Evolution of Cthulhu & Concept Art

Evolution of Cthulhu and Concept Art

I am going to take you on a little journey of the art and design of Cthulhu who has over the years been my most prominent painting subject. For those of you know don't know Cthulhu is H.P. Lovecraft's most famous creation despite the fact that Cthulhu only  appeared Lovecraft novel The Call of Cthulhu. While self training and going to college to gain my artistic skills I had decided  to sharpen my ability to perform as concept artist by working from his prose alone and to not to follow the crowd of previous depictions. Cthulhu has been and always will be my on going project. 

The Old one were, the Old Ones are, 

and the Old Ones shall be.

Cthulhu Rising

 My first attempts at painting Cthulhu was primitive at best because painting skill aside I really didn't understand my subject nor did I understand the process of doing concept art or the finer aspects of composition. This was actually before I had even read Lovecraft's work and I only saw the works of others and thought he was cool.

Star Spawn

My second attempt was after I actually started researching and reading Lovecraft's work and I started to understand a little more about Lovecraft's vision. This piece for example is a Starspawn part of Cthulhu's race once I learned that Cthulhu is actually an alien from another world, but his power was so great that he was elevated to godhood status by mankind. As you can see my skill was improving but I was also trying to break free from the depictions other artists have done in the past.

I did this piece when I finally started to understand the need of a visual narrative of an illustration and concept piece. I learned that I had to stimulate the imaginations of my viewers with my work in order to engage them. I kept things simple and straight forward and the feedback I got from this attempt was positive. It was then that I started to learn that I can't operate in a vacuum and needed feedback from my audience.

Lovecraft's Original Sketch

             Wishful Thinking 

Blind Perspective

About this time I was exploring Cthulhu's design even more, but this time I allowed to look at only one visual depiction and that was from Lovecraft's own sketch of how he saw Cthulhu looking. Also during this time I was really learning how to push my rendering skills and exploring in techniques of color and rendering.

Cthulhu Concept

In this design I was trying to break away from the conventional presentations of how Cthulhu was suppose to look like. At this point in time I ended up view other Cthulhu depictions. I think at the time I was also being influenced by other movies. For instance, I forget the name of the movie but it showed a dragon that had feather like wings that were actually scales.

Ends to a Mean

Once again I was exploring the narrative and to this day I found that being able to show a narrative is not only important for illustration but also for concept art and for the very same reasons. One of illustration and concept artwork most important aspects is the need to communicate to the viewer whether it be a general audience or an art director. This piece was also about having fun as it is bit of fan art when you notice the cube the little girl is holding is the puzzle box from the Movie Hell Raiser.

Cthulhu Sketch

This piece actually was a sketch I did during a lecture in one of my art classes, but I was paying attention, honest! This was an important design because I had started to to get tunnel vision in my design and I started to let go. When I mean by tunnel vision I mean it was the only solution I felt was worth exploring or I felt that would work. Letting go of such perceptions is probably one of the hardest things to do in order to become a good concept artist because you have to be able to present different variations of a single subject in order to get the desired result.

Cthulhu's Uninvited 

Again in this piece I was exploring the narrative more and a bit of design as well. I was also returning to the literary description as it described Cthulhu having scales.

Wishful Thinking 2

Here I returned to this piece knowing sometimes going back and doing it again is a good thing and that you don't want to throw away a good thing just for the sake of progress.

















Lastly here is my latest concept design of Cthulhu. Again I was letting go of previous design, but I returned to some of the more literary descriptions of Cthulhu by Lovecraft, but also based on feedback and discussions with fellow Lovecraftians. Again here you see my skill has improved considerably and this is due to time of constantly doing art, but also the contracted speculation work I have been doing for MMOmagic as a concept artist which hopefully will pay off someday soon or at the very least has been giving me experience as a concept artist.

Cthulhu Concept

Today I still work as a freelance artist and I don't always know where the money is coming as commissions come in sporadically which makes it hard to pay the bills. In order to counter balance this I have to work with my clients which include helping them or working with them for kickstarter projects like the one below. Please help by becoming a risk free money backer, by sharing this blog on various social media such as Facebook, twitter and more, or be excellent by doing both!

From speed painting to full painting!

Back when I was doing the art for Spooks! Welcome to the Great Beyond, I had to do a lot of speed paintings to fill up the book because the budget was low and so it was decided to go economy with some of the art, so the book would not feel unbalanced in art. I am working artist so of course if you are good at something don't do it for free, but on the same token you want what you do look good and to be helpful. Some of those speed paintings, since by contract I still own full copyrights, I decided I would revisit and turn into something wonderful. The last two days I lived up to that promise to one of those pieces.

