From the ground up...

This is the history of the first collaborative piece between Billy Parker and myself. We wanted to make a piece to put in the Sumter County Artists Guild annual show. The fact that we had never actually created a finished work together inspired us to take a stab at it for the show. Several hang out sessions and a few burritos later and we had decided what we were gonna make: a portrait of Cthulhu.

Next step was to decide how he was gonna look, how he was going to be presented, and how best to compose the piece. Billy championed the idea that Cthulhu was sitting in his throne awakening... just about to destroy the world of men. I wanted a more action oriented pose, with him standing as his wings unfurled. It wasn't until I set the two ideas down as sketches that the sitting pose was clearly the best one of the two.

Early Development

The next step was creating a maquette to better envision the character and for reference on how the light reacted to the tentacles on his face. I sculpted the head out os Sculpey and used it to draw the pencils Billy would paint over in the final version.

Maquette

The maquette was then painted as a reference for Billy's final paint application.

Painted Maquette

The next step was drawing the pencils that would lay the groundwork for Billy's painting. I had never drawn on canvas board before... trust me... it's a pain in the rump. Smudges VERY easily... I reccomend using gloves and/or a paper shield to protect the drawing while you work.

Pencils

Gave the maquette a thick coat of varnish to give it a wet, slimey look. Even though the maquette was just a tool for reference, it still makes for a nice piece to keep... and enter in the show!

Finished Maquette

And here's the final piece! It's one of the best things I have ever taken part in... watching Billy turn my humble pencils into the finished piece below was unbelievably cool.

Finished Painting

Well... i want to appologise for the less than detailed images of the finished painting, but I don't have a scanner big enough to accomodate the painting... I'm looking into scanning it properly eventually.

Well, thanks for dropping by and taking a look!

Charlie