Work before this project.

The reason why I'm doing this one project rather then the 'project a week' idea i had in the first place is becuase after a tutorial with my tutors one suggested that i could do one game idea and focus my efforts on that.

it got me thinking, and i felt lost and spread too thin with the week long projects, not to mention rushed, and my tutors tugging me in different directions, to focus on anatomy and perspective, and work on backgrounds, and work on poses and expressions. it was all a bit too much.

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GO HERE FOR MY PREVIOUS FINAL BOSS BLOG

with this project i could get down a base idea that i had some love for and get creative.

i chose hp lovecraft mythos becuase its an interesting concept in the first place, and lovecraft described the horrors in such a vague way, it culd be interpreted different by anyone, thus giving me some le-way with designing characters.

Nyarlathotep from sketch to completion

With the modern look in mind i took elements from my mood board to start things rolling, though i did have a first idea to base him around turkish travellers and dancers like this fella and the clothed figure i found whilst researching nyarlathotep

But he's not any where near egypt nor what i wanted from the design.
heres the sketch i had roughly done based on the clothed figure

I was going for a soft yet arrogant look for him, something that will draw you into him before turning to insane or possibly just killing you

began fleshing out the body, giving him a suave cocky pose

I played aroun with the position of his head angle, sent it to a couple of friends for their opinion, and it was a resounding looking to the left, as it was anatomically correct to counter balance the hips

     

then onto inking him. i wanted to colour this piece with cell shading similar to a comic book style or online comics, as it is a pretty popular nowadays as its relatively easy to render once you've found a light source.

I lost alot of the facial emotion (as you can see below), as it often happens with inking a piece, it was a rough ink, as i wanted to keep my motions as much as possible, and try not to make it look so static

between the lines above and lines below, ive increased the hand size and lowered the belt and bellybutton to increase the size of his torso, as the suit pants are high waisted, it looks strange without the full attire

currently working on the colours to give him. working with blues, turquoises, golds and browns

Marking the colours down I added a Multiplier layer with a red and blocked in shadows and erased them till i got to a good balance, and did the same with an Overlay layer with a light yellow

then i added a mask for the hands, shawl and legs, darkening and lightening the bottom, it really made the image stand out with the block cell shaded colours

Overlaying a papyrus texture, because whats more Egypt then papyrus? added shadow on the floor for grounding him so he isnt going to float off into eternal space, and putting a glowing orb around his hand so signify that yes indeed he is dangerous and quite magical

I wasnt so sure of him at first, disliking how much of his expression and general feel left after i inked him, but slapping some colour on there really pulled him into life.. or.. unlife... or eternal life.

however you want to call it, im very happy with him.

Yog Sothoth progress

I started to paint Yog with a plain pallet of green murky hues opposed to greyscale

I was having difficulty with light sourcing as i had no reference.
I asked a friend of mine who's artistically accurate to push me along the right lines with lighting and if im doing anything wrong.

Here i added an overlay of gradated black shadow to really bring out the depth of the peice, wanting to work that in some how, make it more dramatic with the shadows.

She came back with a  this image ((not this exact one as it was using green base tones and i saved over it without thinking when i was fiddling around with the colours)), reminding me about bounced light and other atmospheric light.
with her help i overlaid some dark shadows and changed the base colours from green to a fleshy tone which worked beautifully with the red bounced light and blue atmospheric as you can see now.

IM going to be using this as a base to work on,  refining the stomach to be more portcullis then boiler
that and adding in the gaseous boils, working off this other artists rendition of Yog Sothoth

for now he is unfinished and awaiting development

Yog Sothoth research

Yog-Sothoth

“I last Night strucke on ye Words that bringe up YOGGE-SOTHOTHE, and sawe for ye firste Time that fface spoke of by Ibn Schacabao in ye ———.” (The Case of Charles Dexter Ward)

“Rais’d Yog-Sothoth thrice and was ye nexte Day deliver’d.” (The Case of Charles Dexter Ward)

“He was soon disliked even more decidedly than his mother and grandsire, and all conjectures about him were spiced with references to the bygone magic of Old Whateley, and how the hills once shook when he shrieked the dreadful name of Yog-Sothoth in the midst of a circle of stones with a great book open in his arms before him.” (“The Dunwich Horror”)

“Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They have trod earth’s fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread.” (“The Dunwich Horror”)

“Imagination called up the shocking form of fabulous Yog-Sothoth—only a congeries of iridescent globes, yet stupendous in its malign suggestiveness.” (“The Horror in the Museum”)

“It was an All-in-One and One-in-All of limitless being and self—not merely a thing of one Space-Time continuum, but allied to the ultimate animating essence of existence’s whole unbounded sweep—the last, utter sweep which has no confines and which outreaches fancy and mathematics alike. It was perhaps that which certain secret cults of earth have whispered of as YOG-SOTHOTH, and which has been a deity under other names; that which the crustaceans of Yuggoth worship as the Beyond-One, and which the vaporous brains of the spiral nebulae know by an untranslatable Sign...” (“Through the Gates of the Silver Key”)

http://www.hplovecraft.com/creation/bestiary.aspx

Having such strong keywords like Gate, Key and Guardian. I had a definite image  wanted to portray with this Old God. Picking out other keywords from wiki's and this text i gathered up another of my keyword list:

YOG-SOTHOTH -

• gate
• bygone magic
• key
• guardian of the gate
• fabulous
• iridescent globes
• maglin
• suggestiveness
• space time
• all in one
• essence
• fancy
• mathmatical

Medieval gate guard? london tower? guard to the king.

