Elder City Sketches I.

The Elder Thing city (which evidently lies in a triple star system somewhere between Hydra and Argo Navis) that Walter Gilman travels to is a crucial turning point in the story. When Gilman wakes up, having broken off a miniature statue of one of the Old Ones on a distant planet in his dreams, he finds the statuette in his bed. This is when he starts acknowledging that the frightful inter-dimensional vistas of his nightmares are not just nightmares.

Art director (that's what I'm calling him now) KingOvRats has just released the first sketches for the city.

Need I say more?

Depicted? A tower's balustrade (note the miniatures), a home, and a inousjpy/mine (by the way, I cannot read what that says, so don't laugh at me for writing...that. Note: just found out it reads "industry".).

Not much to add, other than that this is FREAKING INSPIRED.

One last note - we've been pretty slow on production, but it's happening, trust us. I have put a lot of effort into this beast and I'm not going to stop. We will tackle this story and make it good. Believe it.

Lone Animator Blog Coverage

Richard Svennson is posting about his contributions to the Witch House on his blog. He finished the one on the Octopus today. Check it out for some more behind the scenes imagery and a proper detailing of the process!

"Here's one of those collaborative projects: the video-horror-musical 'The Dreams in the Witch House', based on the rather good tale by H P Lovecraft."

The Interdimensional Octopoid

Here is the original KingOvRats design.

And here is the F-KING FINISHED PUPPET!!!!!!!!

That thing is STUNNING. There are no words. Just...nothing to say. I'm so freaking happy! It looks GREAT floating in it's alternate space! And the blue-color...so vivid. On that blue color, Richard (who will be covering the creature in a blog post, perhaps later in the week) wrote: "...You can't really tell on this photo, but it's spattered with a greenish gray mottling of tiny dots. It doesn't really matter what colour it is now. We can alter that in AE editing if we want to tone things down. It really jumped off my green screen background, which is a good thing."

Some multi-perspectives:

And some shots of the creature in progress:

The first shot I saw of the W.I.P. clay sculpture.

The final head sculpt before the plaster mold was cast.

Richard working on the Octopoid this morning.

Richard Svensson's workroom. Note the Interdimensional Octopoid on the table towards the bottom-right corner.

Happy Belated Halloween

Hello!

We figured that since we haven't posted in a while we just might throw something together for you to look at. I can tell you that Richard Svensson has started on the sculpt for one of the Hyperspace creatures, and so far it looks amazing. But you'll have to wait and see...

What is this, exactly? A while ago I put together a DeviantART journal of all Witch House-inspired artwork. I think its a fine selection. It took me a while...everytime I found something cool, I found another thing, and I eventually had to stop myself. Yes, there are KingOvRats, Jason McKittrick, and Lone Animator pieces in there, but still.

I also wish you a happy belated Halloween. In celebration, watch this Vinyl Geek Halloween special with Dreams in the Witch House - a Lovecraftian Rock Opera in the foreground. Alaine Kashian (the Witch), Douglas Blair Lucek (himself), and Mike Dalager (Brown Jenkin) appear in it. Its an interactive video where you navigate the Vinyl Geek through the Witch House, so you'll wanna try to watch it on YouTube, but I'll post it here anyhow.

Now, the list of concept artists in-waiting are:

• Jason B. Thompson
• Devon Devereaux
• ...and maybe Kory Merrit. He does the fabulous webcomic Lost Side of Suburbia which features some pretty Lovecraftian beasties (though he has only a passing knowledge of H.P.) but he is currently too busy to help us. He might do so in the future, though.

I am also pleased to announce that Gregg Stockdale will be drawing the scene where Gilman sees Keziah on the witch-cult island (y'know, the one on the Miskatonic River with the standing stones) in the fog.

Some of the actors will come for Christmas and we'll do some shooting. Goodbye for now!

First Abyssal Set

Richard Svensson, the Lone Animator, has started to work on a puppet. I'm not fully sure which one it is, but its only half-sculpted. We might have some photos tomorrow.

That said, I asked him about backgrounds/sets on Tuesday. I had sent him the sketches for the inanimate structures of the Abyss, of course drawn by KingOvRats.

Richard kindly agreed to do it himself for us. In the end, he shot for the more organic structures. KingOvRats had told me he imagined the Abyss as a more bacterial structure, as seen below.

