Saturday, April 1, 2017

THAT THING THAT ATE CROW

THAT THING THAT ATE CROW
Tom: Now look what you made me do. 

Mike: I didn't make you...Cambot, gimme Rocket Number Nine 

Tom: An innocent creature! 

Crow: Oh I'll get it you big babies. 

Tom: One of god's children Mike, and if it's dead I'll never forgive myself you letting you make me kill it. 

Mike: I know, I know... 

Crow: Hey, hey it's alive, it's alive! 

Mike: Hey look at him, he likes you. 

Crow: Isn't that darling...get away now. 

Tom: Can we keep 'im, can we keep him Mike, huh?! 

Mike: Well...I dunno I think we better release him back into the wild. 


Wednesday, January 25, 2017

News...

Sorry for the silence this last month, but I've been super busy with commission work. I just finished the cover for Scott Nicolay's translation of J.-H. Rosny aîné's The Xipéhuz! 

https://lastchanceillustration.wordpress.com/book-covers/the-xipehuz/


I also just finished an overhaul of my illustration website. You can find more info on my cover for The Xipéhuz, as well as years worth of archives, at the new Last Chance Illustration site

I'm also excited to say that I only have a single H.P. Lovecraft creature remaining to complete my Illustro Obscurum project....and it's a biggie! Expect it soon, along with a few redrawings of older dudes. As to the future of this blog, don't worry. I'll continue to illustrate monsters and gods from other weird fiction authors once Lovecraft is finished. 

 

Saturday, December 31, 2016

THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS (NYARLATHOTEP)

THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS (NYARLATHOTEP)
"To Nyarlathotep, Mighty Messenger, must all things be told. And He shall put on the semblance of men, the waxen mask and the robe that hides, and come down from the world of Seven Suns to mock. . . ."

"With Akeley’s permission I lighted a small oil lamp, turned it low, and set it on a distant bookcase beside the ghostly bust of Milton; but afterward I was sorry I had done so, for it made my host’s strained, immobile face and listless hands look damnably abnormal and corpse-like. He seemed half-incapable of motion, though I saw him nod stiffly once in a while."

"For the things in the chair, perfect to the last, subtle detail of microscopic resemblance—or identity—were the face and hands of Henry Wentworth Akeley."
H.P. Lovecraft, The Whisperer In Darkeness

 

Friday, December 30, 2016

TONATIUH

TONATIUH
Mictlanteuctli, Great Lord, a sign! A sign from within thy black cave! Iä! Tonatiuh-Metztli! Cthulhutl! Command, and I serve!”
H.P. Lovecraft & Adolphe DeCastro, The Electric Executioner

"The Aztecs viewed Tonatiuh as a god constantly threatened by the awesome tasks of his daily birth at sunrise, by his death each sunset, and by the immense effort of making his journey across the sky each day. According to Aztec traditions, the gods themselves were believed to practice voluntary sacrifice, first to create Tonatiuh and then to feed him and encourage him on his path through the sky. The worship of Tonatiuh, whose sustenance required human blood and hearts, involved militaristic cults and the practice of frequent human sacrifice to ensure perpetuation of the world."

"Tonatiuh is generally represented by a colourful disk. He is best known as he is depicted in the centre of the Aztec calendar, with his eagle’s claw hands clutching human hearts."
Encyclopedia Britannica




Wednesday, December 14, 2016

News...

Hey everybody! So Scott Nicolay's essay for the Xipéhuz edition of Stories From the Borderland is now live! AND we've announced that we're partnering with Dim Shores to a print run of Scott's brand new translation of the story including my illustrations as well as a brand new wraparound cover and interior illustrations!

I've also got the tentative 2017 lineup for Seventh Church Ministries! Artists tend to have busy and slow commission periods so many of these zines may not come to fruition and some may come ahead of others. As of right now we're looking at: 

Illustro Obscurum secret benefit zine (bonus prints by Caitlin McCormack, Brad Omen & Kati Driscoll)
Paradise Lost by Dave Felton (bonus print by Alex Eckman-Lawn)
The Yellow Wallpaper by Jenn Woodall
Panchatantra by Anoop Bhat
Unnamed zine by Ana Armengod
Unnamed zine by Ketch Wehr inspired by James Tiptree Jr.
Unnamed zine by Justin Gray illustrations of Doc Savage villains
Illustro Obscurum Volume IX



Friday, November 25, 2016

POLYHYMNIA

POLYHYMNIA
"And Polyhymnia lays aside her psalms: 
The fair Thalia smiles with brighter grace,
And gay Terpsichore suspends her pace."
H.P. Lovecraft, R. Kleiner, Laureatus, In Heliconem

"POLYHYMNIA, a daughter of Zeus, and one of the nine Muses. She presided over lyric poetry, and was believed to have invented the lyre. In works of art she was usually represented in a pensive attitude."
Aaron J. Atsma, The Theoi Project: Greek Mythology


Friday, November 18, 2016

URANUS


URANUS
"In Tartarus the Titans writhe, and beneath the fiery Aetna groan the children of Uranus and Gaea."
H.P. Lovecraft & Anna Helen Crofts, Poetry And the Gods

