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Friday, July 10, 2015

Andrew Ritchie's Azathoth

I've been a fan of BOOM! Studios for a while. In their earlier days they published a masterpiece of Lovecraftian horror called Fall of Cthulhu, the delightful anthology series Cthulhu Tales, and the worth-a-read Necronomicon. They have gravitated away from Mythos stuff, but they're still quality publishers (Hexed comes to mind immediately).

Andrew Ritchie was a staple contributor to BOOM!'s Mythos titles. Necronomicon was drawn by Andrew Ritchie. Fall of Cthulhu's first volume, The Fugue, featured Andrew Ritchie's work. Cthulhu Tales had some stories illustrated by Andrew Ritchie.

Ritchie is known for his eerie, corpse-like characters and monsters mixed with old-school comic book colors. "The Beach" from Cthulhu Tales is a good example. Michael Alan Nelson, who wrote Fall of Cthulhu, creates a typically horrifying story, but Andrew Ritchie's art will freak the hell out of you. Seriously. It will stay with you for a while.

Anywho, I'm a fan of his work, so I naturally contacted him to do a pic of Azathoth's throne. He already drew Azathoth in Necronomicon:


After a while, he agreed, and sent me the result today.


One word: wow.

Saturday, April 11, 2015

Elder City Sketches II.

As stated formerly, the City of the Elder Things Gilman visits in his dreams is very important, since it makes him realize that his "dreams" are real. I specifically requested our faithful designer, KingOvRats, to make the designs similar to the late H.R. Giger. Here were the first designs:

The balustrade (top),  a dwelling (left), and an industrial mine (right).

Just now he posted some more designs. I like them even more!

A castle with an observatory/watchtower (top), a random building (middle), and a temple (bottom).

I originally wanted to make these in Photoshop, but now I think a full model (with Photoshop additions) is in order...

Saturday, February 28, 2015

Twin Blasphemies: The Art of ebe-1 | Elder Thing Statuette - Design Level

Hello guys! A double post today.

The Art of ebe-1

ebe-1 on DeviantART is a somebody who's currently too busy but is still considering our project. In the meantime, I'd like to show you some of his Lovecraft work, so you get an idea of how his art looks. "The Dreams in the Witch House" piece is placed at the bottom of the list for dramatic effect.

The Shadow Out of Time.

"From Beyond".

"The Festival".

And now...

..."The Dreams in the Witch House".

Elder Thing Statuette - Design Level

We've sent the Elder Thing statue designs over to a sculptor who our grandmother knows. I feel like we should show you the designs.

Sorry for the blurry quality of this image.

This tiny little Elder Thing thumbnail sketch is taken from the first set of designs KingOvRats did for the Elder City.

Which I hope makes up for the blurry quality of the thumbnail. You can see the Elder Thing statues on the upper sketch of the balustrade.

Before I show you this next one I'd better explain. KingOvRats obviously had to provide us with a larger sketch for sculpturing, so he simply suggested one of his (pre-Witch House) best and most enduring Lovecraft sketches...

...the Elder Thing itself.