As many as you know I am a Lovecraftian who often brings in Lovecraftian work into my art. One of the speed paintings I did for Spooks! was a NPC portrait of H.P.Lovecraft which I wrote into the book. This painting took my approximately 30 minutes to do, but it would just one among many that I painted for the book. The NPCs in the book are all historic people painted to look like a variety of different Spooks. According the game, a person rises as a certain type of spook depending on how they died or lived their lives. In the case of Lovecraft, he died of cancer and the book states that most who die from disease rise as zombies.

I loved the speed paint that I did of Lovecraft, not only because he is one of my favorite authors but because painting zombies is fun as hell! So I decided to return and make it something special. Now I mentioned that painting zombies is fun and I will tell you why! Zombies are like old people in that they have so much detail and texture to their faces to the point that it is beautiful. It is like exploring a map to some unknown land. For this composition at first I planned on adding a ton of references to Lovecraft's work like him holding the Necronomicon, as well as a syringe holding the reanimator reagent, and tentacles hugging him around the shoulders, but then I decided that it would make the piece to busy and that I wanted to keep it simple and straight forward. I did however keep the necronomicon in the painting but it is shelved. The syringe design I was going for a steampunk quality but it was really inspired by the memory syringes from the movie Dark City.


If you have any questions about my art please feel free to ask!


Also don't forget to check out the Kickstarter for the first expansion to Spooks!Welcome to the Great Beyond. We need all the support we can get!

Arkham: A nice place to Visit: My process

        Ever since Mike Davis was kind enough to show my War of the Worlds Vs Cthulhu composition on his website Lovecraft Ezine and on his corresponding Facebook Page it has been getting more coverage than I have ever had before. So I thought it would be a good idea to share a little bit about the process I took in creating it as well as my other art.


 

However, before I get to my process I will share a detail that doesn't show up well on the versions that I have up on the internet for viewing. First there is a lot more detail to Cthulhu and second is the billboard  advertisement for the fictional Arkham City. While this doesn't show up in most of the web versions, it does show up well on a full size print which can be bought through Zazzle or Deviant Art which you can get to via the page tabs above.

         The first step I took when planning this composition is working up some quick thumbnail sketches in Photoshop. The ratio size of these thumbnail sketches are in direct proportion to the size of the canvas that I desired for the final piece. I already had a good idea of what I wanted, because I had visualized it in a dream, so the changes are minor in the variations for these thumbs, but often this process is a brain storming session, because while at times I might have started off with a small seed of an idea, thumbing may allow it to grow into anything. Mostly what I was looking for was positioning and poses for the primary and secondary foci of this composition. To help me with placement I used my golden ratio overlay tools. You can find out more about that on my Golden-Compositions post. After finding the general positioning and poses that I like, I then add in more content with a few more thumbnails for a more complete composition.

               After I choose the final thumbnail sketch I scale this rough sketch up to a large size canvas and refine the sketch more. During this sketch I am looking for a tighter drawing so my concerns are about proper perspective and form since I don't have to worry about the compositional placement anymore. I also add in more details, but I keep these details loose because I don't want to obsess about it; this is a easy trap to fall into and I try to avoid it at all costs. I sketch right into Photoshop via my Wacom tablet and I do so on a transparent layer because this allows me to paint underneath my sketch so that I can keep my drawing separate from my painting, because the last thing you want to do is be destructive to the work you have already done.


        Painting now begins and I start off  lowering the opacity of my sketch to around 30%  and then lock the layer. I then create a new layer under this and begin painting the local colors I want for all my objects. Sometimes, I will go back and change this as needed. Your local colors are the true color of your objects but they will be effected by the temperature of light and shadow later and so will look very different later on. The only exception I made here was the sky. When I paint skies I just let my intuition take over and taking logic out of the process because doing skies I find to be an abstract experience.



       When finished with that I lock my local color layer and then create two new layers over this to start working in light and shadow. One layer is set to multiply at a lower opacity and soft light on the other. To know more about this process you can check out this other article I wrote called color-blending-fx-brushing-and-photos which not only explains the process but also includes video tutorials I have created.




        Now that I have color and value down close to what I want, I create merged copy layer of what I have created so far and paint directly on that; this way my canvas becomes my pallet and I don't have to worry about using color swatches. I then clean up and make alteration to color as I think it needs it. I also starting laying in some base texture as a starting point for texture and details. I use these textures merely as a starting point and guide and I paint over this to fit the painting.  If you would like to know more about textures then you might check out my texture-hunter part 1.

My last step is to bring the painting home, which generally means that I continue painting in refinements, textures and details. The very last effort I made on this painting was to make one more merged copy of the work I had so far and rotated the image a few degrees for a dutch angle to create some mood but the reason I only did this a little bit because I didn't want to throw my compositional placement off. If I find that I cannot figure out what more to do or if I am getting fussy over the painting I walk away from the painting for several hours and then come back to it with fresh eyes.

