The Shadow Over Innsmouth - part eight of eight

The cover. The end.

The Shadow Over Innsmouth - part seven of eight

Bros, bros, bros.

How are you? I hope you are well. I am well, and so I wish the same for you. I am living every week like it's Shark Week.

Getting close to the end, here. Yep. These are the last two aside from the cover and it's colored, +text version, and they may be my favorites. One definitely is, and the other I am simply partial to. Perhaps it is also good? YOU DECIDE.

A simple image, to be sure. However, I think that I struck the appropriate mood for the scene, and so it pleases me. This was a lot of fun to do, because it was almost entirely tonal with very little actual detail to it, so I could do some more "painting" than I do in the more elaborate compositions. I say "painting," because I apply the graphite with a paintbrush. My original thumbnail for this had Devil's Reef in the background, but I took that out because it made the lighting I wanted a little strange. I think this works better. Nothing like a nice horizon line. This isn't really from any particular part of the story, but, like the one with the little houses, is more of a general interpretation of the story.

And the next.



Here is Obed Marsh convening with the Deep Ones. From the thumbnail, I knew this was going to be the best one, and I think that is because it hits a good level of both atmosphere and detail. Ah, ah, I am pleased with this one. I don't have all that much to say about it. Maybe you do? ONLY YOU KNOW.

Did you guys go to James Jean's opening in NYC? I did. Man was it crowded! I wanted to cry a little bit, but not from the crowd. From the paintings, the paintings. Man. That dude. Man.

I have a rather tentative hold over Thesis and Illustrated Book next semester. I may be doing some normal stuff, but with a little twist. I already want to start working on Illustrated Book.

I hope this New Year is turning out as well as you had hoped.

The Shadow Over Innsmouth - Part six of eight

Yes, well. Here we are, in the year two thousand and nine. Congratulations to you all who have survived so long. Only three more years until that magnificent rainbow-snake Quetzalcoatl descends on our frail people before devouring the sun and ending us all. Until then, let's do our best.

Furthermore, it's time to continue our swim through bleak Innsmouth. The gloomy shore approaches; we are almost done.

Obed Marsh, the man who first drew the Deep Ones to Innsmouth, thought himself a greater man than he was and spurned his Fishy masters. Well, "spurned" is a subjective term. Really, he just stopped offering his townsfolk up as sacrifices to their Old Gods. Of course, somebody's blood must be spilled into those cold seas to slake Cthulhu's endless thirst. Might as well be the regular folks of Innsmouth.


When Obed goes too long without offering flesh, the Deep Ones come for it in the night. At this point in the story, Zadok Allen goes into something of a drunken rage at the recollection of certain other things the Deep Ones brought with them from the ocean floor. Just some of the unimaginable (and thereby unillustratable) things from the Lovecraft mythos.

Anyway, that one is a really simple image. Not the best, not my favorite, but a story-flesher.

This next one was a lot of fun, and is probably the most detailed of all of them.
This doesn't partane to any particular point in the story, other than the general impression that the people of Innsmouth have access to an infinite supply of fish and sea-life because of their pact with the Deep Ones. I kind of went nuts with this one and just put more and more different types of sealife into the net, whether they were logical or not. You might notice a few funny things in there.

I bought a ton of books over the holiday break that I am slowly tackling. Part of it was the backlog of books I simply didn't have a chance to read when I was first recommended them by whomever. There was also the rapidly approaching start of this next and last semester which brings with it yet another bout with Allan Comport's Illustrated Book class, which yielded these submarine fever dreams. I will do a post later about my acquisitions and my findings therein.

I also had a chance to see The Wrestler and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The former is, as you have heard, a spectacular character study by the famously inventive Darren Aronofsky (pleasantly restrained here). The latter is beautiful and well acted, but ultimately ends up being a pointless retread of Forrest Gump with an interesting premise that never comes to fruition satisfactorily. Very nice effects, though.

You may perhaps remember these three charmers? Well they have all been accepted into Society of Illustrators West 47. Congratulations to all who got in. I'm not sure if I'm sending these off to the show at Gallery Nucleus, but I may yet. I may yet.

