Psyche Delectus: The Faceless Saint

In the sanctum, identity is shed
so that understanding may enter.

Recommended Listening:

Arcana

The Opening of the Wound

from Cantar De Procella

{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}

 

Psyche Delectus: Force of the Warrior

The art of singular focus 
amidst whirling chaos 
is a challenge few master.

Recommended Listening:

Christopher Franke

Main Title 3rd Season

from Babylon 5 Vol. 2: Messages From Earth

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

Psyche Delectus: The Structures of Wounding

Of course, it is a machine.

Recommended Listening:

Nine Inch Nails

Hurt

from The Downward Spiral

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

From the Archives: Haunted

With the header for November 2015 I opted for a bit photo manipulation instead of a drawing - I ran out of time.  I was working with an older photo of myself for a different piece and it became this header.  I've gotten a good bit of mileage out of this image of me with a sheet wrapped around me as a hood.  It has been a creepy gif, the deadly sin of pride, a white wizard, and here a somber figure in the blood soaked bounds of the haunted forest.

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,  Digital Images manipulated in Adobe Photoshop}
 

Psyche Delectus: All of It Come Round Again

Your blame only gives power to another.

Recommended Listening:

Crystal Castles

Plague

from Crystal Castles III

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

Psyche Delectus: Feeding The Young

Necessity, Love, Understanding,
all determine our levels
of horror and acceptance.

Recommended Listening:

Phragments and Korinth

Confronting Archetypes

from Mysteries of the Greylands

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

From the Archives: The Light Within

Here we have the header from October 2015 of a crowd burned through with jack-o'-lantern faces.  I wanted to do a piece for the dark season to evoke that feeling of Halloween without simply repeating the traditional imagery.   I wanted something that would give the aura of the unusual that jack-o'-lanterns posses minus the happy go lucky feeling even scary jack-o'-lanterns seem to have.  I also wanted to access that unsettling feeling when a large crowd is looking at you and only you....zombie fears activate!

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}

Psyche Delectus: Flames of the Black Lotus

Its taste burns away
any longing but its own.

Recommended Listening:

The Black Angels

Bad Vibrations

from Phosphene Dream

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

Psyche Delectus: Scales

Shedding the scales again.

Recommended Listening:

Lull

Thoughts

from Ambient Vol 4: Isolationism

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

From the Archives: New Perspective

It changes everything.

Recommended Listening:

Sembler Deah

Helen Leven Lang

from Kaessariah. Heel Een Leven Lang

{6.99x8,  created in Adobe Photoshop}

From The Archives: In the Alleyway

I always come back to werewolves.  They have been a terror and a sensual draw since I was very young.  With this piece I tried to explore what made a werewolf different than merely an aggressive canine.  After some introspection and some mood swings thanks to the summer heat, I decided that there is something in werewolves that is, for lack of a better term, "crazy".

The aggression of a werewolf is at toxic levels.  They are rabid.  There is only one solution for them, only one avenue of egress, and that is bloody terrible violence.  In this scenario, I am thinking of lycanthropy as a curse and the werewolf as a doomed soul.  After their transformation and summary consumption of human flesh, the only succor they are able to find is in death. This is after all about the horror.

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}

Psyche Delectus: Dark Crown

Its gravity is its purpose.

Recommended Listening:

Yen Pox

Twilight Eternal

from Blood Music

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

Kickstarter: The Unkindness of Ravens

Only 4 days left to help Laurie Brewster's new project, The Unkindness of Ravens, to become a reality!

Psyche Delectus: King in Darkness

His burden is knowledge.

Recommended Listening:

OhGr

Pissage

from Undeveloped

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

From the Archives: The Burning Dead

This isn't the first time that the burning dead have been a focus for me.  They've shown up just before the summer solstice for the past couple of years.  I'm not sure what they're all about, but I'll keep coming back to them until I figure it out or rather, they will keep finding me until...

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.

{13.33 x 4.68,  created in Adobe Photoshop}

Happy Belated Birthday Halloween!

I had intended to post this piece last week on Sunday, the anniversary of the release date of the original Halloween, but I ran out of time.  It makes more sense to post it today instead.  I spent many childhood and teenage years terrified of Michael Myers.  He would appear spontaneously out of the darkness in my nightmares.  It wasn't until my mid twenties that he ceased to be a recurring presence in my dreamscape.

