Necronomicon; The Macabre Effect

The category Horror & Macabre has been tackled by many, many different artists - styles may be similar and influence eachother but no two styles of developed artists is quite the same. I wanted to look at the range of ways in which illustrators and graphic designers have presented the horror & macabre effect, to prevent myself from staying within the bounds of older looking illustrations and not be sucked into the trap of sticking to the same sort of scheme laid down by the illustrator of my copy of the Necronomicon.

(The following artists can be sourced on http://behance.net)


Jose Trigueros

The sphynx image works well as a reference for me as it can be tied in with "The Cats of Ulthar" - one of the tales from my book that I have chosen to illustrate. Trigueros' work seems to be quite rough, with very visible brush strokes - not always is it dark but it usually seems to have a set scheme of colour; muted as a general observation of all pieces, but each individual piece has an overall feel to it. Trigueros either goes for 'warm' colours or 'cold' ones, rarely combining a mix of the two for an uneasy contrast (whenever he does, it is clear that one set of colours is more dominant than the other).

Monica Valentine

Though her style stays the same throughout Valentine's works, some of her pieces are clearly more detailed than others; whilst yes, she stays within the region of monochrome (which is something I wanted to explore outside of for a little while), it's interesting to note her usage of pointillism - a small yet noticeable change in contrast to the imagery featured in the Necronomicon. It makes for a more realistic style of shading, her pointillism pieces appering much less cartoony than others. Combine her techniques with what she actually illustrates (here shown a multi-eyed cat and an x-ray view of a bat), her pieces make for some unnerving artworks. One of my favourite features exhibited through her work is the use of simple block colouring alongside detailed dot-shading; the heavy border black shown as the bats body almost acts as a frame and shows the work with a more completed feel.

Charlene Chua

Chua is very interesting in that the main body of her work is PG and family friendly - however, a commission for a T-Shirt design from the clothing company 'The Cult of Original Sin' has brought out a dark side in her work - it almost goes to prove that any style can be adapted to fit any genre, using certain characteristics and colour schemes. This is one of my personal favourite pieces I have found so far, the muted green/cream block colouring with cell shading combined with the almost luminescent crimson reds makes for an interesting piece, each section so aesthetically pleasing with its surprising dependence on colour to create further detail (imagined without the colour, the piece itself - though complicated - is not actually that detailed with just line).

Eugen Poe

The majority of Poe's works are completely monochrome - black and white series of pointillism. However, after looking at Valentine and Chua's work, I felt inspired by their style and Poe's work was a perfect combination of the two (of course, well within his own style through his complete realism). The block colour splash of single hues through his rare duo-toned pieces work surprisingly well, the less detailed areas only working to serve the purpose of really highlighting the detail of other areas; only by seeing the simple parts by the complex do we really appreciate the effort which has gone into his work.

David Lupton

It's been proven by the artists mentioned prior that bright colours can work very well in macabre pieces; how about muted, more earthy tones? In the above piece by David Lupton, the flesh tones and strange grey markings make this image very unnerving; more than anything, the unknown is feared, and this image leaves a lot to the imagination. It raises many questions, which sets the viewer at ease, and there are no bright colours to distract from the distorted (almost completely disfigured) face.

Heather Yu

What makes Yu's work more unnerving than anything is the use of body dismorphia - disfigured features can be used for shock value, as human society tends to lean more towards vanity than anything; and what's more scary for the human race than something that absolutely cannot be perceived as beautiful? No matter how you look at it, this creature is ugly, definitely threatening with its rows upon rows of teeth (a characteristic of sharks, something that people are generally afraid of). The legs seem spider like (again, another common phobia) tapering off into blood-coated nothing. The splicing of creatures combined with gore seems to be a favourite among those who illustrate horror; though nothing too much, the idea of something is much more eerie than presenting everything before someone, imagination can do much more damage than imagery.