Flashback Friday!

These are the first drawings I ever posted on this blog, and I was reminded today how much I still like them, so I thought I’d give ‘em a little love.

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Also, huge thank you to all of my new followers, and to everyone who sent requests and kind words my way. This is a great day for my humble little sketch-blog, and I’ll try to deliver the best content I can.

Ia! Ia!

-Justin

Today we had a Hallowe’en event for kids at my work, and I was given the task of leading a spooky craft of some sort. I opted for paper bag puppets (mostly because that wouldn’t necessitate m going to the craft store for supplies) and these were my sample projects:

(Dagon)

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(Cthulhu)

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(A Shoggoth)

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Now there are kids wandering around Oakland with tentacled Lovecraftian paper monsters on their hands, which I’m really pleased about. Now I need to start working on my Shadow Over Innsmouth puppet show.

Exelsior!

Kraken V. Behemoth, Personal Commission.

I just finished this piece for my friend/coworker/fellow-über-nerd James…

he requested a scene reminiscent of the sperm whale/giant squid’s epic battle, but decidedly more mythic. And he got this.

Although I just finished this version, the original sketch for it was done a few months ago, on a paper placemat, at the Saturn Café:

I like that you can see the lines from the children’s coloring portion through the paper. I also like that in this version the Behemoth had 3 eyes.

Or, I guess, 6 eyes.

Here’s another, slightly more realized version of the Kraken, emphasizing the more crustacial aspects of the design:

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And while on the subject of horrifying things that live under the ocean, here’s a couple of lovecraftian terrors:

Where has the Dagon?, Personal Illustration

I think this drawing is still in progress (and if I work on it some more, I’ll probably repost it here), but it seemed like an appropriate thing to post along with the previous piece, so here it is so far…

And here’s some of the sketch work for figuring out man-fish facial structure:

The one on the top right looks a little Creature-from-the-Black-Lagoon-ish.

I’m alright with that.

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For another touch of the Eldrich, here’s the design for a Cthulhu bookplate I was working on a while ago:

Read for Cthulhu, Bookplate design

I added the Ex Libris to a copied version of this drawing, but i haven’t altered the original yet, because I’m not totally sure how I want the text to look. And because I’m afraid to overwork it. I’m also not sure whether I want this to be part of a series or not.

In any case, here’s the sketch version:

I offered the use of this design to a musician friend of mine for a tour poster, but he decided it was “too metal” for his act. I’m reasonably sure Cthulhu is “too metal” for any occasion, but that’s never stopped me from using his/its likeness before…