Need some help, especially if you know your H.P. Lovecraft

[The Masterplan]

My second to last art-project for the year is an illustration project where you take a story you enjoy and make a cover or take a scene from the story and illustrate it. My chemistry teacher turned me into an H.P. Lovecraft fan, so I was looking for one of those stories. I came to 3: What The Moon Brings, The Doom That Came To Sarnath and The Call of Cthulhu. I chose The Call of Cthulhu because the other two would only be good to do a scene from. I know that The Call of Cthulhu has been done a good number of times, so I though it might be a good challenge to make something not-cliche. I figured what I would do, is the scene where the sailors remove the bas-relief and Cthulhu comes out and starts slaughtering them before they can escape.

My predicament is two-fold: R'lyeh is described as having "impossible geometry. I figure, that even though it's physically impossible to draw "impossible geometry", I can still try to draw something to represent that. Attached will be a sketch of my crack at such a thing. It talks about a monolith, a flat trap door and a "staircase" in a sort of natural land formation, so I tired to do that. However, I'm thinking of how to structure a simple, but effective optical illusion, or if you guys have other ideas that might be better, I'd like to see them. I mean, hell, that's why I'm even writing this, right?

The other half of the problem is: My original sketches of Cthulhu make him look like a fucking comic book villian. What sucks is that there are concrete details: Resembling a dragon, octopus and man/ pulpy tentacled head/rudimentary wings/claws, etc. So essentially, everyone has the same fucking Cthulhu. It usually looks like a buff human with an octopus for a head, crazy wings and dragon feet/claws. Now, when I was talking with my chemistry teacher, he made a very interesting point: Even though Cthulhu is given descriptors, there's still an aspect of mystery as everyone that sees him says it's so horrible it can't be described or too horrific to remeber, etc. Then I thought about dynamic light and shade. If I used it, I could show enough of Cthulhu to make it known what it is, but still keep most details in shading and cross-hatching to keep a slight mysteriousness. However, I have no idea how to go about it. My teacher suggested a medium I had never heard of before; It's a lot like charcoal, except you can add water to it to make a wash and go back in and put details when it's dry. I've never used it before and I'm not sure I want to use a medium I've never used before on a project that counts for alot of this quarter's grade.

Suggestions?

P.S.Sorry for being so long winded.

edit: If you look to the left of the sketch, you can see a little bit of the medium I was talking about.

[Tanni Foemangler]

i'll try and be as helpful as i can here:

for impossible geometry you should find an MC Escher book and look at some of the stuff he was into

- http://www.artchive.com/artchive/e/escher/...r_ascending.jpg

- http://www.artchive.com/artchive/e/escher/...r_waterfall.jpg

- http://mathworld.wolfram.com/FreemishCrate.html

and if you want to maintain the mystery of cthulhu i suggest minimizing detail and maximizing atmosphere. instead of drawing a horrible creature, drawr a whole scene that oozes and broods and throw in a few hints of his presence, like a tentacle or something

i'm gonna quote Frazetta here for an example of what i mean:

http://frankfrazetta.org/images/frank_fraz...branmakmorn.jpg

I mean, if you were standing there you wouldn't see color but just this heavy mass of horror coming toward you. You're not aware of color or design or anything. it's just this solid mas rolling toward you. that's why the total lack of color and technique seemed appropriate to me.... art is not painting and it's not drawring--it's total effect

godspeed dude

[The Masterplan]

Thanks dude. My art teacher actually gave me an M.C. Escher book and I remeber thinking I can duplicate this, but I can't "think like this". Even still I'll have to apply it as best I can. Thanks for the help/info.

[Makil]

What's the medium called that your teacher suggested to you?

[The Masterplan]

I don't remember what it's actually called and I can't find out until Monday. :/