Ah, that’s what I like — an opportunity to combine H.P. Lovecraft with 3D CG work (my other blog is about 3D CG indie animation). Lovecraft Creature Lab challenge asks for a still image…

“Create a creature based upon a non-human critter from H.P. Lovecraft’s literary works. The creature should have a fully resolved form, convey motion where appropriate, and be believable. Creature can be shown as either a 3/4 view or as a ‘turn-arounds‘ [ i.e.: a sequence of standing shots from different angles, combined in one still image ].

Any medium is acceptable — traditional, digital, 2D, 3D … anything. The minimum size acceptable is 8.5″ x 11″. For judging purposes on ArtOrder [ a Ning community of Fantasy and Science Fiction illustrators ], submit a .jpg no larger than 2500 x 2500 pixels. Photographs of non-digital entries are acceptable as long as they meet the minimum size requirements.

Part of this assignment is to go through the text and pull out the descriptive passages that are informing your creation. These passages should be included with your submission. Remember to dig out bits that talk about how the creature moves as well, if there are any.

[…] Finals [final works] should be dropped into the Lovecraft Creature Lab Final discussion folder in the ArtOrder community.

Deadline: 8th October 2010.

Keep in mind this is a character design challenge, so all of the creature needs to be clearly seen. No vague aery nebulous half-seen unnameables.

Tor.com has a nicely presented round-up of some of the most notable Lovecraft artists. There’s also a selection of links to artists over on the Directory sidebar for this blog.

There’s a new 50-copy numbered/limited revised reprint edition of Spores from Sharnoth and Other Madnesses (P’rea Press). Leigh Blackmore’s acclaimed weird verse collection has a foreword by S. T. Joshi. The new edition features a different coloured cover, an updated bibliography, and an extended reviews section. Several of the poems have also been revised. The collection costs AUS$15 + postage (Australia only, overseas buyers enquire). To order, contact Danny Lovecraft of P’rea Press:  dannyL58@hotmail.com (no website available).

A great photo of a Lovecraft-style door/tunnel, in the form of an earth-grinding ball, illustrating the news of 100 miles of new tunnels being dug underneath Chicago…

A preview of the fine cover for the forthcoming Historical Lovecraft anthology (2011), which has been open for submissions for a few days now. Not to be confused with the Lovecraft Classic Horror Anthology.

Some strange things turn up on Etsy: how about a 6,000 year-old meteorite, carved into Loveraftian shapes, and placed under glass as a paperweight? Unfortunately the maker has also added some hippy-dippy crystals, but the basic concept is sound…

“Made with Hardened PVC, actual 4000 to 6000 year old Meteorite, fine Magnifying Glass Dome, Swarovski crystals, wood and felt base. Tiny Pink areas slightly fluoresce with Black Light. In with the Meteorite is a complex setting. Is it an Alien, Cthonian life form, Volcanic formations or, something even more terrifying…”

The first issue of Salon Futura magazine is now online, sporting a 3D-rendering of Cthulhu’s watery abode. The free magazine is aiming for monthly publication, and is…

“a new and hopefully somewhat different magazine devoted to the discussion of science fiction, fantasy and other forms of speculative literature.”

A substantial new Alan Moore interview in The Skinny today, which has chunky sections on Lovecraft and Moore’s new graphic novel Neonomicon, which is set in Moore’s modern-day version of Lovecraft’s Red Hook…

“I wanted to do a story that modernised Lovecraft [ and via a blending with a police procedural approach ] actually put back some of the objectionable elements that Lovecraft himself censored, or that people since Lovecraft, who have been writing pastiches, have decided to leave out. Like the racism, the anti-Semitism, the sexism, the sexual phobias […] It is one of the most unpleasant stories I have ever written. It certainly wasn’t intended as my farewell to comics, but that is perhaps how it has ended up. It is one of the blackest, most misanthropic pieces that I’ve ever done. I was in a very, very bad mood.”

“why is Cthulhu […] humanoid? This is one of the questions we answer in the course of Neonomicon. And we do tell, I believe, a credible modern Lovecraft story”

Creative Commons portrait of Alan Moore by Javier Moreno, touched up by me and made B&W.

Lovely cover-artwork for a new French graphic novel, Grands Anciens (Old Ones) by Bojan Vukic and Jean-Marc Laine. The myth of the Kraken is given the Lovecraftian treatment, filtered through Herman Melville…

“New England, 1850. Ishmael is a young sailor who dreams of joining a whaling ship and going on an adventure on the high seas. One night in New Bedford, a fishing port overlooking the ocean, he met Herman Melville, a strange man who tells him the wildest stories — including that of the young captain Ahab, who once decide to go hunting the giant sea Kraken. But to raise it he first needed to find a certain sailor, a survivor of the Kraken attacks, who had kept a secret book of incantations and ungodly knowledge. Once this book is used, it conjures up ‘the Kraken’, which turns out to be far more monstrous than the worst nightmares of sailors or the dreams of human history.”

ActuaBD has interior art samples, and very nice they look too…

The first few pages are here…

A ‘making of’ set of character-sketches and pencil pages are here…

And I found a few more interior pages on a French book site…