Brooding Town in Color

Ok, here we go, finally.

Here is the full color version of the Brooding Town. Watercolor on board over the ink drawing. This thing would've been a heck of a lot easier if it's been a day scene. Getting the shadows right with watercolor was a nightmare.

Okay, I promised you the back story of this little scene when I posted the line work, so here we go. This little town hugs the coast of a warm sea inside a circular island formed by an ancient dormant volcano. In turn this volcanic island resides in the far northern seas of a distant world.

The high mountains and rough roads have kept it relatively isolated for centuries, and thus it has developed a culture far different from the other coastal villages.

During the long centuries of isolation that followed the collapse of the gate system, many planets developed strange and alien cultures, their inhabitants mutated by the extraterrestrial environment in which they were trapped and modified by geneticists to suit their new homes.

Some branches of the human family hardly seem human at all, now.

In this particular town, the locals learned to absorb life from their surrounding environment, from the plants and the animals, blessing them with amazing strength and lifespans stretching into the centuries. But it has come at a cost.

If you've seen my other piece, The Mob, you've seen what they are becoming. With each passing year, their humanity dwindles, and they become more like nature, dark and cruel, and merciless. As their secret becomes harder to hide, they turn ever farther from the rest of humanity, and in the woods, and in the sea, dark things can be heard to howl.

Into this world, stumbles our protagonist.


If you can guess which short story put the germ of this idea in my head, you're awesome. If not, here's a hint:

Ia Ia Cthulhu Ftaghn!

P.S. This is a dark piece. If you can't see it clearly, buy a better monitor.