Posts Tagged lovecraftian sketches

17 results.

Lovecraft Sketch MWF: Cats on the Moon

by on April 18, 2012 at 5:02 am
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This sketch, like many of my MWF Lovecraft sketches, was a request from a backer of Dream-Quest. What could be more Dream-Questy than cats on the moon! It seems to stick out to a lot of people, myself included. “The Lovecraft fantasy novel with talking cats” is a pretty accurate short description. I’ve never been entirely satisfied with my drawings of cats, but I’m trying to get better. Back when I drew Dream-Quest I could go over to my parents’ house and draw cats from life, but they haven’t had cats for years, so now I don’t have anyone to pose for me. But there’s always Google Imagesearch, of course.

While googling “cats” “moon” “dream-quest of unknown kadath” in search of memes I discovered the website of Corby James Waste, who has been doing elaborate & colorful drawings of Dream-Quest in a style a bit like 16-bit RPGs; it makes me wish that a Dream-Quest computer RPG actually existed. Technically, a Dream-Quest Game *does* exist — check out this 1988 graphical text adventure for the ZX Spectrum — but apparently it’s only available in Spanish. While I was in high school I tried to make a Dream-Quest game using Adventure Construction Set for the Commodore 64, and actually I still have the mostly complete files on my Commodore 64 emulator for Mac somewhere (it was Mac Classic OS, so now I would need an emulator to run the emulator). It was pretty fun to work on, but sadly, I never did make it fully playable; it kept crashing whenever I tried to edit the level where you/Carter has to get past the giant guardians of the Cold Waste.

And in case you’re interested, here’s where I write my usual plug for commissioned sketches!

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Lovecraft Sketch MWF: Horror on the Orient Express 2

by on April 20, 2012 at 9:30 am
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I’ve written on this blog already about the “Horror on the Orient Express” Call of Cthulhu campaign, and about the excellent campaign podcast GMed by Paul MacLean and available to subscribers at yog-sothoth.com. I also mentioned that I ran the game myself in college (although not as well as Paul did), and when one of my ex-roommates and players asked me to do a drawing from the campaign, of course I said yes.

My friend requested a drawing of a scene from the campaign, in which one of the other players — an Italian Futurist poet who had joined the party at an art gallery in London where he performed a rousing in-character slam-poem on the theme of ‘trains’ — was making his way through customs using a mind-control amulet he had picked up from the Lloigor earlier in the story. By this point, his character was almost totally insane as a result of his experiences. The tentacled shape in the back doorway is not literal, rather symbolic of pursuing evils. He’s crazy anyways, so maybe he’s hallucinating.

I try to get reference material for these sketches, so I emailed Aaron, the actual player of the character, who described him: “The character was a Futurist, loosely modeled in attitude after Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, though occupying a less prominent role in the movement. I don’t recall the characters name, but it was something “Italian-sounding” (the character was definitely Italian), I believe starting with an “M”. Prior to becoming a Futurist, I believe he was a train conductor (fitting the futurist obsession with trains, mechanism, and fast movement). He also must have been a soldier during WWI, thus making him probably in his late 20s. Over the course of the adventure, he had (as is the wont of CoC characters) grown progressively more insane–I think I recall half of the party capturing a cultist, trying to force him to talk, and having the skin of his face ripped off and being sucked into his mouth to silence him.” For what it’s worth, I always envisioned the character as being clean-shaven with long hair, like Aaron himself, but when the pen hit the paper I ended up giving him only slightly longish hair and a mustache like the original Marinetti. Over-reliance on reference material? Or just period realism? Either way, let no one say that our games didn’t have lots of research, darnit!

Speaking of the Orient Express, Nick Marsh, one the players in the excellent Yog-Sothoth.com campaign, is actually writing a novelization of the original campaign. Since most of my own story ideas came from roleplaying games (including my currently-on-hold 2003-2007 webcomic The Stiff), I heartily endorse the idea, and I’m looking forward to reading it when it comes out!

