Illustration - More Dagon Concepts, pencil sketches

A couple more Dagon concepts. Still trying to figure out where to go with this project (Illustrating Lovecraft's Dagon short story) as I want to create an accurate rendering of the story while really letting loose with my own style. The man is the protagonist from the story, a sailor from back in the day. I want his beard to resemble the island and possibly the creatures. The monster is a more loose rendering of the creature from the story. I want it to be at the same time alien, hideous and almost human but still something that could live in the ocean.

Illustration - Dagon Concepts

These are some concepts for the H.G. Lovecraft short story Dagon that I'm illustrating. Lovecraft was pretty specific with his descriptions of the creatures in his stories so it is difficult trying to create exactly what he described while still creating something unique. I thought at first maybe I shouldn't actually show the creature and instead have just the protagonist's terrified expressions but it was too much fun to resist drawing these gnarly creatures.

The image at the very top is actually a reference to a series of dreams I had for a while where the ocean kept consuming me. I thought it was pretty fitting for the theme of this story.