Cthulhu Update.

[The Masterplan]

I need some help deciding which pose is more dynamic.

You see, the focal point of the entire damn project is Cthulhu awakening and emerging from his chamber. I sketched the following three poses [Yeah, I know my sketching skills are teh sucks.]:

Number 1:

These are alot lower image quality than I expected so I'll try to explain it as well: In number 1 we have Cthulhu using his arms to push himself up and out from inside his chamber. Essentially his entire upper body is exposed while his midsection-down blends into the darkness below in his chamber.

Number 2:

In number 2 we have Cthulhu practically stepping straight out. His left leg on the edge of the opening and right arm reaching out while the other two limbs are behind the rest of the body fading into the darkness of his chamber.

Number 3:

At first glance it seems like a regurgitation of number 2, but there are some subtle differences. While in number 2, Cthulhu appears to walk straight out as if coming to the end of a hallway, number 3 has him stepping up and out. Like number two, one of his legs fades into the chamber. However, in number three, he is using one of his arms to push himself out [reminiscent of number 1]where as the other arm extending outward. One of his legs is still in the chamber, while the other is setting foot on the land just outside the chamber.

I personally believe the third to be the most "dynamic" or "effective". However, I'd like some opinions.

[Tanni Foemangler]

number three is definitely the best looking. the first one is probably the most ominous and otherworldy, but it's also super played out so you're better off with something fresh

you might want to mess with camera angles to make it more dynamic

and a last thing about posing:

having both of Cthulhu's hands on the opening to his chamber makes it look like he just woke up hungover next to the ugliest girl at the party and is struggling to haul ass outta there. just taking one hand off would empower him more

godspeed dude

[The Masterplan]

number three is definitely the best looking. the first one is probably the most ominous and otherworldy, but it's also super played out so you're better off with something fresh

you might want to mess with camera angles to make it more dynamic

and a last thing about posing:

having both of Cthulhu's hands on the opening to his chamber makes it look like he just woke up hungover next to the ugliest girl at the party and is struggling to haul ass outta there. just taking one hand off would empower him more

godspeed dude

Thanks.

Question about your comment on the pose though: If I use the one arm to push him out, where should the other one be? Should I do what I did in the other sketches and just have it be behind him and fade into the dark?

[Savant]

hmm, personally i like number 1, i think you could do some pretty interesting things with it. for all of them, is the doorway supposed to be like stairs down into a crypt or tomb, or is it like a door in wall? if you want action, i think number 3 is the way to go, it really makes cthulhu seem alive and ready for some insane cultist action, either way, good luck with it

[The Masterplan]

hmm, personally i like number 1, i think you could do some pretty interesting things with it. for all of them, is the doorway supposed to be like stairs down into a crypt or tomb, or is it like a door in wall? if you want action, i think number 3 is the way to go, it really makes cthulhu seem alive and ready for some insane cultist action, either way, good luck with it

There's a "natural" staircase in the land formation that leads up to a sort of trap door, I just angled the opening strangely to tie in with the rest of the landscape [i'll post that later if you want] with the whole "Impossible geometry" thing. It's described as an opening with a staircase going down. The sailors hear the slopping sound of Cthulhu ascending the stairs, so...you know.

[Tanni Foemangler]

hmm.... does Cthulhu climb stairs leading up to the doorway? what does the chamber look like just inside the door?

if you can imagine those things it will probably help figure out how he will be positioned while he's going through it

and i dont' know much about the Cthulhu mythos, but he's supposed to be a pretty omnipotent dude, right? so there's no reason he needs to move around like a human would. if you want to push him in a more godlike direction you could have him standing erect with his arms at his side (or something subtle to that effect)

think about Nosferatu emerging from his coffin effortlessly with his arms crossed or a lady in the lake walking up outta there like she means business. i'm losing my train of thought here

if you need help figuring out poses that look right, snap some pics with a digicam or pose next to a mirror or get one of your friends to help you out. high school art classes always have photophobia or something but pictures are just a tool to help you meet your needs

[The Masterplan]

hmm.... does Cthulhu climb stairs leading up to the doorway? what does the chamber look like just inside the door?