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Lovecraft Sketch MWF: The Dark Eidolon

by on April 23, 2012 at 9:23 am
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I call it the *Lovecraft* sketch MWF, but today is Clark Ashton Smith week here on mockman.com — ’cause I just love his work so much! Smith’s writing is so imaginative and dark and full of monsters and horrible fates, and yet unlike Lovecraft, his stories also have plenty of action and pulpy adventure. I think of him as the perfect blend of Robert A. Howard and Lovecraft. Also, we both grew up in the hill country of Northern California, where the summers are dry and the oaks grow wild and twisted, so I feel an imaginary kinship with him because of that. Back in 2004 I did a comic adaptation of his short story The Tale of Satampra Zeiros, which was a lot of fun, and an interesting exercise in comicking, since I sort of switched styles midway through.

This drawing depicts a scene from “The Dark Eidolon,” one of my favorite Smith stories. I gave it my best, but looking at it now I have to sadly admit, I’m not even 5% close to capturing the brutality and insanity of this image. Argggh! If you want context you’ll have to read the story yourself. Incidentally, when I was drawing the giant-corpse-dancers, I couldn’t help thinking of dancing pirates from Eiichiro Oda’s “One Piece.” That’s the kind of influences that fight with each other inside me.

If anyone’s interested in seeing more Smith-esque art, I’m always willing to do a commissioned sketch!

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Lovecraft Sketch MWF: Morthylla

by on April 25, 2012 at 10:21 am
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Another Clark Ashton Smith drawing, this one from his romance “Morthylla,” about a man who meets a lamia in a cemetery. It’s one of his Zothique stories, set in the decadent and dying far, far future. This was a sketch for a Kickstarter patron (thank you!). When I first read “Morthylla” when I was about 12, I didn’t really get the point, but when I recently reread it at the age of 37, it made a lot more sense.

I’ve got lots of drawing to do today, so I better roll up my sleeves and get going. After I’m done with my current project, though, I’m totally up for sketch commissions! Also, I’m going to be at the Stumptown Comics Fest this weekend. If you’re in Portland, Oregon, please stop by — I’ll be sharing a table with my friends in the “Couscous Collective” so keep a lookout for that name (or for the big map of the Dreamlands I’ll be displaying).

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Lovecraft Sketch MWF: Abhoth

by on April 27, 2012 at 5:00 am
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If I had to choose one favorite Clark Ashton Smith story (apart from “The Tale of Satampra Zeiros”, of course) it’d probably be “The Seven Geases.” The story is just so imaginative and dark and full of memorable monsters, and the structure, in which the whole thing is essentially a big shaggy-dog story escalating joke (and yet is completely serious within the world of the story), is so audaciously ridiculous.

Here is my attempt to draw the final monster of “The Seven Geases”: Abhoth, the Source of Uncleanness, perpetually spawning and reabsorbing verminous life in the depths of the underworld. Sadly, only after I drew this, giving it my all, did I realize that my drawing was but a pale shadow (or perhaps a floppy, crawling spawn) of Erol Otus’ illustration of the same thing in the first edition 1980s “Deities & Demigods” D&D sourcebook, which was one of my first exposures to the Cthulhu Mythos back when I was a kid. They renamed it “Shub-Niggurath,” but you know it’s Abhoth. I love Erol Otus’ work with a passion, and I can’t think of anyone I’d rather imitate (unless perhaps… Erol Otus x Hirohiko Araki? Or Erol Otus/Hirohiko Araki/Kazuo Umezu? Is this possible??!?), but next time I draw Abhoth, I PROMISE I WILL SURPASS YOU, EROL OTUS!!

It’s a good time to be a Clark Ashton Smith fan: some folks have just started The Double Shadow, a Clark Ashton Smith readings-and-discussion podcast modeled openly on the original Weird Tales horror-writer podcast, the awesome HP Podcraft. It sounds like a cool group of people, the music & Foley effects are good, and I am thrilled to see Smith starting to get some of the attention he deserves! I can’t wait to just listen to the podcasters’ reactions to the sheer eldritch weirdness, exotic cruelty and nihilism, or to put it another way, the sheer f*cked-uppedness, of Smith’s fiction! I’ve only listened to their first podcast and already I want to read Smith’s letters & poetry, which I’ve never gotten around to. Check out this podcast NOW!! (And of course, you should be listening to HP Podcraft as well, if you aren’t already!)

