Comments on: Nyarlathotep: the Crawling Chaos

By: John

John — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:25:34 +0000

Thank you, Sebastian.

By: Sebastian

Sebastian — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 10:25:31 +0000

Its just beautiful. Really nice work as always. Your one of my favorite artists John.

By: John

John — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 03:07:35 +0000

Despite the various descriptions, I’ve never been able to imagine Azathoth as anything other than some kind of cosmic singularity like a sentient black hole. HPL was very smart in leaving these things vague, he knew that the imagination rushes to fill the gaps. A lot of the descriptive stuff about whining flutes can be read as a metaphor for some inhuman noise, a sound primitive peoples have maybe interpreted as the whine of flutes.

I’ve been asked to sketch some creatures for a planned feature film which has the Black Goat and its young as a character/thing. Supposed to be doing that now actually, but I’ve had too many other things to finish up first, this piece among them.

By: Wiley

Wiley — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 17:23:45 +0000

Ah Shub-Niggurath, that is perhaps the one Great Old, One that I am at a loss as to how one would illustrate. Besides your one portrait I cannot think of a single really well-done and serious picture of this particular beast.

She perhaps would need horns as a symbol of fertility, and yet the title of ‘Black goat’ is only symbolic, and that image is overused in most depictions.

So does one make her amorphous as many of her fucked-up siblings? Maybe, but she does require a certain feminine quality, and I am not suggesting one make her seem inviting or nurturing, simply that she needs this incorporated in order to distinguish her from the others.

Perhaps tableau pieces are the best ways to depict beings for which some of their qualities are known, yet beyond this are largely indescribable.

One could use a throne, flute, and dancers for Azathoth, as well as the more abrasive necessities, perhaps coral, scales, and gills mixed with exotic luxury and human clergyman for Dagon, and so forth.

By: John

John — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 14:06:31 +0000

Hi Evan. You’ve reminded me that I was remiss in not mentioning Haeckel with this. I’ve plundered his work a lot for these pieces.

By: evan j. peterson

evan j. peterson — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:41:36 +0000

John, my favorite Ernst is Haeckel, and I love the little touches of Haeckel’s work that you use in here.

By: John

John — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 19:09:40 +0000

Thanks, Wiley. One of the interesting aspects of doing the pantheon of gods was how you represent things which are barely described. Cthulhu aside, I didn’t want to draw a series of big monsters, that seems the wrong way to represent interdimensional entities. Alan Moore said something about how one of the pieces–Shub-Niggurath, I think–seeming to be caught in a “quantum superposition” between different states of existence. I hadn’t been aiming consciously to convey that impression but Shub-Niggurath and a couple of the others have that effect. This one is more of a tableau piece than anything else.

By: Wiley

Wiley — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 18:57:05 +0000

I ‘do’ think you did a great job incorporating all of his faces and phases though.

By: Wiley

Wiley — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 18:55:03 +0000

I honestly like this rendition of Nyarlathotep a little better than the one you did for ‘Haunter . . .’ even though this is basically an altered copy of it. This one brings up the recurring ancient Sumerio/Egyptian aspects of the god/beast.

Of all the published Necronomicons (pertaining specifically to Lovecraft that is), Donald Tyson’s is my favorite and he really emphasized this aspect in an intriguing way. Perhaps this why I am so nerdily ga-ga over Nyarlathotep when it comes to Mythos crap.