Posts Tagged ‘lovecraft’
Update: Cthulhu Divination Deck WIP
Wednesday, September 7th, 2011
Cthulhu Divination Deck, Card Mockup by Amy Crook
Progress is moving forward on my idea for a Cthulhu Divination Deck! I decided on a card size, a deck size, and got some price quotes. I’m planning to add some ornamentation to the card frame (and possibly change the layout a little), but this is the basic idea. So far I’ve decided that card #1 needs to be Cthulhu himself, and #42 (the last one) will be “The Stars are Right.” Now I just have 40 more cards to decide on. Then I’ll sketch out the art double the size it will be on the original cards, ink and color each piece, and somewhere in there I’ll put together stuff for the Kickstarter.
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Whimsical and Strange, Works In Progress
Tags: cthulhu, lovecraft, nfs, sketch, tarot, weeble, wip
The Stars Are Right
Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011
The Stars Are Right by Amy Crook
The dark skies framing the glowing salt stars are painted in my newest art supply acquisition, paint made from actual Bloodstone. The color looks a bit more brownish to my eye, but the scanner definitely gave it a green tinge more like the actual stone looks before it’s ground up and made into paint. I have a number of the oil paints from this line (I love the Amazonite green), but this is my first foray into the watercolors, and I love the granular texture the paint gets as it dries.
The arrangement of green salt formations really reminded me of a constellation, and the color of course made me think of Cthulhu, especially with the Bloodstone watercolor to ground it, so that’s where the piece gets its name. After all, Cthulhu is merely snoozing until the stars align and new reign begins. In a strictly fictional manner, of course.
The Stars Are Right, 7″x5″ salt, pen & ink and watercolor on Arches cover white paper.
The Stars Are Right, detail, by Amy Crook
Above you can see a bit more of what the paint looks like in the sunlight, the warm brown-black setting off the cool green quite nicely. Below, I’ve got the piece in a simple black frame that protects the salt crystals and brings out the color in the bloodstone.
The Stars Are Right, framed art by Amy Crook
Categories: Abstract and Just Plain Weird, Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art
Tags: bloodstone, for sale, lovecraft, pen and ink, salt, watercolor
1 Comment »
WIP: Weeble Cthulhu Divination Deck
Wednesday, August 17th, 2011
Weeble Cthulhu Divination Card sketch by Amy Crook
Since it’s been a while since I released my two Coloring Books, I want to get back to my original weeble monster love and do another Cthulhu project. This time, I want to make a parody divination deck starring Weeble Cthulhu and his other creepy cute pals. This is inspired both by my love of tarot cards (they’re like little packs of themed art!), and the completely awesome Fantod Pack by Edward Gorey.
I’m still making a lot of the basic decisions, but I made this sketch as a motivator for myself. I love how his tentacles float up in the water, and the weird angles on his altar bed, though I’m pretty sure I won’t bother to show the surface of the water in the final, just shade it to give sense of being below the depths. I just felt like drawing a tiny sailboat.
Stuff that needs to be decided (feel free to weigh in!):
- What size should the cards be — playing card or tarot card size?
- How big should the deck be? (I’m thinking 42 cards right now.)
- Or, do I want to add a whole extra research dimension by trying to do an entire 78-card Tarot deck?
- If I did do a Tarot deck, how would the suits work? Obviously Tentacles would be a suit, but what about the other 3?
- If I did a 42-card “divination deck,” what should I do for the actual instructions for use?
- Either way I need to assign numbers and meanings to the monsters, which should be hilariously fun. I love the universal gloom of Gorey’s predictions, though mine will of course involve more tentacles.
- Where should I have them printed? How fancy should the accompanying booklet be?
- What other rewards should the Kickstarter off than packs and more packs? Originals, obviously, but what else?
I want to get at least half if not most of the art done before I even consider a Kickstarter, so that if/when it does fund it’ll be ready to send off to the printer very soon after. Having supported several Kickstarters now, I have to admit that the wait after funding is interminable, and the one that was ready for press right away and has already shipped to me has a very special place in my heart.
So, what do you all think, dear readers? Would you want to divine that you were destined to be detained by demons, tickled by tentacles or poked by psuedopods? Or have I lost too much of my sanity to be trusted?
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Series and Books, Tentacles, Things I'm a Fan Of, Works In Progress
Tags: cthulhu, lovecraft, tarot, weeble, wip
2 Comments »
Evil Fishie sketch
Saturday, August 13th, 2011
Evil Fishie sketch by Amy Crook
I managed a sketch for Saturday, whee! I realized that a lot of what I sketch is the preliminary drawings for things I’d rather post finished, so that’s why I never seem to have any sketches for my Saturday posts. This guy seems rather Lovecraftian to me, perhaps I can do a properly inked version of him of I do another coloring book sometime.
