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blackdidthis — Lovecraft_Rats in the Walls
Published: 2010-04-01 02:31:48 +0000 UTC; Views: 897; Favourites: 19; Downloads: 0
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The Rats in the WallsThis is of my favorites in the collection. As cool or what-not it may appear here such; in real life it is rather towering and disturbing. I used to know the exact count of the skulls you see laying at the lower portion of the image… but I have sadly forgotten it.
The skulls were more what the greatest task here since I had wanted to give them a depth as well as 2D width while stacking them. At the period there was little aid of 3D software that would have had made my life so much easier.
As much as this story would be arguably his most illustrated story to date (singled out Cthulhu images don’t count
), it has also caused modern readers to claim Lovecraft to have strong racial discomforts due to a name a cat has been given.Though in general; the story goes on about a disturbing revelation of the protagonist’s family heritage and not about the cat as is.
I would strongly advise your reading Lovecraft's stories.
This is an airbrush illustration from a series I had done as a rather newbie illustrator. But sadly they are not the best photographed due to their size.
Save from damage that has appeared with time, most of it was intentionally done due to add an aging effect.
You may find others as well as the story behind it here: [link]
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Comments: 10
Good point... Sadly as the illustrations were "As is" very time consuming (All was hand drawn and painted excluding the use of photographs) I already had too much on my plate to reach the deadline.
I tried but could not overcome creating a cat within the correct caliber that would match the rest of the collection. So such I had to dismiss it rather than invest a great amount of time on its fur and so forth.
This collection was fun at it's time. But today as I look through them I marvel at how I dared create such things without a mouse right click for "Undo".
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looking back to this five years later, I think you're giving this piece far less credit than it deserves. The attention to detail is marvelous, and is even more impressive knowing you were working with a deadline.
Really, my statement back then was not a criticism and was merely an idle comment.
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Oh no, I had not taken it as any negative statement in any way. But wanted to express my reasons for not persuing an addition I simply agree with.
I had put too much detail on too many assets of this one and it cost me to show lesser attention to some parts of the other illustrations. Like the one that upsets me most is not being able to make the "hundreds of characters" on the illustration from "The Call of Cthulhu". I also sort of skimped on that one due to the same excuse I had for the cat. Both because I was never hundred percent sure for the design of the creatures/minions and secondly I had little time.
In contrast a skull was literally my ball park and I must confess that I sort of kept on it to sort of postpone having to deal with parts I was not as certain.
At the time I had had counted the amount of skulls as I drew the them but I honestly do not remember the number now. They were too much to airbrush and even draw (I do not know if it is clear enough but they were not just comic book skull mounds with drawing curves atop each other as if drawing clouds. I attempted to also include a spacial depth to each one assuming the distance each would have to be in order to correctly mound in 3 dimension).
This was of my first large scale illustration projects of the time and in retrospect I do not know if I can ever dare something so such once again. None the less I must admit that I do take pride looking at them as I have clearly learned much through the process.
And as selfishly as it may sound such words as that of yours here has simply made so much of those many hours so MUCH more worth it. I lack a response that would correctly portray my gratitude. Thank you VERY much!
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Thank you for your generous words
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NICE! This was one of my fave stories by Lovecraft! Very nicely done!
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I have come cross a series of variations in fact illustrations of the story.
I have to confess that it was of the stories with the most plastic elements in it.
Very glad you liked it.
Black
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