The Shadow Over Innsmouth: Part 4 of 8

Hey! Everybody! Awesome. You're all here. Great.

We're at the half way point of my Innsmouth journey, and although I can't quite see the finish line, I'm pretty sure it's coming up soon. My comic for Popgun 3 finished up last week, so maybe I'll post some production stuff from that in lieu of the final thing.

Anyway. Innsmouth! Wow, what a neat place.


There are fish-people everywhere. Here are some fish-people going to Sunday Mass at the Esoteric Order of Dagon, where they will take their fishy communion and pray to their fishy Gods. There's our charming narrator at the top, rather dismayed that he isn't in proper dress. Next time, friend. Next time.

And if you're a good little fishy acolyte, someday you'll be able to swim down and join your fishy Gods in their fishy slumber.


I'm not sure which Fishy God that is (I'm not allowed in the order, owing to my un-fishy nature), but it might be High Priest Cthulhu. I think Mother Hydra shows up in my next one, at least in carved idol form.

So I got this electric eraser, right? Man, I can't believe they have such things. It's awesome, though. It's like a really low torque power drill or screwdriver, but with an eraser at the end. It's great for getting little lines like that Fishy God's fishy feelers. Remember, these are just about 6x9", so those are some tiny lines.

Considering this is the half way point, I thought I might catch up one some of the images that I've retouched. Here are two of them.

In this one I really just sharpened up the background and drew in all of those houses, then I added some more contrast into the foreground to complement it. Much better, much better.


I really just pushed the value on this one a lot further, darkening up the figure and carving the shiny spots into the mirror with my electric eraser. Again, much better.

Hey, have you ever read The Weekly Dig? It's an alternative news magazine up in Boston (or down in Boston, depending on where you are). They're going to print my Monkey King on their cover soon. Totally awesome, right? Yeah man. They've had some cool people on their covers before, like James Jean and evil-Sam. Such great company. It's like being at a sweet party.

Anyway, I'm headed to Philadelphia for thanksgiving, but I'll be kicking out work all through. Maybe I'll post some pictures of Franksgiving, Thanksgiving's hot dog themed follow-up. Hey!

The Shadow Over Innsmouth: part three of eight

Wow. Drawn. Did you guys hear? I was on there on Monday. I almost fainted. It was so wonderful.

I'm really glad that people have been responding positively to the recent work I've been doing. Keep those comments rolling, guys. There's a long way to go.

And so, the third part of The Shadow Over Innsmouth.


This was the fourth piece I did for the series, and now that I've become more comfortable with the media and see it along with the others, I think I might need to revisit it. On the other hand...maybe not. I might just need to futz with the levels or something. This is also chronologically the last piece in the series, when our narrator discovers the shocking truth...! He in also a fish-frog guy! Only, he's just gradually changing. Oh well, off to Mother Hydra and Father Dagon at the bottom of the Atlantic. Also, his left hand is the best hand I've ever drawn.

And the next.

This is from Zadok Allan's exposition on the origins of the Innsmouth curse, where a nearby island was found with giant stone obelisks featuring horrible monsters on them. It's mentioned that the island and the ruins appear as if they were thrust upward from some deep oceanic pit. Pretty awesome, if you ask me. I may go back into this one and add some glyphs to that cliff-face or something, and there's one monster-face I want to change. I'm pretty psyched with how this one turned out, because I did a lot more reductively on it than on the other pieces and I think it looks neat.

As always, these are 6x9" of powdered graphite and watercolor on 140lb Arches hot pressed watercolor paper.

So, I realized that reposting my images gradually as I rework them is sort of tiresome. I've gone back into the previous piece with Zadok Allan and his sweet Lady Liquor, but I have yet to scan it. I'm thinking of reposting all of the final pieces at the end of the semester so you can get a good feeling of how they all relate to one another. However, I will still probably repost images as they get "completed," but expect a big bulky post in about a month or so.

In other news, did you know they made Electric Erasers? Whitney Sherman told me about them and, well, $40 later it was mine and it is awesome. I haven't used it yet on any finals, but I'm really excited about it.

Also in other news, my comic will be done later this week. Isn't that awesome? I'm still debating whether to post the thing or not. You guys have to promise to go buy the third volume of Image's Popgun Anthology in March, alright? There's tons of awesome stuff in it. Also my comic will be there. You can judge it however you like.

I love your comments, blog readers. They are brilliant and alarmingly handsome/beautiful sounding.

The Shadow Over Innsmouth: part two of eight

My traipse through sunny Innsmouth continues with the next two images and an updated version of the beach scene from the last post.

Thanks for all the comments, they were super helpful. I've decided to keep these black and white for the time being, considering I'm doing sixteen of them before the semester ends. I may work with the color in them after the fact. The cover I will be doing will be in color, though. I assume that'll be in the last batch of images I do.

Here's the updated beach scene:


I darkened the town and added white watercolor paint to bring out the windows and the highlights in the ocean. I think it's good for me to "finish" each image, let it stew for a few days, and then go back into it with fresh eyes. That's what happened with this one.

This next one is actually the second image I made for the project, in which our narrator realizes that his hotel room is exactly as insecure as he feared it might be.


This next image is from earlier in the story when the narrator uses whiskey to coax the story of Innsmouth's haunted past from its oldest citizen, the untainted Zadok Allan. Doing character-based work with pwdered graphite is a whole different challenge compared to doing the atmospheric scenery stuff, but it's loads of fun.



As always, powdered graphite and watercolor on 6x9" Arches hotpress watercolor paper. 140 lbs, I think.

Also as always, comments are hugely appreciated, especially because I'm juggling multiple pieces at once that don't have individual deadlines. If you've got suggestions, have at them! I've got some time to do edits and I want these to be as good as they can be.

Live large, blog readers. Live large.

The Shadow Over Innsmouth: part one of eight

The first two images for The Shadow Over Innsmouth, or rather, two of the images created for The Shadow Over Innsmouth, as these are the oldest and newest images I've made. They just happened to be the ones I touched up first. I skewed the time period back a bit so it would be more fun to draw. Also, the time period wasn't terribly necessary to the story. Like the rest of the project, these were done in powdered graphite and around around 6x9" on hot press watercolor paper.



The first image being a citizen of Innsmouth, and something of a dandy. The second image being the creatures leaving the sea and descending upon the town. I'm still toying around with whether or not I want to add some color to these, as although they were created with the intention of being black and white, a little color might do them good. A super speedy pass yielded the following.



Not exactly what I want, but is it something to pursue? I'm hoping you could tell me.

New images soon

But first,

Congratulations to Mr. Barack Hussein Obama, our next President of the United States, and congratulations to America, whose citizens are not as stupid as we all secretly feared.