Flying Polyp Sketches

Fantasy Fighting Airships

Some pencils for future pieces.

Nautilus Shrimp

What if there was a species of shrimp with limbs so jointed they were like tentacles?

Cthulhu in the Depths

Another quickie Photoshop illustration of the C-man. (from 2008)

Third update: better color:

Second update: went with single sigil:

Update: I colorized this today, and added my late friend Greg's sigil floating over his paws.

Hound of Tindalos

Update: total rework of image :

This was from H. P. Lovecraft stories, as elaborated by Brian Lumley in his Titus Crow novels.

Update: I added color:

Aerial Dreadnought

Sketch for new image. Here's my little descriptive blurb:

"What a ripping scene! Hull holed, dorsal vanes shredded, the RAS Recalcitrant emerges from the cloud wrack over the village of Much Nadderby to bravely reengage the invading Brungarian aerial dreadnoughts!"






OK, here's an image in progress... Still need to do foreground bad guy and village and landscape below.












Final image: (update, added aerial  shell bursts)

I added a second, larger airship in the background, the RAS Steerpike:

Skull Spider

I never really liked any of the skull spiders I've seen others do. No effort made to use real spider anatomy. I thought  this turned out nicely nasty. I love the eyes as 'teeth.'

Update 2: I added more babies to the original.

Update: I did this as a fake 'Chilling Tales' cover.

Pencil sketch:

Ant Monastery Again

I want to write a story about these guys and their home.

So I see the little Ant Monastery as a future toy for the super rich. It is a self contained ecosystem with engineered plants, and ants that behave 'as if' sentient. The ants will build things if you feed them materials through the quantum entangled portal. 

The Ant Monastery is held in an impervious force field. These guys are far more sentient than the designers intended, and begin to tinker with the field machinery, which is embedded in the main rock. They learn to make the field opaque as desired to block the owner's looming face. The owner has, of course complained to the manufacturer. 

The ants also broke off the section of rock containing the portal, and let it fall into the water below, because the owner's malevolent little son kept feeding spiders and scorpions into their environment. Now anything nasty must cross the water, which is filled with voracious little fish. The ants can still reach the portal by using the little boat the owner once gave them on a whim. 

They have also learned to access other Ant Monasteries through the portal.


Update: More forest on top

Frolicking Dragon 3

Yes, I'm drawing them out of order. Update: total rework of dragon and background.

Cthulhu Seated on Pillar

Another update: Added blue 'vapor' swirls. Update: played with color and lighting.

One of my favorite renditions of Him so far. Update: tweaked his legs, the tuna, the background, the wave highlights, and made his eyes and the sigil blue.

I drew a tuna to add for scale... I didn't want to just pilfer a photo, didn't feel right. I did base this on another artist's rendition, but redrew it in Illustrator.

Encounter On Europa

Rework of old Hydroid critter as denizen of Europa.