The two illustrations at the top of the page were for the wild west article in Worlds of Cthulhu #2.
The character sketches on the bottom are for a supporting character in the Sentient 39 version of Misspent Youths. There’s a sentient 39 version of every story I’ve ever thought of.
For the second issue of Worlds of Cthulhu I was asked to do some spot illustrations for The Good, the Bad and the Utterly Insane, an article on roleplaying Call of Cthulhu in the wild, wild west. Here are four of the (prephotoshopped) illustrations.
For The Cauldron I thought of five primary species of evolved lemurs. Unfortunately this sketch got done on one of those days when I lacked the drive to finish my sketches so all there is to show are five heads on vague bodies.
I know that’s a giant squirrel because the creature behind it is a future penguin, evolved to take the niche currently filled by elephant seals. Not sure what niche a giant squirrel would fill.
Characters and stories, once they’ve taken up room in my head, don’t seem to leave. They change. Characters move from story to story. Stories evolve and change.
This page presents a good example. When I first conceived of The Cauldron the main characters were a human woman and a male elf. As time went on I became less interested in playing with standard faerie creatures. The elves became something else, another species of primate, a species that evolved from older stock, older even than monkeys.
The lost continent of Lemuria got its name, I’m told, from someone’s theory that the lemurs scattered around the Pacific must have evolved in a central place – Lemuria, land of the lemurs. So I thought, what if the Lemurians hadn’t been an advanced human society? What if they hadn’t been human at all?
Across the top of the page: a variation on the Monster of Piedras Blancas, K.Z. O’Neil and someone unfinished.
Across the middle of the page: a variation on an exposed brain alien and Buffy Crawfield.
Across the bottom of the page: a little person, Cherice Unomuro, Zebragirl and an unfinished something.
One of those stories I’ll probably never get around to drawing concerns vampires. That’s okay. The world has plenty of vampire stories. Most of the characters I invent are entirely imaginary, or at least they aren’t based on anyone I personally know. The characters in my vampire story are all based on the first set of roommates I had at my first apartment. I included myself as one of the characters. Not on this page though.
The plot? A bunch of happy, partying roommates gets turned into vampires by a little hippie vampire who is feeling lonely and wants some happy vampires to party with. Wackiness (and bloody violence and senseless mayhem) ensues.
This illustration was done as a banner for the Halloween edition of the day job’s email newsletter. I’ll have to look around and see if I can find the colored version of this.
Deserve it? Of course not. That’s why it’s horrible.