I might also be headed into New York this weekend with Kali and Jeremy to see the James Jean show at the Jonathan Levine Gallery. God, it's going to be spectacular/crowded. Hope to see you there (if I am there).

The Shadow Over Innsmouth - Part five of eight

Ah! Ah ha! Ah ha ha ha!

Yes, I am done. I am done done done. Except for a presentation tomorrow, I am done. My comic is done, my finals are done, and Innsmouth is done. It went well. I will be posting the remains of this gutted fish as I see fit. I still have to scan a few, but yes. Yes yes yes.

So here are two images from wildly divergent points in the story. The first is near the climax, the second is a tale told by Zadok Allen, drunken old man.


This first one was intended to be shown rotated 180 degrees and flipped horizontal...but I think it works better like this. I'm not sure. This is when our narrator is in full realization that yes, this whole town is populated by disgusting fish men. He then determines (near empirically) that they are murderous fish men. He then decides to leave through a nearby window.

This second one I like more.
This is when Zadok Allen is explaining to our heroic (and soon to be defenestrated) hero that the early people of Innsmouth's surrounding islands made sacrifices to the Deep Ones in exchange for treasures, both gold and fishy. Also, the fish men later decided that they wanted to intermarry with the island people, which seems like they're just spitting in their faces.

This one was really difficult, because my thumbnail didn't really have any indication of lighting. I just sort of had to make decisions on the fly, which was alright, but ended up being a little time consuming. I really liked making those fishy faces in the rocks. All rocks should have fishy faces on them. Except for some rocks, which are ok on their own.

I think I'm going to be submitting these to some upcoming things in the hopes that they get in and people see them. People would like to see them, right? Some things include Spectrum, Society of Illustrators student show, and 3x3. I don't think I will submit all of them, because there are fifteen (I cropped one off) and quality does indeed vary. I hope you still like the ones that aren't the best. It's nice to have a favorite. I will be posting this all over again in a big lump at the end, and I hope you can help me decide what I should submit to where. That would be nice of you, blog readers. I don't ask much of you.

I will be posting some color experiments that I decided to do after completing the cover (which is colored). I liked how that turned out, so I'm seeing how time consuming it is to add little bits of color to these. Maybe it will make them better? Who knows, who knows.

I love you, blog readers. I really do. I hope you do not hate me for posting lapses that are all too frequent. But honestly, I just wrote a ten page paper and composed a twenty minute presentation for my class tomorrow, so it's not like I've been sitting around doing nothing.

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.

The Shadow Over Innsmouth: production

Some production stuff for The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft for my Illustrated Book class. I've always wanted to do something based on Lovecraft, but I always back out at the last minute for some reason. Well, now I'm doing a thing for it, and it's a big thing.

These are all roughs. I have two pieces done which will be uploaded later when I finish some more.

Cover with potential text treatment. I forgot to put my name anywhere on the book dummy that I made. Whoops! I'll take a photo of the dummy later on.



Interior cover for the front and back. I imagined the story, which is 70 pages or so, serialized rather than collected in anthologies like most of the Lovecraft stuff. A bunch of his works could be separated into small, classy, illustrated hardbacks.



Storyboards for final images. I did 32 thumbnails and picked out 15 that I liked and am going to be taking to final by the end of the semester. Finals are 6x9", black and white aside from the cover, in powdered graphite and watercolor. I think there's a little check mark next to all of the ones I'll be doing.







I'm keeping my thesis comic under wraps for awhile longer. I think I'll probably just post the thing when it's done on the 17th of next month. I probably won't post the whole thing. You'll have to go buy the Popgun 3 Anthology when it comes out in March.

Or, you know. Talk to me about it.

One of the biggest things I've been pushing myself to do more in my work is move the camera around. I've done a lot of pure line-of-sight compositions, and I'm trying to better my drawing ability by pushing the angles I'm using in my compositions. I think this Lovecraft stuff is a huge step forward for me in that regard. Hopefully the finals don't suck noodles.