Psyche Delectus: Happy Birthday H. P. Lovecraft

His tales haunt us,

recounting dread

within the nested chambers 

of time and dreams.

They inculcate us with knowledge,

vast and terrible,

of the primal, 

the outer dark.

Recommended Listening:

Cryo Chamber

Azathoth 1

from Azathoth - A Cryo Chamber Collaboration

{Digital Images manipulated in Adobe Photoshop}

Psyche Delectus: In the Shadow of

It was there all along.

Recommended Listening:

Lamia Vox

Evil Comes from the North

from Sigillum Diaboli

{8x5.33, Digital Images manipulated in Adobe Photoshop}

From The Archives: Seaside

"Sudd ott emm gos ett tos shuggwa 'net tannish k'tawl lin sud og shet en rugma!"

Like the passing of a long train at night, out of the great depths, it rose and rose and rose.  The rain and ocean spray glittered about it like falling coins.  The thing itself was dark grey and black, revealed only by the shining highlights upon its gargantuan form.  It made a noise like thick wood creaking under strain.  The protuberances at the bottom of its face parted and it bellowed like a claxon.  Its voice shook the shoreline.  

The robed figure smiled in the torrent of rain.  The ritual had taken a complete toll upon him.  He quivered with exertion and excitement.  He was a mad wanton thing.  He raised his arms and brayed into the roaring crash of the tide.
 

"SUDD OTT EMM SUUUUDD OOOOOTT RUUUUGMAAAAAAA-"

The Leviathan twisted in the shallows, sending walls of water in all directions.  The robed figure screamed as he disappeared under one rail car sized appendage. 

~

This is the last of the headers from 2015.  I had never drawn (in any detail) a cyclopean Cthulhuian behemoth.  The seaside seemed like the best place for hat level of horror.  I do have a deep fear of opaque bodies of water... that and behemoth indescribable insect cephalopod Gods.

 

For 2015, I wanted to take the headers in a different direction than the work I had been producing.  I chose to adopt a looser style.  Although the 2014 pieces all had some underlying element of dark humor or social commentary, the 2015 headers have all moved back towards the essence of the work I want to create: horror.

{13.33x4.68,  created in Adobe Photoshop}

 

Happy Birthday H. P. Lovecraft

Today marks the birthday of that master of celestial horror and father of the Cthulhu mythos, Howard Phillips Lovecraft.  Rest well HPL!  Thanks for the exquisite parade of sense shattering nightmares and the lingering miasma of dread and horror!

{6.48x8, created in Adobe Photoshop}

Featured Creature: Jumper Demon

I seem to be angling this month toward creepy otherworldly creatures, From Beyond and now this monstrosity.  Topping the list of things you never want to see on the end of your flashlight beam, here we have a hungry Jumper Demon.  This creature pays homage to two of my all time favorite horror sci-fi movies, Alien and Aliens.  Those movies gave me nightmares for years. Thanks Ridley Scott and James Cameron!

From The Sketchbook Archives: Sun Discovers Chaos

This piece is mostly about the strange creature in the foreground. This creature shows the influence of P. Craig Russell's art on my creature designs.  The odd shapes in the corner were from a piece of plastic from a roll of over sized copier paper.  I was determined to use it as a shape template, but this was the only time I ever used it.  However, it did help inspire the Cthulhu style monster.

{Graphite}

At the Bottom of Everything

Within the vast mucoid detritus of our lives,

lurk the forgotten and the exiled,

the denied and the refuted,

all the wretched furies never given voice or form.

From the Sketchbook Archives: Strange Eye

Here's a quick sketch of a strange Cthulhian eye.  I've always been fascinated / creeped out by octopus and squid aspects of the Cthulhian Mythos.  My goal with this sketch was to explore some of the nonhuman eye construction one might encounter in the worlds of H.P. Lovecraft.

{Graphite}


UPDATE 042814:

This piece was Exhumed and reinvestigated with color in March 2014.  Check out the Exhumed image here.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

You know...as big as he is, sometimes Cthulhu just sneaks up on you. I really had no intention of doing a Cthulhu piece, but there he was, and when Cthulhu shows up, you can't really say, "Well, I don't have time right now."  LOL.  You have to at least see what it is he wants.  I mean hey, It's friggin Cthulhu!

I am a little disappointed in the color.  It seems to have a dropped a bit in intensity from Photoshop to here.  I may need to adjust my monitor.  It was very late at night when I created this piece and my eyes were getting to that liquid rolling down my face point.  I may have to revisit this one in the daylight hours with a good nights rest under my belt.  I'm not sure that is allowed with this kind of piece.  :-P

{Digital images manipulated in Photoshop}

Entryway

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."


ENTRYWAY.
{Digital photo manipulated in Adobe Photoshop.}