"And Ouranos came, bringing on night and longing forlove, and he lay about Gaia spreading himself full upon her. Then the son from his ambush stretched forth his left hand and in his right took the great long sickle with jagged teeth, and swiftly lopped off his own father's members and cast them away to fall behind him."
Hesiod, Theogony

"May the great wide bronze sky (ouranos) fall upon me from above, the fear of earth-born men."
Theognis, Fragment 1. 869

"OURANOS (Uranus) was the primordial god (protogenos) of the sky. The Greeks imagined the sky as a solid dome of brass, decorated with stars, whose edges descended to rest upon the outermost limits of the flat earth. Ouranos was the literal sky, just as his consort Gaia (Gaea) was the earth."

"Ouranos does not appear in early Greek art but Egyptian depictions of their sky-goddess Nut demonstrate how he was imagined--as a gigantic, star-spangled man with long arms and legs, resting on all fours, with his finger-tips in the far east, his toes in the far west, and his arching body raised to form the dome of the sky."
Aaron J. Atsma, The Theoi Project: Greek Mythology 


Thursday, November 17, 2016

METZTLI


METZTLI
"The searchers had found the place only because of the chanting and the final cry. It had been close to five that morning, and after an all-night encampment the party had begun to pack up for its empty-handed return to the mines. Then somebody had heard faint rhythms in the distance, and knew that one of the noxious old native rituals was being howled from some lonely spot up the slope of the corpse-shaped mountain. They heard the same old names—Mictlanteuctli, Tonatiuh-Metzli, Cthulhutl, Ya-R’lyeh, and all the rest—but the queer thing was that some English words were mixed with them."
H.P. Lovecraft, The Electric Executioner

"The Aztec goddess named 'golden bells' was among Coatlicue's children, who tried to kill their mother rather than let her bear rivals to them. Coyolxauhqui tried to warn her mother, so her siblings decapitated her and threw her head into the night sky.  A grieving Coatlicue place Coyolxauhqui's shining head in the night sky. Coyolxauhuqui may have descended from the older moon goddess Metztli, who had two phases: One that promoted growth, another that discouraged it."
Patricia Monaghan, Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines

"From that day forward, Metztli, the moon, was forever dimmer than the sun, his face permanently marked with the imprint of the rabbit, visible in pattern of light and dark patches on the full moon. Metztli was sometimes portrayed as a goddess rather than a god, and though she controlled fertility, she also represented night, dampness, and cold."
Tamra Andrews, Dictionary Of Nature Myths: Legends of the Earth, Sea and Sky

"The dying Coatlicue gave birth to Huitzilopochtli, who, armed with his xiuhcoatl weapon, dismembered Coyolxauhqui and routed the Centzon Huitznahua at the hill of Coatepec."
Mary Miller & Karl Taube, The Gods and Symbols Of Ancient Mexico And The Maya




Wednesday, November 16, 2016

GEIRAVÖR

GEIRAVÖR
"The voice of Thor resounds again on high,
While arm'd Valyries ride from out the sky;
The Gods of Asgard all their powers release
To rouse the dullard from his dream of peace."
H.P. Lovecraft, The Teuton's Battle-Song

"Wise thought her the valkyrie; were welcome never
men to the bright-eyed one, her who the birds' speech knew well.
Greeted the light-lashed maiden,the lily-throated woman,
The hymir's-skull-cleaver as on cliff he was perching."
Þorbjörn Hornklofi, Hrafnsmál

"Gol and Geiravör (Spear Bearer),
Randgrid and Radgrid,
And Reginleif;
These bear ale to the einherjes.

These are called valkyries. Odin sends them to all battles, where they choose those who are to be slain, and rule over the victory. Gud and Rosta, and the youngest norn, Skuld, always ride to sway the battle and choose the slain. Jord, the mother of Thor, and Rind, Vale’s mother, are numbered among the goddesses."
Snorri Sturluson, The Prose Edda

"They favor the most heroic fighter: those most highly qualified to join the heroes already in Valhalla. Each Valkyry identifies such a man and urges him into the thickest of the fray, sharpening his bloodlust with her savage cries and bidding him to ignore the wounds which sap his strength. At last he falls to the weapons of his opponents, and his attendant Valkyry waits by the bleeding corpse."
Michael Page & Robert Ingpen, Encyclopedia Of Things That Never Were


Tuesday, November 15, 2016

ERATO

ERATO
"Fleet Pegasus th' enchanting music hears,
And beats his pinions, and pricks up his hears;
Whilst the skill'd Erato, with sacred lyre,
Joins in the strain, and feels the noble fire."
H.P. Lovecraft, R. Kleiner Laureatus In Heliconem

"ERATO was one of the nine Mousai, the goddesses of music, song and dance. In the Classical era, when the Mousai were assigned specific artistic and literary spheres, Erato was named Muse of erotic poetry and mime, and represented with a lyre. Her name means 'lovely' or beloved' from the Greek word eratos."
Aaron J. Atsma, The Theoi Project: Greek Mythology