As usual on Fridays, there’s a new King of RPGs strip over on the King of RPGs website! And if you’re going to Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland, Oregon this weekend, please come by and say hello! I’ll be splitting a table with my friends at the Couscous Collective, and I’d love to draw a sketch in your book, talk about Lovecraft, maybe play a RPG, or generally engage in artistic discussion and debauchery.

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Lovecraft Sketch MWF: Celephais Courtyard

by on April 30, 2012 at 12:38 pm
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I’m not David Macaulay level, but I love drawing architectural details. This sketch shows some buildings in Celephais, which I had just drawn in Dream-Quest and Celephais. The architecture of Celephais, in my comics, is based on several influences: (1) Winsor McCay’s “Little Nemo in Slumberland” and the gigantic, towering Edwardian World’s Fair architecture which inspired him; (2) European castles; and (3) Arabic architecture. Classical Arabic and Middle Eastern architecture has some incredible shapes and symmetries, and it’s very much in the spirit of the Arabian-Nights-esque story “Celephais”; the only way Western Medieval cities really beat out Arabian ones is statuary, of course, due to the Islamic anti-statues influence. So my vision of Celephais, this playground city of childhood fantasies, is essentially Ancient Arabic architecture + Neo-Classical Western statuary.

Looking back on my design of Celephais in the graphic novel, I sort of wish I’d de-emphasized the ‘children’s playground’/Little Nemo element, as well as the pompous World’s Fair architecture, and gone for more of a purely Arabian exotic fantasy look (plus the statues). The city as I drew it is kind of a jumble of influences: appropriate for a dream, maybe, but messier than I’d have liked. But when I first read “Celephais” I didn’t pick up on the Arabian-Nights Orientalist influence as much, and I envisioned it as more of a European fantasy city — knights and so on. In fact, it was Chaosium author Kevin A. Ross who looked at my sketches at NecronomiCON years ago and asked me why there wasn’t more Arabian influence, and I modified it going forward based on his advice. Anyway, I’m happy with how it turned out, but I wish I’d made it more of an appealing place to live rather than just visit. The Sunset City has its little lanes with grassy cobbles, its narrow hill streets, but Celephais as I drew it seems to be all grand squares and tall public buildings: it has no quiet small back lanes, no little houses to sleep in after a long day. The city must have these quiet places, though, so maybe I just need to draw them.

Interested in some art? Commission a sketch! Also: come back tomorrow for the first page of… THE DOOM THAT CAME TO SARNATH!

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Lovecraft Sketch MWF: Celephais

by on May 4, 2012 at 9:05 am
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Another detail drawing of Lovecraft’s Celephais. Like I mentioned in a previous post, my Celephais is basically a fusion of fantastical Middle-Ages European and Arabian architecture, seen through the rose-colored glasses of childhood. Since it is a sister city to Serannian, of course there are buildings in the clouds — although I wish I’d left them out of this sketch, because having them hanging there in the sky as real and dark-lined as everything, like in “Inception,” seems to shut out the sky and give everything a kind of claustrophobic look. This drawing would also have been better if I’d drawn some human figures in the foreground, to give everything a better sense of scale, instead of just some ant-like figures on the promenades in the distance.

Today I’m working on “Sarnath” and my other Lovecraft project, Mystery Lovecraft Project X. Also, it’s Friday, so go read today’s King of RPGs! King of RPGs volumes 1 and 2 (which are separate material from the webcomic, drawn by my friend Victor Hao) are now available on iTunes and Nook as well, so you don’t have to go digging in the ruins of a Borders to find one. If you’re at all gamey (gamest? gamer-esque?), check it out!

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