My ideas were to have him in a medieval setting, its a good setting which a lot of people enjoy and can visually relate too easily. I began going through Google image search as I have done with my other researched images, looking at Beserker Knights, Gate Knights, Portcullis Gates, Yog Sothoth himself and an array of Fantasy Knights, creating my desired mood board:

With that set up i moved on to some concept sketches, as i didnt have a clear image in my head on how i wanted him to turn out

The thick central torso is what i was aiming for, along with chunky arms, and some sort of gate or shield present. I had the idea of two halves of a gate on each arm/fist, so when he threw his fists down in defence it made a fully functioning blockaid.

another idea was to have him holding a gate, or even better yet, becoming the gate.

I decided on the middle picture, with the small head and sloping shoulders, with comically tiny feet, as he wouldnt need them being a gate n all.

I wanted him to be a construct, a magic entity that looked like it was created.

half knight on one side, half fleshy gaseous bubbles on the other, as Yog is frequently mentioned to have a gaseous state, an iridescent globe like essence, which i wanted to include in his middle, the gate which would be hollow apart from glowing gassy orbs.

I also wanted to give him a war torn appearance, like he had bested thousands of champions and still standing.

Nyarlathotep research

Nyarlathotep

“And it was then that Nyarlathotep came out of Egypt. Who he was, none could tell, but he was of the old native blood and looked like a Pharaoh. The fellahin knelt when they saw him, yet could not say why. He said he had risen up out of the blackness of twenty-seven centuries, and that he had heard messages from places not on this planet. Into the lands of civilisation came Nyarlathotep, swarthy, slender, and sinister, always buying strange instruments of glass and metal and combining them into instruments yet stranger. He spoke much of the sciences—of electricity and psychology—and gave exhibitions of power which sent his spectators away speechless, yet which swelled his fame to exceeding magnitude. Men advised one another to see Nyarlathotep, and shuddered. And where Nyarlathotep went, rest vanished; for the small hours were rent with the screams of a nightmare.” (“Nyarlathotep”)

“What his fate would be, he did not know; but he felt that he was held for the coming of that frightful soul and messenger of infinity’s Other Gods, the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep.” (“The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath”)

“There was the immemorial figure of the deputy or messenger of hidden and terrible powers—the ‘Black Man’ of the witch cult, and the ‘Nyarlathotep’ of the Necronomicon.” (“The Dreams in the Witch House”)

“There are references to a Haunter of the Dark awaked by gazing into the Shining Trapezohedron, and insane conjectures about the black gulfs from which it was called. The being is spoken of as holding all knowledge, and demanding monstrous sacrifices.” (“The Haunter of the Dark”)

from my research nyarlathotep was one of the mos intreseting old gods, with dozens of different identities and physical forms from these sources: wikipedia and yog-sothoth. a few include:

• Appears as a gelatinous mass extruding golden tentacles. 

• Appears as a hooved, hairless, man with pitch black skin and caucasian features. Appears to be an avatar of the popular depiction of Satan in Christianity. 

• Appears as a haughty Egyptian pharaoh wearing a brightly coloured robe. 

• Manifests as a twelve-foot-tall living skeleton with enormous claws and the head of a human embryo.

All if not most of these depictions include black skin, african features and egyptian culture with this old god, which gave me a good base to go on.

With this I put together a list of key words to use in making my image

NYARLATHOTEP -

• tall
• swarthy man
• egyptian pharaoh
• wanderer
• narrator
• magical instruments
• showman
• lecturer
• scientific
• joyous
• messenger
• Nikola Tesla? Pharaoh? gypsy traveller?

Another thing ive found is that he's the only Old God to not be caged away or locked in some sort of mortal object, he's free to roam the earth amongst humans, and thus depicted in various times.

I started to find images of modern egyptian fashion,  primarily silk suits and linen clothes

Cthulhu research - Image ideas 1

Cthulhu

“If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings... It represented a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind. This thing, which seemed instinct with a fearsome and unnatural malignancy, was of a somewhat bloated corpulence...” (“The Call of Cthulhu”)

There are some who are of the opinion that Lovecraft borrowed the name “Cthulhu” from Sumerian mythology. This is a hoax perpetrated by the “Simon” hoax edition of the Necronomicon which combines elements of Sumerian mythology and the Lovecraft myths. The name “Cthulhu” was purely an invention of Lovecraft’s. 

His sketch of Cthulhu may be seen at Robert Arellano’s “The Lovecraft Web”.


