This is the pre-Photoshopped version of an illustration I did for The Black Seal #1 back in 2003. For some reason I decided to add the blacks digitally on this one. Perhaps I thought it would speed up the work? I doubt if I would do that today. I enjoy laying down brushloads of black ink. It’s relaxing.
Fungi From Yuggoth
This is another image from 2000 that I intended to use a portfolio piece. Ultimately I guess I did – the finished illustration is in my Epilogue.net gallery – I just didn’t get it completed until 2003.
This is a Mi-Go, a so-called Fungi from Yuggoth, one of H.P. Lovecraft’s alien species. They’re featured prominently in The Whisperer in the Darkness. I don’t think many of authors have used them. They’ve gained most of their prominence and personality by their use in the Call of Cthulhu role playing games.
Unfinished Deep Ones
Another unfinished intended-for-portfolio illustration from 2000, this one of a pair of Deep Ones. H.P. Lovecraft introduced the Deep Ones in Shadow Over Innsmouth. The Deep Ones are a species of fish/frog/simians who are, for some reason, inclined to mate with human beings. The results of those matings look human at first but develop the “Innsmouth Look” as they age. Eventually they transform into a fully amphibious creature and return to the sea.
Yithian
I wrote an earlier post about the challenges of illustrating Lovecraft’s Great Race of Yith. They’re the featured creatures in Shadow out of Time. They are a race of beings whose minds are immortal. Those minds inhabit the bodies of different species at different times on different worlds. In Shadow those minds are inhabiting the bodies of some sort of giant land dwelling mollusk during the age of the dinosaurs.
This is one of my more successful attempts at drawing the Great Race. It was done in 2000 as part of the portfolio series but, unlike the others I’ve posted I eventually finished it and it can be found in my Epilogue.net gallery.
Unfinished Ghoul
Another of the unfinished illustrations from the year 2000 intended as a portfolio piece. This handsome fellow is a ghoul. And his lunch. Or maybe his leftovers.
Unfinished Gug
This is another of the unfinished portfolio pieces I was working on in 2000. This is a gug from Lovecraft’s Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath.
Unfinished Elder Thing
This unfinished illustration is from the year 2000. It was part of a series of illustrations I was trying to put together for a portfolio. It’s a depiction of one of HP Lovecraft’s Elder Things. I intended to use the portfolio to try to get work doing illustrations for role playing games. Unfortunately we ended up needing to move before I completed very many illustrations. By the time the dust had settled from the move my attention had shifted to other projects.
Step by Step Mythos Seven 7
Finally I add highlights digitally with the brush tool. With some illustrations that can be a lot of work. This one didn’t involve much, mainly just catch lights in the eyes and the key around the cat’s neck.
Frank Belknap Long is the gentleman on the far right. After admitting that I hadn’t read much Smith yesterday I knew I’d have to do the same about Long so I reserved a collection of his stories from the library at the same time I reserved the Smith book. Long is creator of the Hounds of Tindalos and Chaugnar Faugn.
Step by Step Mythos Seven 6
For this illustration I did a “cosmic” background separately – all digitally – and then pasted it as another layer behind the Seven. It was a lot of fun doing the background. I wanted something that emphasized the cosmic in cosmic horror. I initially thought of doing some tentacled horror but decided that that might overpower the humans in front of it. So I chose a Jack Kirbyesque set of planets. Well, Kirbyesque in my mind anyway.
The second figure from the right is Clark Ashton Smith. He’s another author whose work I’ve only read a little of. I read The Charnel God while I was doing illustrations for Ghouls but I don’t remember the specifics of any other Smith stories I might have read. So in between writing this sentence and the previous one I went over to the Seattle Library website and requested Return of the Sorcerer, the only Smith book that they have listed.
Step by Step Mythos Seven 5
Next I create a fourth layer, also set to multiply, in which I add solid grays of varying percentages. Mostly I use grays to give depth and interest to the image. I rarely use digital grays for shadows. If all goes well I’ve already put in all my shadows before the image went into the computer.
Standing next to Lovecraft, third from the right is August Derleth. Poor August is figure of both praise and scorn among Lovecraft fans. He’s praised because he’s the guy who collected Lovecraft’s stories and published them as books. He could be credited with rescuing Lovecraft’s work from the obscurity. He’s scorned for, among other things, writing posthumous “collaborations” with Lovecraft – collaborations that often were no more than a few sentences or an idea from Lovecraft’s notes that Derleth spun off into a full fledged story. This might have been forgivable if Derleth’s stories were really good and expanded on Lovecraft’s ideas but that’s not considered to be the case. Derleth took Lovecraft’s organically created world of alien entities and dimensions and codified it into a Mythos where a pantheon of evil gods struggled with benevolent ones.
I’ve read a few of Derleth’s stories. They were entertaining in a pulp action way. I don’t begrudge him his version of the Mythos. I’m just less interested in it than other, more freeform and bizarre ones.
