Lovecraft has been one of the biggest sources of inspiration for me for a very long time, if not directly sometimes indirectly. There’s something about Cosmic Horror that makes my imagination go wild. And, as you can see from the URL’s I linked to the words above, these have been mostly related to physical props, and for this model packs I really wanted to return to my roots; Lovecraftian horror. And while originally the focus was on the Lovecraftian creatures and other unspeakable evils, the true starting point for me was my lesser known Necronomicon Replicas:
From right to left, the level of complexity and sophistication keep going up: From the first one, made out of Paper Mache and epoxy putty, to the last one, made out of latex. Some of these got their own alphabet or font developed specifically for them, some of them got an auxiliary prop to accompany them, and some even got months of research put into them. So it only made sense that I made one in 3D, for old time sake and that’s exactly what I did:
http://www.evilplanetstudios.com/3d-models-necronomicon-books/
And then there’s the abominations…
I knew I wanted Lovecraftian creatures, I just didn’t know which ones I wanted. Modeling and rigging a proper Lovecraftian creature would’ve been a nightmare, no pun intended. All those tentacles, all that detail. Given my timeframes that was going to be a no-go. And so, I decided to compromise and make Lovecraftian creatures that don’t exist. Yet.
The good old tentacle:
No Lovecraftian set would be complete without it. And by IT I meant THEM, ’cause I made several types. With suckers, without suckers, smooth, bumpy… My point is, this is a Lovecraftian staple and so it was added ’cause tradition.
The Winged Beast
It’s not that I was too lazy to sculpt a body. I just thought a head would be creepier and more disturbing. This creature is the one that went through the most iterations, and at the end I decided to reference two things; Bride of Re-Animator and Night Gaunts. The first one being the 1989 film directed by Brian Yuzna (which is where the winged head idea came from) and the latter a Lovecraftian creature. While I was creating the model, I gave it an eye, 6 eyes and a six-pack for a face among other things and then it hit me; This is a LOVECRAFTIAN CREATURE! And so are Night Gaunts! They got no face! So I gave it no features. I obviously had to sculpt something there, but I decided to go full minimalistic or as minimalistic as the canvas would let me.
“Eldritch Adams”
And speaking of Re-Animator! You know which other creature made it into this pack?? That’s right, Jeffrey Combs! I’m kidding. It’s this thing. I Think it’s from Bride of Re-Animator as well. Except in the movie version it was slightly gorier. There’s not a lot I can say about this one but I couldn’t resist.
The Soul-Searching Fish
The Lovecraft Mythos have Sky, Land and Sea creatures. The latter particularly more used throughout his body of work, so this model pack of course couldn’t not have a sea creature! And this is another character that took me way too many iterations. If you couldn’t actually guess it by now, this character is heavily based on H. R. Giger’s aesthetics (Swiss artist better known for Alien and Species). I already had some experience with Giger’s Biomechanic style, but adapting it to this creature was challenging in a different way.
The Shoggoth(s)
Just like you can’t have Lovecraft with no tentacles, you can’t either have no Shoggoths! And yes, that is my own shitty subjective opinion but I’m sticking with it. And in this case I did want to ground this creature more into the real world, so what’s a real world analog of a Shoggoth? Well, of course, a Teratoma (ok, buddy, stay with me, don’t Google that shit, we both know you don’t wanna see that) and to save you the psychological trauma, I took the liberty to show you the definition, so you can decide for yourself whether you REALLY want to see that.
You’re welcome.
So now that you know, that’s what I did for this creature. In fact I themed these as a teeth. Teeth everywhere! Walls of teeth, round teeth, balls of teeth… You know, the whole enchilada. That you need teeth to chew it with. Just teeth. For no reason. As you may have guessed by now, at this point I’m just having fun and in the end that’s what’s important. There’s more Pop Culture in this theme pack than there is Lovecraft, but I’m sticking with it and calling it Lovecraftian. Thanks for reading this far, and I’ll see you in the next one!
Oh yeah, you can check out this model pack here:
http://www.evilplanetstudios.com/3d-models-eldritch-abominations/