Oddly, much debate surrounds the pronunciation of “Cthulhu.” The pronunciation used by most is perpetuated by the “Call of Cthulhu” roleplaying game by Chaosium, Inc., whose books have “Can you say kuh-THOO-loo?” printed on their backs. Several Lovecraftian scholars prefer to pronounce it “Cloo-loo” based on references in Lovecraft’s revision tales. I choose to take a middle ground and aspirate both hs, with a result similar to “kt’hoo-lhoo.” Here are a couple of excerpts from Lovecraft’s letters where he discusses the pronunciation of this word:

The actual sound—as nearly as human organs could imitate it or human letters record it—may be taken as something like Khlûl’-hloo, with the first syllable pronounced gutturally and very thickly. The u is about like that in full; and the first syllable is not unlike klul in sound, since the h represents the guttural thickness. The second syllable is not very well rendered—the l sound being unrepresented. (to Duane Rimel, 23 July 1934)

The best approximation one can make is to grunt, bark, or cough the imperfectly-formed syllables Cluh-Luh with the tip of the tongue firmly affixed to the roof of the mouth. (to Willis Conover, 29 August 1936)

In “Lovecraft in Providence,” Donald Wandrei claims that Lovecraft pronounced it “K-Lütl-Lütl,” yet in the above-mentioned letter to Duane Rimel, Lovecraft claims that Wandrei’s comments on the pronunciation of the term are “largely fictitious.” Robert H. Barlow, in On Lovecraft and Life, claimed that Lovecraft pronounced it “Koot-u-lew.” One can’t help but think that Lovecraft was toying with his friends, since everyone’s pronunciations differ, including his own. Ultimately, does it really matter?

One of the most famous Old Gods from HP Lovecraft's work, he was almost certainly going to be included. and my idea for him within the game would be the last boss, thought technically cthulhu isnt by any means the most powerful or greatest god, neither does he possess any strict powers with the necronomicon but purely for the fact he is the most famous of the old gods have i made him the final boss of this game idea.

I already had an idea with what i wanted him to be, in the relms of HP Lovecrafts timeline as a Victorian Gentleman. Like with every old god i wanted a humanish disguise and their true form, with this i started out with a few human-ish designs

combining a victorian man or HP Lovecraft and a horrific squid head, incorporated into his features.

I wanted to have him seated in a chair, the view looking up as he has a position of power, possibly holding a glass of something with sharp lighting and shadows.

      

using Manga studios perspective tool, i tried to get a handle on where the eyeline was and how to go about using the picture as a guild line

                                      

I really didnt like how that was going, and none of it made any sense to me and it really wasnt going anywhere good.

so i asked a friend to model a body and a chair with the camera position i wanted, resulting in this picture

which i then tried to block out over the top, similar to how i blocked out Shub Niggurath's body.

again it didn't go well, i really didn't understand how to block out the legs or get the perspective right.

plus the head looked ugly

Azathoth research and ideas

Azathoth

“...that last amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the centre of all infinity—the boundless daemon-sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin, monotonous whine of accursed flutes; to which detestable pounding and piping dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic ultimate gods, the blind, voiceless, tenebrous, mindless Other Gods whose soul and messenger is the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep.” (“The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath”)

“...I started with loathing when told of the monstrous nuclear chaos beyond angled space which theNecronomicon had mercifully cloaked under the name of Azathoth.” (“The Whisperer in Darkness”)

“Eventually there had been a hint of vast, leaping shadows, of a monstrous, half-acoustic pulsing, and of the thin, monotonous piping of an unseen flute—but that was all. Gilman decided he had picked up that last conception from what he had read in the Necronomicon about the mindless entity Azathoth, which rules all time and space from a curiously environed black throne at the centre of Chaos.” (“The Dreams in the Witch House”)

One of the first Old Gods I had an idea for, and the one, personally most complex for me.

Going through my sources I gathered some notes about him 

AZATHOTH -

• gaseous
• bubbles
• Sultan
• Drums
• flutes
• piping
• dance
• blind
• voiceless

Host ideas: 1700's Mozart's or Beethoven's time period. Renaissance french dandy, musician. pompous, elegant

definitly going with some sort of late century musician and i found a Tumblr post all about period clothing
http://shoomlah.tumblr.com/post/76245310670/claires-fancy-pants-historical-fashion-master-post

I tried my best to find some referance pictures here and there, the ones i mostly found were from Google, searching up french dandys, 1700 period male clothing etc.

Also something creepy like the episode from doctor who 'the girl in the fireplace'

With these ideas in mind, i made a few concept sketches, as i wanted him to be a gaseous ethereal being with a decorated mask, wig and hat and draped on clothes

I havent made any more progress on Azathoth and I dont think I will because of time constraints and the complexity with his costume design, id need more time to really figure it out, as i'd want it to be as accurate as possible, to not piss off any history majors.
its the one thing that is hindering me on most of these paintings, the fact i need to get my research perfect for the period otherwise it falls apart, very challenging indeed.