if you can imagine those things it will probably help figure out how he will be positioned while he's going through it

and i dont' know much about the Cthulhu mythos, but he's supposed to be a pretty omnipotent dude, right? so there's no reason he needs to move around like a human would. if you want to push him in a more godlike direction you could have him standing erect with his arms at his side (or something subtle to that effect)

think about Nosferatu emerging from his coffin effortlessly with his arms crossed or a lady in the lake walking up outta there like she means business. i'm losing my train of thought here

if you need help figuring out poses that look right, snap some pics with a digicam or pose next to a mirror or get one of your friends to help you out. high school art classes always have photophobia or something but pictures are just a tool to help you meet your needs

I've actually pulled friends out of their classes [if they didn't want to be there and their teacher didn't care] to "model" for some different ideas I had, but after fleshing them out I wasn't happy witht them anymore. I'm off this week for my "spring break" if it can so be called. [i'm working for 95% of it.] Therefore I can't really get someone to pose for me and the like, but I could probably get my sister to take some pictures for me.

I like the idea of the "omnipotent" pose, but I don't want to do that only because my art teacher will probably see it as me trying to "kick up some shit". I say this because when I asked her if she cared if I made the opening a little bigger, she already started to get a little upset about it and started off about "I thought the whole idea was to conceal, etc." So, that's the only reason II'm kind of shying away from that. However, if I attemped that, I was thinking about having Cthulhu eclipse the moon, because that would give a cool lighting effect and also keep the form somewhat concealed. I should probably work on it some more today, but I'm beat from work. [About 9-10 hours of heavy lifting, holding heavy shit in strange positions for long periods of time and ball-busting work like unloading a few tons of stone by means of shovel, etc.]

Thanks for the insight. Feel free to share more.

[Savant]

hmm, that could be an interesting concept, maybe a silhouette of him, to give him an ominous feeling and to comply with your teacher wanting to keep him concealed? it could really help give him the all-powerful elder god feel if done right, maybe with his wings splayed out behind him, or wrapping around him?

[The Masterplan]

^ My intention was to have the wings "stand" behind him. No offense, but if I wrapped him in the wings I'd feel like I was doing anime fan-art or something Thanks for the thought though.

[Ceraziefish]

I like how most of him is hardly there inn #1, but #3 does look better.

I like the idea of him being silhouetted, though. It means you shouldn't do any detail on him, though, since it would be so dark.

[The Masterplan]

I like how most of him is hardly there inn #1, but #3 does look better.

I like the idea of him being silhouetted, though. It means you shouldn't do any detail on him, though, since it would be so dark.

Yeah. I actually played around with the pencil wash last night with number 1. [Just to see how it would look. Pretty badass] But like you guys say, I keep coming back to three or a variation of it. Still trying to decide exactly how I'm gonna do this. There are so many different possibilities.

[Tanni Foemangler]

if you post some more sketches and stuff i can give you more feedback. i'm not sure i can give much advice until i see how things have progressed

and like i said before, the pose in the first one is something that's been done a MILLION times before, so if that's the one you feel suits it best i suggest moving the camera around big time. a slight bug's eye view looking up at Cthulhu emerging from his den, eclipsing the moon could be cool

is Cthulhu supposed to be huge? because if he is it would make sense to look up at him from a human perspective

[The Masterplan]

if you post some more sketches and stuff i can give you more feedback. i'm not sure i can give much advice until i see how things have progressed

and like i said before, the pose in the first one is something that's been done a MILLION times before, so if that's the one you feel suits it best i suggest moving the camera around big time. a slight bug's eye view looking up at Cthulhu emerging from his den, eclipsing the moon could be cool

is Cthulhu supposed to be huge? because if he is it would make sense to look up at him from a human perspective

I don't have a scanner, so anything I've posted I've taken a picture of with a shit digital camera. I'm failrly sure I'm not going to do number 1. I simply made a bigger, fleshed out version of it to experiment with pencil wash, as this will be the first time I've ever used it.

Yes, Cthulhu is supposed to be gi-fucking-normous which is why this is even harder for me, because I already have 90% of the background laid out on the final illustration board and to rearrange it now to allow for a bigger Cthulhu is almost impossible. That's why I liked the idea of maybe having him either stand outside. That way I'm not limited to drawing him in the confines of the opening. Or if I have him comeout, I'll just make the opening larger.