So I hope you found this interesting and helpful and would be glad to answer any questions so feel free to ask them in the comment box.

Call of Cthulhu: Legs

I recently just finished up a group of commissioned illustrations for Jim Philips' new Call of Cthulhu adventure book call Legs. This was an enjoyable project to work on, not only because it was Lovecraftian, but also because of the working relationship I developed with Jim and I was impressed to see the final layout of the book combined with my artwork.

This was the final layout for the book and I think it came out looking really good. The adventure book is for the Call of Cthulhu RPG game and it is a free PDF download. Free PDF Download



















I took a picture of my own hand holding a scrap of paper for a reference of this shot.









One of the few things that can disturb me as a horror artist and that is critters bursting from the skin so I could relate with this guy.










It is always a challenge to do sexy plus gory at the same time. I also used the Schindler's List trick of just using the color red for this mostly black and white piece.







And yet this guy is not even fully grown yet.
















This is the cover with out the text layout, although having the text is really good as well. Not sure what I prefer.

Digital Freehand Inking With Adobe Illustrator

Being a good inker is a valuable skill as either a comic book artist, graphic designer or an illustrator. While traditional inking skills with brush and pen makes for a good solid foundation, having digital inking skills in today's day and age is a must. When it comes to digital inking, knowing how to handle the pen tool is a must and it was something I quickly had to learn during my internship at MGA Entertainment, however using the pen tool, while can give you a lot of control, also takes a lot of time and has it's own problems. The ability to ink fast is another skill that is a must in the art world, because let's face it, the faster you can do quality work the more money you can make. So in this video I am showing how to digitally ink using the blob tool which is more intuitive and has a more natural look. In this video I have used a Cthulhu sketch I did for T-shirt flair in my new clothing line I am calling Lovecraftian Flair.

Visions of Revision

For those that follow my work regularly, they know that my artistic skills have improved over the years. However, when I look back at my past work I still see the potential those composition had. Leonardo da Vinci once said, "Art is never finished, only abandoned" but instead of living with that abandonment I have taken it upon myself to revisit my older works and improve them to make them stronger.

 

Before and After

Wishful Thinking

 Before and After

Grand Priestess of Cthulhu

 Before and After

Cthulhu's Rising: Humanity's Defiance

Before and After

Grand Priestess of Cthulhu 2

Of course I started these revisions off with my Lovecraft pieces as that is something I specialize in, but there will be more revisions to come and they will cover a more variety of subject matters. Feel free to ask any questions you may have and also don't forget to visit my new online store in which you can purchase these paintings as full size prints or as other products such as coffee mugs, skate boards and more!

Check out more of my work at Tobias White Illustrations

You should also follow me on Facebook, linkedin, Deviant Art, or catch me at @TobiasWhite1
Don't forget, you can also purchase many of my works as full sized prints at TBW Designs On Zazzle

Evolution of Cthulhu

 When I began getting into digital painting I decided I needed not only be able to do a variety of things but to also have a niche at something I would be really good at and known for painting. Cthulhu one day caught my eye and that started my niche and my love for the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Through the natural exploration of being known as Cthulhu and the progression of my artistic skills I have watch him seemingly evolve slowly over the years as I explored his form. From this I learned how much variation and exploration can be done in visual development which is the career I now pursue. From top to bottom you can witness how much and how many different forms I went through to get to his latest incarnation. I also learned not to work in a vacuum and found that the more research you do for a certain project the easier the process. Such reference include photo references of similar things and reading up on the descriptions of the original author. In fact one of the best resources I found was sketch that Lovecraft did himself of Cthulhu and it helped me form my own design. Cthulhu will probably continue to evolve for me but I glad for that as it will keep me fresh when it comes to visual development.

Check out more of my work at Tobias White Illustrations

You should also follow me on Facebook, linkedin, Deviant Art,  or catch me on Tweeter at @TobiasWhite1

Children of the Gods

 Back in college, one of the classes I took was a sequential art class which was basically all about creating comics. I learned quite a bit about storytelling both visually and in a literary way. This five page comic was my final for that class and it was a story that was rolling around in my head for a while, even before I took the class. The comic is inspired by the mythos of H.P. Lovecraft and it is a pilot for something I might do in a larger scale down the road as either an online comic or as a graphic novel. When working on this comic I was unaware that we were allowed to go past five pages, which is why it is a little crowded, but in a way this was also good because it forced me to be creative in planning out the paneling for the story; to do more with less is a great way to push one's skills.

On a side note, if I do continue on with this idea then I might change the title to Liberis Deorum.

Check out more of my work at Tobias White Illustrations
You can also follow me on Deviant Art or catch me on Tweeter at @TobiasWhite1