"That is not dead which can eternal lie..."

That I love H.P. LoveCraft is no secret to those who know me.  In my opinion he's one of the greatest writers of Modern Horror and has probably influenced the genre more than any other.  And to love the man, you must love the monster who's essentially the icon of H.P. Lovecraft's worlds... Cthulhu High Priest of The Old Ones.

I decided to base my Cthulhu on the scattered and vague descriptions found in Lovecraft's seminal "Call of Cthulhu".  Here he's described as "vaguely anthropoid..bloated, corpulent..." with a "Octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers".  There's a little conflict when he describes the wings though.  In one description, they're "rudimentary..." and in another they're "long and narrow..."   I opted for the rudimentary description, since I didn't really see such a massive, bloated figure flying under the power of his wings.  Maybe at one time before the fall of Ryleh perhaps.   Cthulhu is also described as "Miles high...a mountain walked or stumbled".  I scaled him back a bit and chalk the size as a little exaggeration of the witnesses who were no doubt driven to immediate madness upon the sight of the monster.

Overall a fun piece to work on, a definite labor of love as it went 3 revisions before I was happy enough to go to a finish.  Cthulhu fhtagn!