This first piece by John Blanche seems to aim for the good old fashioned "terrifying monstrosity" kind of horror. The beasty seen here gives a good example of fusion: I can see elements of fish, insect, reptile, and primate all mixed together, which produces a rather terrifying result. Obviously, the monster is also physically threatening, as evidenced by the mauled man/robot/thing.
This is another John Blanche piece. Here we see fusion, massification, and magnification. The undead are a classic example of fusion; in this case fusing life and death into one entity. The horrific nature of the undead is then enhanced by the massification of them; the horde of interstitial entities stretches off into the horizon. The magnification is not immediately obvious, but is used on the bats near the top of the picture, because the undead legions are just that much scarier when they have a host of oversized bats flying overhead. Bats could also be considered a "naturally occurring" monster, as they combine elements of both mammals and birds into one creature.
Next we have a lovely shoggoth drawing by an artist who signs their name too minutely to be legible. The shoggoth is a another example of fusion (though of what exactly I can't pinpoint), but also has elements of massification; notice the proliferation of eyes. However, the shoggoth need not even be a fusion to appear impure. It could look like a cat and still be a disgusting slimy mess.
Lastly, we have one of my favourite pictures of Cthulhu. Cthulhu's chief terror is caused by his cosmic otherness. He is of great size, and provides another example of fusion. This time, a combination of dragon, octopus/squid, and man. He is also quite huge, being bigger than either man or octopus, and larger than most dragons I have encountered in fiction.
Now, if anyone else is reading this late at night (like I am), please see below before attempting to sleep:
Relax-o-Vision. See, he's nothing to be scared of :)
4 comments:
Though I appreciate your attempts to create suspense, the fact that your publishing a real post by the date required was the "moral/likely" option, my fears that the outcome might be otherwise were small. Nice effort, though.
I also wanted to bring up something that your last picture made me think of. Just as there are specific characteristics that would case us to find an image horrifying, there must be certain characteristcs that make a creature appear cute -even if it is a green, flying, squid-thing... I wonder if these traits have evr been capitalized upon to create something that's supposed to be cute into something that's supposed to be scary (the inverse of the green thing, if you will).
I think eyes of unequal size, limbs at odd angles, and a spattering of blood might do the trick.
yes... asymmetry always seems to do the trick, doesn't it?
I've noticed from personal experience that art in general always evokes stronger emotional reactions when it's physically bigger. To me this seems really silly. If I see a painting of a monster that's 8"x10" and the same picture but now it's 8'x10', the second one will be more frightening to me. I know that they're both just paintings, that they can't harm me (unless they decide to fall off the wall and are in really heavy frames maybe), so I just found it kind of unusual that size would really matter so much. My only guess is that the larger image would be more life-size, making it easier to picture what it would be like if the monster were standing right in front of me. Any thoughts?
Post a Comment