wrestled with the Mi-Go since I first started this project. I'm finally happy with this third version. It's weird, distinctly my design but retains all of HPL's elements. 

Another batch of sketches will be coming up tomorrow as we countdown to March.

Sketches 11

I know it's been an unusually long time since I posted, but it hasn't been for lack of trying. I've been swamped (in a good way) with freelance work, I've been traveling (as mentioned in the previous post) and I've been working on zines. But I've also been working on monster drawings. 

So, my tentative schedule, is to post a bunch of sketches from now until the beginning of March, then post 3 weeks worth of monsters, then post the reprint of Volume III and then finally post the first print of Volume IV! It's gonna be a busy month. 

This first sketch is of one of my favorite Lovecraftian creatures, the Yakubian. This is my second go at this guy and the sketch is about the size of a dime which is why it looks so weird and small, but I really like this version better than the first.

This Invisible Monster sketch isn't so invisible but the basic anatomy is the same from start to finish. And by the same I mean weird.

So, stay tuned tomorrow for some more before and afters!

News...

Hey folks! So, it's been a while since I posted and it will probably still be a while. I was on vacation in Italy, Czech Republic and Slovakia the last week of December and first week of January. I've had to catch up on freelance work as well as just get acclimated to not lurking around old churches looking for bones. 

Anyway, as you can see in the pic above, I've started some redraws and new drawings that will hopefully post within the next few weeks.

In the meantime, if you wanna check out pics of creepy stuff Jeanne and I did while on vacation, you can check out my photo tumblr called Corpse Altar.

INSECT-PHILOSOPHER

INSECT-PHILOSOPHER
"You and I have drifted to the worlds that reel about the red Arcturus, and dwelt in the bodies of the insect-philosophers that crawl proudly over the fourth moon of Jupiter."
H.P. Lovecraft, Beyond the Wall Of Sleep

DARK YOUNG OF SHUB-NIGGURATH

DARK YOUNG OF SHUB-NIGGURATH

"'Ever Their praises, and abundance to the Black Goat of the Woods. Iä! Shub-Niggurath! Iä! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!'"

H.P. Lovecraft, The Whisperer In Darkness

"E hu shub nigger ath n gaa ryula neb shoggoth."

"That's as close as I can come. The mouths was like leaves and the whole thing was like a tree in the wind, a black tree with lots of branches trailing to the ground, and a whole lot of roots ending in hoofs. And that green slime dribbling out of the mouths and down the legs was like sap!"

"It came crawling up the hillside to the alter and the sacrefice, and it was the black thing of my dreams-that black ropy, slimy, jelly tree-thing out of the woods. It crawled up and it flowed up on its hoofs and mouths and snaky arms. And the men bowed and stood back and then it got to the alter where they was something squirmin on top, 

squirming and screaming."

Robert Bloch, Notebook Found In a Deserted House

SATAN

 

 SATAN

"Here cosmic sin had entered, and festered by unhallowed rites had commenced the grinning march of death that was to rot us all to fungous abnormalities too hideous for the grave’s holding. Satan here held his Babylonish court, and in the blood of stainless childhood the leprous limbs of phosphorescent Lilith were laved. Incubi and succubae howled praise to Hecate, and headless moon-calves bleated to the Magna Mater."

H.P. Lovecraft, The Horror At Red Hook

"Christian art and literature, the devil is sometimes represented with three faces or three heads in antithesis to the trinity, as in Dante's description. It may also have a head on its stomach or rump or eyes for kneecaps."

Marjorie O'Rourke Boyle, Loyola's Acts: The Rhetoric Of Self

"Two mighty wings, enormous as became
A bird so vast.  Sails never such I saw
Outstretch'd on the wide sea.  No plumes had they,
But were in texture like a bat, and these
He flapp'd i' th' air, that from him issued still
Three winds, wherewith Cocytus to its depth
Was frozen."

Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy; The Vision Of Hell, Canto XXXIV

"The Devil's penis was hard, made of bone or horn (or even iron) as well as flesh; his semen was ice-cold. His penis was bifurcate, able to penetrate two orifices at once."
Erica Jong, Witches


"When these members of the devil have met together, they generally light a foul and horrid fire. The devil is president of the assembly and sits on a throne, in some terrible shape, as of a goat or a dog; and they approach him to adore him, but not always
 in the same manner. "
Fracesco Maria Guazzo, Compendium Malificarum

"At the Sabbat the demon Leonard appeared as  large goat with three horns instead of two. The Devil himself at a Sabbat was supposed to appear in the same shape."

"He is not only depicted as having cloven hooves and a tail and horns, though this is usual."           Leonard R. N. Ashley, The Complete Book Of Devils and Demons 

"To give Satan a visual representation, the early Christians borrowed heavily from earlier mythologies, and the generally accepted appearance of Satan is an amalgamation of such things as the horns and shaggy hindquarters of  the Greek god Pan." 
Richard Craze, Hell 

"Often the Devil appears monstrous and deformed, his outward shape betraying his inner defect. He has an extra face on belly, knees, or buttocks."

"Other characteristics are hooves or paws, claws, hairiness, and goat legs."
Jeffrey Burton Russell, Lucifer: The Devil In the Middle Ages


 

MI-GO

MI-GO
"They were pinkish things about five feet long; with crustaceous bodies bearing vast pairs of dorsal fins or membranous wings and several sets of articulated limbs, and with a sort of convoluted ellipsoid, covered with multitudes of very short antennae, where a head would ordinarily be."
H.P. Lovecraft, The Whisperer In Darkness

RHAN-TEGOTH

RHAN-TEGOTH

'“Wza-y’ei! Wza-y’ei!” howled the madman. “Y’kaa haa bho—ii, Rhan-Tegoth—Cthulhu fhtagn—Ei! Ei! Ei! Ei!—Rhan-Tegoth, Rhan-Tegoth, Rhan-Tegoth!”'

"There was an almost globular torso, with six long, sinuous limbs terminating in crab-like claws. From the upper end a subsidiary globe bulged forward bubble-like; its triangle of three staring, fishy eyes, its foot-long and evidently flexible proboscis, and a distended lateral system analogous to gills, suggesting that it was a head. Most of the body was covered with what at first appeared to be fur, but which on closer examination proved to be a dense growth of dark, slender tentacles or sucking filaments, each tipped with a mouth suggesting the head of an asp. On the head and below the proboscis the tentacles tended to be longer and thicker, and marked with spiral stripes—suggesting the traditional serpent-locks of Medusa. To say that such a thing could have an expression seems paradoxical; yet Jones felt that that triangle of bulging fish-eyes and that obliquely poised proboscis all bespoke a blend of hate, greed, and sheer cruelty incomprehensible to mankind because mixed with other emotions not of the world or this solar system."

"'Rhan-Tegoth, infinite and invincible, I am your slave and high-priest. You are hungry, and I provide. I read the sign and have led you forth. I shall feed you with blood, and you shall feed me with power. Iä! Shub-Niggurath! The Goat with a Thousand Young!”'
H.P. Lovecraft & Hazel Heald, The Horror In the Museum