I watched the original Halloween again this week and still find so many moments unsettling and creepy.  John Carpenter's Halloween was released on October 25, 1978.  Despite the movie's age, there is a sorrowful timelessness about it, a mythic  landscape of fear.  Of course, that relentless theme music haunts forever.  Thank You John Carpenter!

Happy All Hallow's Eve!

Halloween From the Archives: Take One

In the spring of 2015 I created a set of Halloween themed pieces as submissions to a fiction print anthology focusing on Halloween.  The anthology was set for a juvenile reading level.  I toned down my usual gore and darkness and tried to shift my imagery a little towards the lighter side.  You will see as the pieces progress that the darkness began creeping through regardless.  Although my submissions were rejected, I ended up with six lovely pieces that I will be sharing between now and All Hallow's Eve.  I hope you enjoy them.

This final piece is where my usual darkness finally breaks through.  This image almost ended up gritty and blood splattered, but I pulled back.  This could easily be a piece from one of my Halloween Outbreaks.  It may yet be.

I kept thinking about this piece until I finally decided to do a blood splattered version.  Here is your dark treat a day early!  Happy Halloween!

I only just realized that so many of the pieces in this set feature doorways.  hmph.  What is so fear filling about doorways?  What comes through them?  What might come through them?  What dread gatekeepers guard them?  What have they been enclosing, holding back and is it now loose?  Oh Doorways, you open and you close.

By the way, The big day is tomorrow.  It's almost time.  Don't forget to wear your masks.

{8x5.33,  created in Adobe Photoshop}

Psyche Delectus: Distillation

Despite blockades,
Despite interruption,
the painstaking is continuous.

Recommended Listening:

Chelsea Wolfe

Grey Days

from Abyss

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

Halloween From the Archives: Dead End

In the spring of 2015 I created a set of Halloween themed pieces as submissions to a fiction print anthology focusing on Halloween.  The anthology was set for a juvenile reading level.  I toned down my usual gore and darkness and tried to shift my imagery a little towards the lighter side.  You will see as the pieces progress that the darkness began creeping through regardless.  Although my submissions were rejected, I ended up with six lovely pieces that I will be sharing between now and All Hallow's Eve.  I hope you enjoy them.

This one is mostly a mood piece.  However, there is something inherently creepy about a single child standing alone, not seeking out the care of an adult.  The skeleton costume helps with the creepy, of course.

{8x5.33,  created in Adobe Photoshop}

Halloween From the Archives: Subway

In the spring of 2015 I created a set of Halloween themed pieces as submissions to a fiction print anthology focusing on Halloween.  The anthology was set for a juvenile reading level.  I toned down my usual gore and darkness and tried to shift my imagery a little towards the lighter side.  You will see as the pieces progress that the darkness began creeping through regardless.  Although my submissions were rejected, I ended up with six lovely pieces that I will be sharing between now and All Hallow's Eve.  I hope you enjoy them.

I haven't done a lot of work focused on fear in a city setting.  For this piece I chose a subway late at night.  I also wanted to highlight that moment of horror where the protagonist narrowly escapes whomever or whatever is chasing them with only a thin barrier of protection keeping their pursuer at bay.

{8x5.33,  created in Adobe Photoshop}

Psyche Delectus: The Lessons of Shadow

Some lessons can only be learned
in darkness.

Recommended Listening:

Sephiroth

Dark Father

from Cathedron

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

Halloween From the Archives: Ghost in the Doorway

In the spring of 2015 I created a set of Halloween themed pieces as submissions to a fiction print anthology focusing on Halloween.  The anthology was set for a juvenile reading level.  I toned down my usual gore and darkness and tried to shift my imagery a little towards the lighter side.  You will see as the pieces progress that the darkness began creeping through regardless.  Although my submissions were rejected, I ended up with six lovely pieces that I will be sharing between now and All Hallow's Eve.  I hope you enjoy them.

For this piece I wanted to create an uncomplicated image.  I wanted the image to be mostly darkness to focus on the ghostly glow.  I did not want any details to be lost in the darkness so I adopted a clean and simple style.

{8x5.33,  created in Adobe Photoshop}