Greetings!

Whooooo... long time since my last post.  I've had a fairly full plate for a while and am just now coming up for air.  One thing which has consumed a good portion of my time has been the creation of new art for the upcoming 7th Edition of Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu role playing game.  Last year they held a kickstarter campaign to raise $40K to fund their new rulebook, but it exploded to beyond $500K!!  Needless to say, lots of art was required as the scope of the project perpetually expanded.  Back in the mid-90's I created many illustrations for their previous editions, some of them aged well and some, well, I'm happy to let fade into obscurity.  At that time I actually knew little about Lovecraft's universe, and it was pre-internet (at least for me), making it even harder to research many Lovecraftian things.  Since then I've acquired more lore and painting skills, I've been waiting for a chance to update my contribution to the book. 

Here's the first piece I did for them, it was also for the Kickstarter as a was to help generate enthusiasm for potential funders:

 
and, a close-up shot:


It's acrylic, roughly 12x18".  The Dark Young were one of the first Lovecraft creatures to catch my attention back in high school, there was something so evocative about this lumbering tree-like mass of tentacles and mouths... but no eyes or other relate-able anatomy.  It's taken me this long to depict one, I'd attempted it in a personal piece some years back, but I wasn't happy with it's direction.  As with most other Mythos creatures, there is often something about them which make it a bit tricky to depict- and so sometimes there is a need to use some artistic license in order to provide something interesting and viewable.  So, the 'white lie' here could be that the environment is perhaps lighter out than it could/should be to summon this kind of creature.  I could have painted a black rectangle, but I'm not sure if it would be as satisfying!

In other news.... I am starting the process of updating/migrating my sites ( nightserpent.com and paulcarrick.com ) to different web-hosts.  Though it will be a move for the better, it will create a couple problems, primarily for this blog.  Currently, it is created via my host's free blog software, so when I leave this host I need to find a new means of blogging.  This bothers me the most because it means that some of the followers won't be notified of the move, and I will be sorry to lose some of my audience.  If you subscribe to it through the blog I have your email address and will be sure to notify you of the new blog and location.  However, if you subscribe via RSS feed or some other anonymous means, I would not be able to let you know.  If you're one of the latter people and don't mind losing some anonymity, please consider emailing me so I can put you on the notification list:  [email protected]  I won't sell or give your contact info to anyone.

I am also trying to figure out how/where I want to make the new blog, and I am hoping some readers will be able to provide some advice.  I'm using a mac with OS 10.8.5, ideally it would be an application which lets me be independent of another website or host.  And, I'd really like something simple- drag and drop, WYSIWYG.  I'd rather be spending my time creating art!   Does anyone have suggestions??

cheers!

~Paul

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