Another new page completed for my forthcoming Cthulhu Calendar, I decided to give this one another Latin title for maximum pomposity. “Resurgam” means “I shall rise again” which seems a fitting sentiment for the loathsome Spawn of the Stars. This piece was an improvised drawing which from the outset I wanted to leave incomplete. I’ve always liked pencil drawings which grade from detail to an insubstantial sketchiness, and most of the other representations in the calendar are already highly finished. I usually can’t resist filling every last centimetre so this should be regarded as a rare exercise in restraint.
This is the drawing in its original state. After scanning it and messing with various colour overlays I decided to go with sepia tones. The calendar is already heavy on the green so umber shades will vary things a little. Since it’ll be a CafePress product all the pages have to be square which presents a problem for non-square artwork. I dislike cropping a drawing to fill the page so the additional panels are samples from the drawing quartered and mirrored, a simple effect that always works well. The picture below is one of the earlier variations, the result of applying some Photoshop solarisation then inverting the image.
I now have one more page to fill then the calendar will be finished. (The cover is already done.) I’m hoping to have it completed by this time next week. Keep your tentacles crossed.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The Lovecraft archive
In an amusing bit of synchronicity it happens that RESURGAM was the name of two steam powered Victorian submarines designed to penetrate anti-torpedo netting and to be humanned by first one and then a crew of three. So there is a Steampunk flavor here!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurgam
Alas the concept was better in the planning than in the execution and the RESURGAM II did not so much rise as plummet. The rumors that the vessel appeared to have been crushed as if by a monstrous tentacle seem to be entirely unfounded. Still…
As Howard Phillips once said to Robert Barlow: Tsathoggua! (as praise.)
We can rely on John Coulthart always giving a Lovecraft image something beyond the expected.
Stephen: I was going to say, Resurgam would seem a rather optimistic name for early submersibles. This makes me wonder whether anyone has had Captain Nemo finding R’lyeh. It’s an obvious idea but I’ve never seen it mentioned anywhere.
Rossco: Thanks. If someone shouted “Tsathoggua!” to me I’d probably have to reply “Gesundheit!”
Hm, when I saw “Resurgam” I immediately thought of the magical motto of Dr. Edward Berridge during his time in the Golden Dawn.
Crowley depicts him pretty obscenely as the Black Lodge magician “Dr. Balloch” in Moonchild. I remember reading somewhere that the treatment of Berridge and Wescott (both doctors actually) were Crowley’s grossest slanders in that novel.
I don’t recall that from Crowley’s novel although it’s so long since I read it I remember very little aside from most of the people he was feuding with coming to bad ends. And the two Crowley stand-ins are heroes, of course…