This horrifying abomination is completely based on HPL's description. Here: just read some descriptions of an Elder Thing from At the Mountains of Madness and check it with the drawing.
"Objects are eight feet long all over. Six-foot five-ridged barrel torso 3.5 feet central diameter, 1 foot end diameters. Dark grey, flexible, and infinitely tough. Seven-foot membraneous wings of same colour, found folded, spread out of furrows between ridges. Wing framework tubular or glandular, of lighter grey, with orifices at wing tips. Spread wings have serrated edge. Around equator, one at central apex of each of the five vertical, stave-like ridges, are five systems of light grey flexible arms or tentacles found tightly folded to torso but expansible to maximum length of over 3 feet. Like arms of primitive crinoid. Single stalks 3 inches diameter branch after 6 inches into five sub-stalks, each of which branches after 8 inches into five small, tapering tentacles or tendrils, giving each stalk a total of 25 tentacles.
"At top of torso blunt bulbous neck of lighter grey with gill-like suggestions holds yellowish five-pointed starfish-shaped apparent head covered with three-inch wiry cilia of various prismatic colours. Head thick and puffy, about 2 feet point to point, with three-inch flexible yellowish tubes projecting from each point. Slit in exact centre of top probably breathing aperture. At end of each tube is spherical expansion where yellowish membrane rolls back on handling to reveal glassy, red-irised globe, evidently an eye. Five slightly longer reddish tubes start from inner angles of starfish-shaped head and end in sac-like swellings of same colour which upon pressure open to bell-shaped orifices 2 inches maximum diameter and lined with sharp white tooth-like projections. Probable mouths. All these tubes, cilia, and points of starfish-head found folded tightly down; tubes and points clinging to bulbous neck and torso. Flexibility surprising despite vast toughness."
"At bottom of torso rough but dissimilarly functioning counterparts of head arrangements exist. Bulbous light-grey pseudo-neck, without gill suggestions, holds greenish five-pointed starfish-arrangement. Tough, muscular arms 4 feet long and tapering from 7 inches diameter at base to about 2.5 at point. To each point is attached small end of a greenish five-veined membraneous triangle 8 inches long and 6 wide at farther end. This is the paddle, fin, or pseudo-foot which has made prints in rocks from a thousand million to fifty or sixty million years old. From inner angles of starfish-arrangement project two-foot reddish tubes tapering from 3 inches diameter at base to 1 at tip. Orifices at tips. All these parts infinitely tough and leathery, but extremely flexible. Four-foot arms with paddles undoubtedly used for locomotion of some sort, marine or otherwise. When moved, display suggestions of exaggerated muscularity. As found, all these projections tightly folded over pseudo-neck and end of torso, corresponding to projections at other end."
But as inspired as this drawing is, it is NOT naturally suited to sculpture form.

So what we we to do? Luckily, I had found this stunner based on the story by Mesozord on DeviantART...


The Elder Thing sculpture in the center "panel" is very similar to KingOvRats' design and would give the sculptor a clearer idea of what we wanted. So with the kind permission of both artists we sent this bunch to the artist.





Monday, January 26, 2015

Mockman Website Coverage

Jason B. Thompson, who created a fantastic image for us, has now posted about the project on the Mockman website! You can see it here.

new anthology that Jason is contributing to. Cover art by Jared Morgan.

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Jason B. Thompson Artwork

I just got the Jason Bradley Thompson artwork as a digital file. And it looks amazing!


You'll notice the Living Hindu Idol (#2), a new incarnation of the bubbles (#2), the central horrors from #1, and a new amorphous starfish piper.

These (along with the sketches) are so good we may need to use them as Throne of Azathoth designs.

Jason'll be posting it on the Mockman website, so keep your eyes peeled!

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Jason B. Thompson Sketches III.

A third and final (for now) day of Jason Bradley Thompson creature drawings. I've had to pick and choose, and we're probably going to go with ones from the other two posts as opposed to this one. Not that this is bad, but the other ones are more what we're going for.


Sunday, January 18, 2015

Jason B. Thompson Sketches II.

Here's another page of sketches that I received with the former post. The last'll be posted on Tuesday.

This one depicts a Living Hindu Idol (the jellyfish with human heads), an arabesque (it might read "centipede" after it), a plant-like demon, and a bubble-congeries (with embryonic monsters!).


Friday, January 16, 2015

Jason B. Thompson Sketches I.

Today I received three-pages-worth of roughish monster sketches from Jason Bradley Thomspon that'll be worked some way or other into the 9"x12 commission. I think they're amazing, but, as they are quite rough, I'll only show one.

Now Jason's one of my favorite artists on-board the violet light train. His Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath adaptation is really a remarkably faithful and interesting adaptation. No one can really draw those fantastical landscapes and weird creatures quite like him. Leong Wan Kok (Ben Avery on the adaptation side) and I.N.J. Culbard (whom I contacted, but was too busy), amongst others, have both made their own wonderfully imaginative versions of this rich-but-rambling tale, and our own KingOvRats had depicted fine Dreamlands monsters, but - as I said - NO ONE does Dreamlands like Jason.


He's also done SIX OTHER Dreamlands comics ("The White Ship", "Celephaïs", "The Strange High House in the Mist", "The Doom That Came to Sarnath", and "The Cats of Ulthar") and "The Beast in the Cave", all of which you can read on his website with a bunch of other non-Lovecraft goodies.

I thought he'd be perfect for the film. So, after chatting a bit, a $75 fully shaded drawing was in place, depicting the Twilight Abysses. And today, as I said, I received three pages. I'll only show one, and end off by saying that some of this is going to have to be incorporated into the film.