Dagon research. Jared Krichevsky

Yes! I know, very weird. But relevant. This is Jared Krichevsky's piece where he have created a realistic looking Zoidberg from the TV show, Futurama. I love this piece, its so dramatic and dark. Zoidberg seems plausible and terrifying, the appearance I want to create with my Dagon piece.
The colours are so dramatic and grab attention with ease and draw the audience in to the beautifully horrifying creature in centre. The way the artist has drawn the stance of the creature is also very attracting to look at, he seems to be in a stage of anger and attack at the eye of the audience, yet is stood slightly turned as if turning to attack.
Love it!

Fish!

I know, it seems like a strange thing to look at. But I thought, as the dagon is an aquatic species I thought I may have to look at mouths of other species similar, even as sightly similar as a fish.
I chose to look at trout and pike as these have large opened mouths.

I have found some difficulty when sketching the Dagons mouth before hand, I found it hard creating a wide open mouth that would look like it could match up when closed. Looking at these shows me ways of drawing the jaw in such a way that it would work and how the teeth would come out of the mouth.

Angry animals

As I am drawing the dagon creature in attack mode I thought the best place for research would be to look at animals in defence and attack mode. I want the Dagon to have a very natural and raw emotion in his face.

When looking at these animals I can see a few common characteristics in all the animals. They all have wide mouths baring sharp teeth and the lips curled up and back in to a powerful snarl. They're eyes seem to slant to crease up from the muscles and skin pulling away from the mouth.

Front Cover

Book Cover

I have been asked to create a cover for the book I am illustrating, I have the choice between creating a cover for the Necronomicon or the book within that book that I illustrated called Dagon. I have chosen to illustrate the cover for Necronomicon.

Here is my beloved copy of the Necronomicon. On the cover is a gold embossed Cthulhu, this is because Cthulhu is the most famous of Lovecrafts dark creations. 

As Cthulhu is most well known I thought putting him on my cover would be a good idea. 

Here are some rough sketches of a few ideas that popped in to my head, I am mostly looking at the ideas of using Lovecrafts face, and incorporating some of his creatures. Most of my sketches gravitate around the idea of Cthulhu. 

I decided I wanted to draw Lovecraft's face with a tentacle coming out of his head, I drew a few sketches to test where the tentacles should come out and I decided out of the eye would look the most intriguing. 

Mr H.P Lovecraft himself!

A practice sketch of Lovecrafts face. 

Finnished and outlined. 

As I wanted the majority of the piece to be black and white as it would go with the book I used fineliner, but when it came to the tentacle I thought it would look better with some colour so here is a page where I tested different colours of Brusho. I tested Leaf Green, Emerald Green and Turquoise. I came to the decision that Turquoise would not suit the tentacle, and picked Leaf Green as the most suited. 

I used leaf green for the base and the eye of Lovecraft. 

For the rest of the tentacle I needed another colour that would go with the Leaf Green so I tested on the same page so that I could see if it would match. I decided to go with Yellow Brusho as I thought it would compliment the green well. 

Here is the almost finished piece, I will be working in to the tentacle more with pen and I will scan it in to edit and complete. I am going to look at different ideas for a background, and test what will compliment the piece best. I think maybe, a faint hand written text of extracts from the book? 

Heironymus Bosch

Heironymus Bosch

 Heironymus Bosch was born and lived in Hertogenboscha, a city in the Duchy of Braban, he lived here for all of his life from his birth in approximately 1450 to his death on August 9th 1516. The date of his actual birth was never known for sure, but was estimated by a portrait he created just before his death. The picture to the left is the piece that was used to predict his birth, the portrait shows a man in his late 60’s and is suspected to be a self-portrait. Heironymus was born Jheronimus or Jeroen Anthonissen Van Aken and signed many of his paintings by Jeheronimus Bosch. Heironymus’s grandfather, Jan Van Aken was also a painter who was also born and lived in the Duchy of Braban.

Heironymus Bosch is mainly famous for his triptychs, the most famous is the piece The Garden of Earthly Delights, the original title for this piece did not survive and it was renamed. The piece (below) shows three panels, the first two lovely green and blue colours with pink and cream tones, creating a light and happy atmosphere. These two panels show happy delights and spoils of the earth and humans joyfully enjoying their lives. But the third panel is dark, black and brown colours are used to create a heavy and dark atmosphere. For this third panel depicts Hell and all the horrific goings on believed to be in hell. Heironymus has an amazing imagination and has created terrifying yet interesting creatures, half-human half-animal, performing acts of torture on the humans that gave in to temptation in their lives. The first two panels contrast greatly when compared to the third panel, as the first two are bright and joyous but the third is so dark, sinister and suffocating. This piece has attracted so much attention over the years and it is clear to see why, the piece is so full of interesting elements and features. This piece was created using grisaille, a technique where the painting is created in monochrome, then he has layered is with colour, Heironymus’s colour palette is well chosen and placed, he used certain colours and tones to express the atmospheres and emotions he wanted to provoke in the on lookers mind. For example, pale and light for happy and peaceful atmosphere and dark colours and tones for the more sisinter, scary atmosphere.

Less than 25 paintings remain that can be traced back to Heironymus as he seemed to not sign a lot of his work, but signing your work was not commonly seen back then but he did it on quite a few of his pieces, he sometimes signed his work with the name he was given at birth, Jheronimus Bosch. Even though he signed a lot of his work he never dated it so it is very hard to place his work in to a time line.

 The Prado Museum in Madrid own 5 of Heironymus’s pieces of artwork, they were collected by them after Philip II of Spain had acquired them in the late 16th century. The museum now owns The Garden of Earthly Delights, The Adoration of Magi, The Seven Deadly Sins of the Four Last Things, The Stone Operation and The Haywain Triptych. The piece The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things. I love the layout of this piece, in the middle of the piece is a large circle with imagery traveling around it and it is surrounded by four smaller circles with one piece in each. The floating scrolls above and below the center circle creates an elegant and holy.

 Below is the piece called The Stone Operation, the writing around the piece says “Master, cut away the stone, my name is Lubbert Das”  

In the piece a doctor is using a technique called trepanning, this is where a hole will be cut in to the man’s skull. Their have been many interpretations of this piece. Yet, so many bizarre happenings are going on it is hard to decipher the real meaning. In my opinion, I see a mad doctor trying to perform an operation to help the man, yet this will be fruitless. The picture shows me that the procedure is being done with massive lack of care of knowledge. The woman with the book on her head shows me more strange elements to which are very hard to understand. But all together I love this piece, the bizarre act painted in a neat circle surrounded by amazing gothic writing has an altogether amazing outcome.

Above - Portrait of Heironymus Bosch

Above- The Garden of Earthly Delights 

Above - The Seven Deadly 

Above - The Stone Operation

Wasteland piece.

As in one of my pieces I want to draw the man surrounded by the black wasteland, I have been researching other pictures of artists impressions of wastelands. I have found all pf these images on google from various artists and photographers.

Chris Riddell

Alice in Wonderland book illustrated by Chris Riddell which I have owned for a looonnng  time!
I love this piece on the cover as I find his choice of colouring very interesting, as he has only coloured the background and dress. The white in the chair and in Alice's skin creates an interesting effect against the colour of the dress and wall.