This Lovecraft illustration, titled «Oscura biblioteca de la mente» (Dark Library of the Mind), won the illustration contest of the short story anthology Lovecraft: Mitos de Fuenlabrada, coordinated and published by Kelonia Editorial. The winning image became the cover of the book.
Lovecraft illustration
The Mitos de Fuenlabrada anthology contest
The anthology gathered Spanish short stories inspired by H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Alongside the writing contest, the publisher ran an illustration contest to choose the cover art. My entry, «Oscura biblioteca de la mente», won the illustration category, and the book was released in April 2015.
Dark Library of the Mind: the illustration
The idea was to capture Lovecraft’s cosmic horror without showing the monster directly. The composition relies on three elements:
- A man in a suit walking down the aisle of an endless library, a figure that recalls the writer from Providence himself.
- Beams of light cutting through the darkness and leading the eye towards him, as if he were being watched.
- The profile of a human head cut out in black on the right, dissolving into tentacles: the library is really the mind, and something terrible is growing inside it.
A cold, almost monochrome palette with mist and floating dust reinforces the feeling of forbidden knowledge so typical of Lovecraft’s stories. On the final cover, the title was placed at the top in an old-style typeface.
How to approach a Lovecraft illustration
Illustrating Lovecraft has a special difficulty: his creatures are, by definition, indescribable. That is why a good Lovecraft illustration usually works through suggestion: shadows, impossible scales, tentacles creeping in from the margins and tiny characters facing something they cannot understand.
Here I chose an everyday setting for the writer, a library, and turned knowledge itself into the threat. It takes the viewer a moment to realise that the darkness on the right is a head, and that small discovery is what makes the image unsettling.
Illustrators and authors of the anthology
Illustrators: Pablo Uría, Espi, Hugo Salais, Pablo Ramos Álvarez, Boris Ramírez Barba, Fran Galán, Jorge Romero Ariño and Jorge Hidalgo de la Torre.
Authors: Juan Miguel G. S. Sánchez, Pedro Aibar, Alejandro Morales Mariaca, Carlos J. Lluch, Armando Valdemar, Diego Freire Cameselle, Miguel Huertas, Josué Ramos Casal, Marc Sabaté Clos, Aitor Solar Azcona, MA Astrid, Leandro Agustín Kreitz and Pepe Gallego.
Horror and cosmic horror illustration
Horror works best when it suggests more than it shows, and Lovecraft’s universe is the perfect example. If you need a cover for an anthology, a horror novel or a cosmic horror story, see more work on my horror illustration page or get in touch.
