HUMANOID HIPPOPATOMUS

HUMANOID HIPPOPATOMUS
"I would not look at the marching things. That I desperately resolved as I heard their creaking joints and nitrous wheezing above the dead music and the dead tramping. It was merciful that they did not speak . . . but God! their crazy torches began to cast shadows on the surface of those stupendous columns. Heaven take it away! Hippopotami should not have human hands and carry torches . . . men should not have the heads of crocodiles. . . ."
H.P. Lovecraft & Harry Houdini, Under the Pyramids

CAT FROM SATURN

CAT FROM SATURN
"It was one of the army’s outposts, stationed on the highest of the mountains to watch the one foe which earth’s cats fear; the very large and peculiar cats from Saturn, who for some reason have not been oblivious of the charm of our moon’s dark side."
H.P. Lovecraft, Dream-Quest Of Unknown Kadath

WILBUR WHATELEY

So, for the last few weeks I've been behind on posting new work. This is the reason. An acquaintance of mine, Sam Heimer, is organizing a group show based on the works of H. P. Lovecraft here in Philadelphia and asked me to be a part of it. He even plans on doing a graphic novel formatted book of all the illustrations with sketches and bios from all the artists. I chose to do a portrait of Wilbur Whateley as an infant...and here it is. I usually don't post my other art on here, but I thought the subject matter made it pertinent.

WILBUR WHATELEY

"Above the waist it was semi-anthropomorphic; though its chest, where the dog’s rending paws still rested watchfully, had the leathery, reticulated hide of a crocodile or alligator. The back was piebald with yellow and black, and dimly suggested the squamous covering of certain snakes. Below the waist, though, it was the worst; for here all human resemblance left off and sheer phantasy began. The skin was thickly covered with coarse black fur, and from the abdomen a score of long greenish-grey tentacles with red sucking mouths protruded limply. Their arrangement was odd, and seemed to follow the symmetries of some cosmic geometry unknown to earth or the solar system. On each of the hips, deep set in a kind of pinkish, ciliated orbit, was what seemed to be a rudimentary eye; whilst in lieu of a tail there depended a kind of trunk or feeler with purple annular markings, and with many evidences of being an undeveloped mouth or throat. The limbs, save for their black fur, roughly resembled the hind legs of prehistoric earth’s giant saurians; and terminated in ridgy-veined pads that were neither hooves nor claws."

H.P. Lovecraft, The Dunwich Horror

Sketches 2

Here's a very rough sketch for the my "lazy" Cthulhu. I basically used this to get the position and basic anatomy of the creature down before I start the final produce. Much of the detail comes after I've already begun the final piece.

And here's a really funny sketch of Chaugnar Faugn. He looks very surprised in the sketch and much more refined in the final piece. And by refined, I mean like he could be holding a martini glass.

Ok, I'll see if I can dig up some more of these because I may not be able to finish the 2 Great Old Ones I'm working on for next week. The piece for the Dead and Dreaming show is taking way longer than I thought but looks really cool.

Sketches 1

While I'm working on new stuff, I thought I'd post some sketches next to their finished counterpart so you could see how I work.

The first one is my Noth Yidik sketch. It's super rough and way more of a thumbnail than anything. I wanted to get the two headed "worm" idea down on paper so I just scribbled this really fast.

The Nyarlathotep sketch is way more detailed. Basically, the only thing that changed was the position of the right arm and the addition of the acid dripping from under its eyeball.

I'll see if I have any more of these to post, but I usually just go for it and don't even sketch. That's probably why I redo so many, haha...

INTERDIMENSIONAL OCTOPOD

INTERDIMENSIONAL OCTOPOD
"All the objects—organic and inorganic alike—were totally beyond description or even comprehension. Gilman sometimes compared the inorganic masses to prisms, labyrinths, clusters of cubes and planes, and Cyclopean buildings; and the organic things struck him variously as groups of bubbles, octopi, centipedes, living Hindoo idols, and intricate Arabesques roused into a kind of ophidian animation."
H.P. Lovecraft, Dreams In the Witch-House

INCUBUS

INCUBUS

"In an instant every moving entity was electrified; and forming at once into a ceremonial procession, the nightmare horde slithered away in quest of the sound—goat, satyr, and aegipan, incubus, succuba, and lemur, twisted toad and shapeless elemental, dog-faced howler and silent strutter in darkness—all led by the abominable naked phosphorescent thing that had squatted on the carved golden throne, and that now strode insolently bearing in its arms the glassy-eyed corpse of the corpulent old man."
H.P. Lovecraft, The Horror At Red Hook

"According to many Church Fathers, an incubus is an angel who fell because of lust for wemen. Essentially the incubus is a lewd demon or goblin which seeks sexual intercourse with women. The corresponding devil who appears to men is the succubus."
Rossel Hope Robbins, The Encyclopedia Of Witchcraft & Demonology

BUOPOTH

BUOPOTH
"Sometimes he walked close to the bank of Oukranos and whistled to the sprightly and iridescent fish of that crystal stream, and at other times he paused amidst the whispering rushes and gazed at the great dark wood on the farther side, whose trees came down clear to the water’s edge. In former dreams he had seen quaint lumbering buopoths come shyly out of that wood to drink, but now he could not glimpse any."
H.P. Lovecraft, Dream-Quest Of Unknown Kadath

DISTURBINGLY STRANGE INFANT

DISTURBINGLY STRANGE INFANT

"The walls were lined with small cells, in seventeen of which—hideous to relate—solitary prisoners in a state of complete idiocy were found chained, including four mothers with infants of disturbingly strange appearance. These infants died soon after exposure to the light; a circumstance which the doctors thought rather merciful."
H.P. Lovecraft, The Horror At Red Hook

DISTORTED FOX

DISTORTED FOX

"They were the usual winter prints of red squirrels, white rabbits, and foxes, but the brooding farmer professed to see something not quite right about their nature and arrangement. He was never specific, but appeared to think that they were not as characteristic of the anatomy and habits of squirrels and rabbits and foxes as they ought to be."
H.P. Lovecraft, The Colour Out Of Space