Categories: Daily Art, Sea Creatures and Other Animals, Things I'm a Fan Of, Zombies, Skulls, and Other Morbid Things
Tags: fish, lovecraft, nfs, pencil
Monsters of HP Lovecraft Print
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011
Monsters of HP Lovecraft Print by Amy Crook, $23.23
My 4-year-old printer finally bit the dust 2 weeks ago, and when the time came to replace it, I couldn’t resist the lure of a large-format printer. It prints my cards beautifully (and borderlessly), and now I can make something awesome and new – posters! Actually the color is richer and deeper than the old printer, so my cards look even better now, closer to the originals.
Okay, the best part is really that it just fits into the bookshelf where the old one lived, so I don’t have to try to rearrange everything. But the prints are pretty cool.
Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep, and half a dozen others are printed in rich, cartoon colors along with their names and a short description of their place in the Lovecraft Mythos.
I’ve decided to run an open edition of 11″x17″ prints, on high-quality 28-lb bright white laser paper. I’ll be shipping them first class mail in good-quality cardboard poster tubes, so you should get yours in perfect condition and ready to hang. I’ll even sign it!
Monsters of HP Lovecraft Print, 11″x17″ print on paper, $23.23 with free shipping in the US. Available at my Etsy shop.
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art
Tags: copic marker, cthulhu, etsy, for sale, lovecraft, pen and ink, weeble
Red Irony
Tuesday, May 24th, 2011
Red Irony, front cover, by Amy Crook
I have a few of these little folded over pieces of thick, stiff watercolor paper just waiting for me to find something to do with them. This first one had its front painted weeks before the last of its inside panels got their decorations.
When you unfold the first panel of the little square, you get a different Zen circle and surprise tentacles:
Red Irony, detail, by Amy Crook
The inner circle is smaller and a little more broken, and the tentacles seem to be reaching for it, toward some mysterious end.
When you open it further you find that the tentacles are now reaching for a mysterious blue-black circle of paint, accompanied by an appropriate Lovecraft quote.
Red Irony, inside panels, by Amy Crook
From even the greatest of horrors, irony is seldom absent.
-H.P. Lovecraft
The starting F has been decorated with twining red tentacles, this panel done with pen and ink in matching shades of blue-black and blood red, rather than watercolor like the rest of the piece.
Red Irony, 10″x4.25″ watercolor and pen and ink on watercolor paper.
This piece is unframed, and really is more suited to standing snuggled up with old books where it can surprise the unwary, and hopefully make them smile at its odd message. The paper is quite stiff and the materials archival, so it should be able to withstand a bit of wear and tear, though I’d still keep it out of reach of little fingers.
For completion, here’s what the back of the piece looks like, though I may add a signature to the blank back panel before it gets slipped away into storage with the rest of my watercolor pieces.
Red Irony, outside panels, by Amy Crook
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Series and Books, Tentacles, Things I'm a Fan Of
Tags: calligraphy, for sale, lovecraft, pen and ink, red, tentacles, watercolor, zen circle
Lovecrafty
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011
Lovecrafty by Amy Crook
While some pieces come together with effortless synchronicity, others are a struggle from start to finish. This piece was definitely one of the latter, but I’m finally happy with the end result. There’s just something that really amuses me in the way it seems like a cross between Lovecraftian horror and a 12-year-old girl’s diary.
The grey writing is done with a brush pen usually used for shading, the barely-legible words are a couple of especially creepy quotes from HP Lovecraft’s fiction. Blank spaces on the left were filled in with single words or shorter phrases, giving the whole thing a sense of mad, frantic writing, the deranged mind getting out what it’s seen. Or, possibly more insanity-inducing, the inner feelings of a pre-teen.
The images themselves are layered, everything from printer ink to sharpie marker, watercolor to pen and ink. I used water to blur things left and right and there’s even a tiny bit of salt texture, though it doesn’t take very well on this type of paper. I considered adding some tentacle monster green into the mix to dull down the overall cheeriness of the palette, but in the end I couldn’t resist the juxtaposition of color and intent.
Lovecrafty, 5″x7″ pen & ink, watercolor, Sharpie marker and salt on paper.
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Series and Books, Tentacles, Things I'm a Fan Of
Tags: for sale, lovecraft, pen and ink, quote, salt, sharpie, watercolor
2 Comments »
« Or Head Back That Way
More Art This Way »