Now, I hadn't told Mr. Svensson that - but in the end, he came up with exactly that - Lovecraftian bacteria. In summation, the Lone Animator sent me a 2D mockup of what the Hyperspace Abysses might look like.

And it is amazing.

We thank Richard Svensson from the bottom of our heart. He created the perfect image.

Pete von Sholly and Others

In looking for more concept artists to jump onto the already talented team of Witch House, I have contacted several renowned artists in the past few months: most recently Jason B. Thompson (artist of The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath comic and movie), Devon Devereaux (artist of Hot Rod Horror and Graphic Classics contributor), ebe-1, and Pete von Sholly (artist of the utterly random, grotesque, and fabulous, including P.S. Publishing's Lovecraft series, Graphic Classics: H.P. Lovecraft; First Edition, History of Monsters, Capitol Hell, and other strange and limited collectibles). Less recently, Gris Grimly (Frankenstein, Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Mystery and Madness) and Michael Zigerlig (friend of the late H.R. Giger and artist of The Call of Cthulhu) were contacted. Here are the results.

• Jason B. Thompson will be drawing the Twilight Abysses of Hyperspace in December.
• Devon Devereaux will be doing a pen, ink, and Prismacolor drawing of the meeting between Gilman and the Black Man, also in December.
• ebe-1 is too busy to work for us right now, but we're going to talk about it soon.
• We'll talk about Pete von Sholly in a minute. He did supply us with something awesome.
• Gris Grimly is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy to busy to work for us, but he told us so in a very courteous manner.
• Michael Zigerlig is willing to do something once we have the proper funds.

So if you like creepy art by awesome artists, you're going to be in for a real treat in the next few months.

Now, here's the wonderful thing that happened with Pete von Sholly.

Mr. von Sholly has done an admirable job of resurrecting good ol' popcorn-munching monster movies, toys and pulp magazines in his work. When I contacted him, he was very polite and kind, saying that he'd be happy to help - but he'd need to decompress from Monsterpalooza first. Today, I contacted him again.

After giving him an outline of what I wanted, he told me that there was nothing new he could bring to the table. He had outlined all of the best scenes so well in his book version from P.S. Publishing that he had already said it all - already got the best bits.

What he did do was send me all six images from the book, and said I could use any or all for free.

The City of the Elder Things.

The Hyperspace Endpapers.

Hyperspace.

The bones of Brown Jenkin.

These are two thirds of what he showed us - the others just as fantastic.

I tried to make a Universal monster movie style poster out of the Elder Thing City drawing. It turned out TERRIBLE.

Mr. von Sholly made a few suggestions on this little mockup.

• Credit H.P. (I forgot)
• Don't put stuff all over it - let the art speak
• MAKE IT READABLE
• Remove cast names. Sounds kind of weak when everyone has the same last name

Here's the direction he suggested.

So I tried it out that way, arranging the words like Mr. von Sholly suggested. My only addition was the artist credit. It looks MUCH better, and Mr. von Sholly agreed.

But, in any case, I am eternally thankful for what Mr. von Sholly has given us.

Living Hindu Idol Evolution - a New Stage

Gregg Stockdale, amazing Witch House concept artist, has done something that adds a new stage to the

LIVING HINDU IDOL EVOLUTION

Stage One

Rough Design

The first rough design.

Stage Two

Original Design

The original, finished design: the first Michal sent to me.

Original Design Movements

The tentacles move in and out like tongues in a rolling movement. In a embryo-like position, it sits until disturbs when all limbs fan out and ROAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stage Three

Distorted Incarnation

The second incarnation. KingOvRats believes its MUCH better in terms of form (i.e., the melting shape and the tentacles) and detail (the eyes, the head, etc.). I would personally prefer a combination of both from a directing standpoint...

Update Movement

Instead of fluently rolling the tentacles, Michal would like a more convulsive movement, similar to this.

Stage Four

Gregg Stockdale Combo

The stunning concept artist Gregg Stockdale is at it again! Since he could not make a Photoshopped image, he did the next best thing. He "cherry picked the best bits" from the two drawings - the tentacles and mouth of the first incarnation, and the underarms, body, and mouth of the second. Michal still has some doubts, but I think its looking good.

What do you think?