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Loneanimator β From Out of the Ash Tree
#british #ghost #monster #spider #victorian #vintage #mrjames
Published: 2014-12-09 17:14:30 +0000 UTC; Views: 5922; Favourites: 129; Downloads: 38
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Description
Arachnaphobic scene from M R James's "The Ash Tree."Related content
Comments: 34
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They look like they are about to start playing poker using this guys face as a table...
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If you were going for scary, you shouldn't have drawn the spiders so gosh darn cute
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Too much like Lucas the Spider?
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Check out Lucas the Spider on YouTube.
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Spider: You...yeah, you!Β Remember our pal Jerry?Β You know, the one you hastily introduced to the News Herald?Β Well, it's payback time!
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This is a great James tale, the exposition of "The Ash Tree" combined with the suspenseful building of atmosphere truly lends itself to a chilling climax, regardless of arachnophobia.
I feel you have captured this significantly well in your artistry, and I'm sure Monty himself would have really appreciated your visual aesthetic.
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I really think M R James is still one of the great original horror writers. Though ha has had his imitators and pastiche-makers, nobody comes close to his craftsmanship. "The Ash Tree" is one of the best horror tales ever, in my opinion.
I'm really glad you enjoy my interpretations of James' stories. He seemed to be a fan of gut-level imagery, so I hope he would've enjoyed my stuff too
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Coincidentally he had a friend who was an artist that did some drawings for the first collection of stories. Unfortunately he only managed to complete two before dying shortly after. Afterwards James was a close friend of his widow and he never employed another artist to illustrate his stories.
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I think his friend did a stellar job with his illustrations, but I also wish that James had done a few more artistic collaborations.
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So do I actually, it probably would have worked like Sydney Paget's illustrations for the Sherlock Holmes stories.
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D*mn! You know how to do some creepy art! If they ever reissue James' stories with illustrators, they need to contact you. Certainly a lovely gruesome image of how those people must have died when they slept in that bed with the window open.
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I'd love to illustrate an actual edition of M R James stories. However, I have illustrated a card game based on his tales, and am now working on a board-game follow-up to that, which is great fun! Check it out, if you like:
pleasingterror.wordpress.com/cβ¦
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I'm not arachnophobic, so the spiders in this picture don't bother me at all. Also, these ones remind me a lot of jumping spiders, which I actually findΒ downright Β adorable . That said, I wouldn't want to be the guy in this picture, and I definitely wouldn't to be bitten by a spider as big as those ones. To me, the creepiest part of the image is the man's face; I can't tell if the spiders have bitten him and he's suffering the effects of their venom, or if he's just paralyzed with fright, but it's a very disturbing expression (made worse by the image of one of the spiders using its fangs to pry the guy's eyelid open).
Although it's not enough to keep me from finding the fat fuzzy spiders endearing (Somehow I can't help but think of a clowder of hungry housecats impatiently rousing their owner for breakfast), I like how you made them a little unnatural-looking by giving them asymmetrical eye arrangements that are even different to each spider.
In conclusion, this illustration may not have provoked an arachnophobic reaction in me, but I nonetheless enjoyed it, and there were still aspects of it that I found creepy. If I were genuinely afraid of spiders, I'm sure my response would be very different.
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Thanks for your comments
You're right in that these spiders were modelled on jumping spiders; my grandmother's farm was full of them, and I never found them scary either.
The man has been bitten and is starting to be paralyzed. His lower lip is going blue-black, and soon all of his face will look the same. "As with Sir Matthew, so with Sir Richard β dead and black in his bed!"
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Ahhh, I love that story!!!Β 
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Yeah, you really cranked the spider-creep on this picture. Of course, the story was supposed to play on it big time, sometimes it just requires a picture to get it across. My arachnophobe friend should never ever see this.
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I am curious how long that pictures like taht take until finnished.
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Once I know in my head what the image will look like I usually whip it out pretty fast, since I like to work as fast as possible, and let "happy mistakes" play their part. I use good brush to ink the sketch, and that's a really fast tool. I think Β this image took about four hours from start to finish.
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Man. You must have been on an M.R. James binge before drawing all of these! Another great pic based on another great "ghost story." The spiders look a bit too cute, but eh, they probably terrify true arachnophobes out there. XP
I always liked thinking to myself that these spiders were indeed the familiars of some witch.
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I started re-reading the stories a little while back, and drew one image. That one got a bit of interest on Facebook and some people suggested that I do a series and print the images on cards, so that's actually what I'm up to.
And it seems these spiders do their job for the most part; there are a lot of spider-fearin' folk out there.
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ArachnaphobicΒ is an understatement! This story always freaked me out, but you've made it ten times more disturbing.
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Well, it's not something you'd want to wake up to is it?
Have you seen the BBC adaptation from the 1970's? Very freaky, with the spiders having the heads of ugly babies!
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Ha ha!
I've ordered the box set but I've only seen a picture of the baby-spider thing. Pretty terrifying!
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I just got that set -good stuff!
I saw in the credits of "The Ash Tree" that the spider creatures as well as other gruesome stuff in the film was created by John Friedlander, who made the original Davros mask for Doctor Who, among many other things. It seems he was THE go-to guy in the UK for TV monsters in the 1970's. In the UK feature film industry it was Roger Dicken.
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I had to get it shipped from Germany, so it'll be at least Boxing Day before I receive it.
Thanks for telling me that!
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