Exhumed: Rotting Appleteeth

Rotting Appleteeth is a goblin of indulgence and decay.  Rotting is quick, selfish, and most certainly dangerous.  Legend has it that he used to have a mouth full of bright white teeth, but they decayed and fell out because of his lust for eating sweets and drinking Nog all night.  His empty heart is jealous and craves all things, especially the teeth of others.  When he sees a beautiful set of polished ivories, out comes his dagger!

Surprisingly, his breath is rather sweet, but that is only a lure to get a victim close enough to cut out a few molars.  Although he will not pass up any tooth, he is known to prefer the teeth of children.  His nighttime attacks are responsible for the innate fear of dentists that many children possess.  He is a mortal enemy of the tooth fairy and the two have warred repeatedly over a single stolen tooth.

{8x5.33,  created in Adobe Photoshop}

From the Archives: Dark RPG Versus

Here we have an armed man struggling with some shadowy denizen.  This piece is from a older portfolio that I had created to present to RPG companies.  I think White Wolf had just exploded at the time.

{8x2.2,  Pen and Ink}

Exhumed: D'spayre

Here we have a reinvestigation of a previous sketch of one of my favorite dark Marvel comics characters, D'spayre.  With the color, I wanted to clean the drawing up a bit and give him a dreary backdrop to look menacing against.  I also made the line work in the image part of the color.  As I began I had redrawn all of the line work in black, but I found the contrast too harsh.  With the color line work he takes on a phantom quality which suits D'spayre very well.

{8x6.18,  Graphite with color added in Adobe Photoshop}

 

Psyche Delectus: Hunter

Within the cauldron of experience,
the masks of time are shredded
to reveal the true essence.

From the Archives: Azazel

Here's a more recent sketch, but this one has a digital twist.  I developed this image while playing in Photoshop and exploring paintbrush options.  I was very pleased with the painterly style that emerged.  There will be more of this style coming and with greater color exploration.

{Created in Adobe Photoshop}

 

Psyche Delectus: Knights of Valzoth

The bringers of Death,
the armored puppets of Doom,
the Knights of Valzoth are never slain.
They only slumber until called upon
to rise once more from their coffin stables
and raise their blood soaked hands
in mechanical fealty to their dark master.

New Abstract: The Empty Man

Chaos swirls around him
consuming even the most simple of moments
in an escalating conflagration.

Featured Creature: The Spawn of Vz

"Slowly, I moved into the room.  The smell of mildew and rot was overwhelming.  I covered my mouth and nose with my shirt sleeve, trying not to gag.  The floor was a sea of trash: half eaten pizza crusts, emptied soup cans, a bicycle tire, myriad candy bar wrappers, a soiled shirt, empty soda cans and bottles, a child's stuffed animal, wadded paper and boxes, and several filthy overturned buckets.  As I crossed into the room, large dark shapes skittered out of my path, disappearing into the canyons of trash.

New Abstract: Osiris Emerging from the Cup of Bones

Like the Pair Dadeni, the Cauldron of Rebirth, here we have the Cup of Bones with Osiris emerging.

Featured Creature: Priest of the Eye

The following is a translation from Die Tür Des Bösen:

"The Svyash Chenniksglaza, or the Priests of the Eye, are an ancient fanatical sect of devotees to The Great Devourer, Mihreshibal.  As young men, the priests dedicate the entirety of their existence to the service of their master.  They undergo great personal mutilation to become initiated into the cult of the Devourer.  The priests sacrifice their physical vision as an offering to their master during their initiation by having their eyes burned out with a heated iron.  There are unsubstantiated rumors of other, greater mutilations, yet it is also claimed that their vision is replaced with the greater sight of their lord.

The Featured Creature: The Night Thing

Here we have a strange winged denizen of the night. Once I'd inked this piece, I didn't care for the flame hair, but it was already integrated in the drawing.  However, in Photoshop I was able to remove it.  When I began adding the tones, a seed of a story came to me.  It didn't take long for it to explode into a full short story, but I haven't gotten it to a finished state just yet.  Expect an update with the full story soon.

Here is the beginning of the story:

Featured Creature: Three Tongue

Here we have the first Featured Creature of the 2013, a creepy little three tongued spikey demon.  I suspect he is a demon of lying or maybe gossip.  I dunno.  He's not telling me he just keeps making these horrible snorting noises.

Dance of the Cat and the Moth

A moment of revelation feeds their understanding of each other.
...and the chase continues.

From the Archives: Emptiness

A creepy sharpie sketch from some time ago.  This was a developmental sketch for a painting.  After scanning the image, I did a little tweaking around the edges in Photoshop to cover up the white.  The white made the cloaked figure a little hard to see.  I was trying to achieve a subtle ambiguity with the darkly cloaked figure in night darkness. Where does the shadow begin and the figure end?  It still needs more work, but a solid idea.

He Fills the Space

"I have not come to tell you what it is.
I have come to ask you the question."

Boat of the Prince of Cups

He hangs midair like a ghost,
hovering amongst labyrinthine structures.
His secret, the unseen movement of a great wind.
He disturbs not the waters.
His deep understanding of that element allows it.

From the Archives: H. P. Lovecraft

Here's a touched up portrait of H. P. Lovecraft I created to hang in my space.  I wanted a portrait of the horror master to inspire me when I was working, but I didn't want something plain.  I ran the standard image of him through several photoshop filters and voila, H.P. visits Silent Hill!

{Digital Images manipulated in Adobe Photoshop}

The Gestation Pits

Beneath my skin I drown,
The world has become incompatible,
toxic to my very essence.
I struggle against this precipice of change,
this pit of transformation. 
I gulp for air
as my lungs fill with water.
Inside me, the sleeping thing gurgles
I don't want it,
I don't want to,
I do not want this.

Apparation

What form is this?
What lesson?
What karmic vision?
In the gloaming a figure emerges.

Dissolution

Another step on the pathway of the initiate.