In retrospect I fucked myself because of the way I set the background up. I'll see if the camera wants to cooperate.

[The Masterplan]

[Double Post]

The camera played nice this time:

Left - Simple approximation of one of the ideas

Right - Pose #1 with pencil wash experiment.

Close-up of Pose #1 with pencil was.

Preordained background that regret doing to a minimal extent.

The background is going to have a dark wash for the sky with some lighter areas for a "cloudy" kind of feel. Below the horizon line will be a similar. However, for the lower half my intention is to have some of the land formation partially submered [not pictured yet.] and have the water still pulling back. That way, I can have the water as a dark wash, but at the same time the crests of the waves/ripples will be bright from the moonlight overhead. As for the actual land formation where Cthulhu will be, I'm gonna try to have the shading be something of an optical illusion as well.

[Savant]

hmm, the backround looks really good, maybe you could have him coming down the stairs, stretching his wings out. perhaps instead of changing the size cthulhu himself is, add something in the backround to put him in persepective, maybe something like trees along the path that he absolutely dwarfs. then the viewers would be able to infer that they're are viewing him from a distance, and he really is much much larger than he appears?

[The Masterplan]

perhaps instead of changing the size cthulhu himself is, add something in the backround to put him in persepective, maybe something like trees along the path that he absolutely dwarfs. then the viewers would be able to infer that they're are viewing him from a distance

I really like that idea. Gonna do some more experimentation with all these new ideas before I crash in an hour or two

[Tanni Foemangler]

looking like this is going to be cool

i have a suggestion for you:

go out and buy some tracing paper. you can lay it over the top of the drawring you have now and do sketches and stuff on it to see if they work. when something works, save that piece of paper. when it doesn't work, cut it out and toss it away

it's something that nigh every illustrator in the world uses, but nobody ever teaches

[stranger]

that's shaping out to be pretty epic, anxious to see more ;)

[Savant]

looking on one of your previous threads, you said you were doing a scene with sailors who had just found cthulhu, right? if you're still doing that scene, maybe you can use the sailors to show his size, as the audience would have a very clear perspective of just how massive he really is when they realize that those sailors are just about the same size as themselves.

[The Masterplan]

I'm not sure if I'm still going to have the sailors. The way it's shaping up right now, it may not fit. The good news is, my art teacher isn't couting it late, which means I get to work on it even more as long as I hand it in this quarter. The bad news is my ambitious project which takes the entire quarter is also coming up. Bottom line is I'll be working on both simultaenously. Which may not be all bad. I plan to do a mural on one of the walls of my school. That way, I can work on that project when I'm at school and come back to ol' Cthulhu when I come home.

Unfortunately, I'm gonna have to go with Pose #1. It fits best with the way I've structured other objects around it. I'll post more picures as it comes along further. Thanks for the support guys.

[Savant]

good luck, i'm really looking forward to seeing the final project

[The Masterplan]

And on the second day, Masterplan created the heavens:

Dark, dark fucking 8B ground into a stub. Took a tortillon to it, then neaded out some grey areas for clouds. Made it lighter at the horizon line. This picture doesn't really do justice. I like the coarseness of the sky, but I may end up doing a wash. I'm not sure I'd like how it would look after a wash though. Still chugging here - working on the water.

[Savant]

looking really good, is this paper going to be the final product, or are you going to redo it after you decide exactly how everything should look on this page?

[The Masterplan]

looking really good, is this paper going to be the final product, or are you going to redo it after you decide exactly how everything should look on this page?

You're looking at the final.

edit: That is to say, that anything you see there now and anything that is added will be the final product. Does that make sense?

[The Masterplan]

And on the 507th day The Masterplan washed the sky and thinks it was a mistake. But it was all good, cause he's not upset about how it turned out. Sometime later that day after he woke up from a power nap, he put down the ocean, but he didn't finish it.

Production has slowed some with the execution of my "Ambitious Art Project" which I am working on simultaneously with Cthulhu. Bitch of it is, I have no idea what I'm going to do about my AAP. Shit's getting closer and closer.

edit: Fucking hell I am a complete asshole. I just realized that I fucked this entire project up.