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echo-x — Cupcake Cthulhu
Published: 2011-12-21 16:06:27 +0000 UTC; Views: 21574; Favourites: 563; Downloads: 0
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Description
Here's the true story of what happened: I was working in my studio one day in March and I got the Blue Screen of Death. So while my hard drive rebuilt, I laid down on my studio sofa and took a nap. In my dream, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the image of Cthulhu driving this poor corseted damsel insane with temptation of pie. Being a woman - that particular torture is very close to me. When I awoke the image hadn't left and I was compelled to sketch it out... thinking that it would turn out like crap and I could put it aside - but it didn't. It was beautiful. So then I sat down to do a color study, thinking that the sickly-otherworldy-green would ruin the piece - but it didn't. Two weeks later she was does - and I hadn't worked on any other projects at all - including the client piece I had been working on when my computer crashed originally. She was a standalone for a long time, until I kept getting requests for others like her. Cupcake came along in 2011, the Ice Cream Cthulhu Triptych came in 2012, and Cookie was finally completed in January of 2013. You see - it's not about the sexual enticement at all (except of the viewer) - it's about the specific horror women feel about the terrible balance between the pleasures gained from beauty and from dessert.MODEL: Roxanna Hire
PLATFORM: PC and Mac
TOOLS: Two Wacom tablets (Intuos 3 and Cintiq 21UX)
PROGRAM: Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator
EFFECTS: I don't use any 'effects', but there are simple strokes and Brush strokes, gradients and gradient meshes, and many many objects with varying transparency settings.
Here are all the others:
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Comments: 39
Only just rediscovered your work. Definitely stands the test of time. Great work
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Hey there - just swung by again (after looking at all the Cthulhu sweets again) and wanted to ask if these are pieces you sell as prints? If not then, you know, thats just too bad - but I can just imagine having all these fantastic works on my wall some day. They're great and combining three awesome things - sweets, pretty ladies and almighty Cthulhu!
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Yes, I sell them on my website: www.echo-gallery.com as well as at conventions across the country. I don't sell through DeviantArt.
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Thanks so much for the info! 
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Hi there, you have some seriously amazing work. I hope you don't mind I used this piece for my graphic design assignment to show how modern artists still utilize the styles of Art Nouveau...
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No problem. As long as I get credit.
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I picked up this awesome art at Gen-Con a couple years ago.
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A friend of mine has her own cupcake bakery, so we made a promo pic inspired by you: [link]
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A wonderfulcomposition, beautifully painted and created with a great colour scheme and details. Love it!
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Your fantastic work has been featured in Friday Night Features
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Cupcake Cthulhu by echo-x
These Cthuhu pin-ups are amazingly effective. Who would have thought that the ancient scourge of mankind could be made so likeable with sweets in hand?
Elwood-Edward-Howes
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Your work is truly outstanding, my eyes of indulged fully!
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Dear echo-x
Your Fabulous artwork is featured in
become member you are Most welcome!!! ...
regards
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Love this concept of Cthulhu and temptation! My favorite piece of yours
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I included this in my latest Journal, [link] !!
Best,
Doc
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That is an AMAZING piece of artwork! I HAD to accept it in our group's Featured folder ^v^
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Amazing work ! The composition, all the details, the colours, the clothes...everything's great !
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I like the way her skirt's tassels and the tray's beading echo the rows of suckers on the tentacles.
Myself, I'd like the picture even better if you didn't call the tentacled monster "Cthulhu"; H. P. Lovecraft's original Cthulhu was so monstrously alien that even the slightest stirring of his dreams sent men insane all around the world, driving them to suicide or murder. Seeing even the slightest aspect of him would destroy the mind, often causing the madman to devolve into something OTHER.
But I know a lot of artists have used his name for generic hentai tentacle monsters, so I'm not blaming you for that; I just wish we had another generic term for sentient cephalopodia and suchlike.
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While everyone else, I enjoy Hentai, but I'm not that kind of illustrator.
The point of the series is that it HAS to be Cthulhu. It started a few years ago - you seem to know about Lovecraft so this will mean something to you. Here's the true story of what happened: I was working in my studio one day in March and I got the Blue Screen of Death. So while my hard drive rebuilt, I laid down on my studio sofa and took a nap. In my dream, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the image of Cthulhu driving this poor corseted damsel with temptation of pie. Being a woman - that particular torture is very close to me. When I awoke the image hadn't left and I was compelled to sketch it out... thinking that it would turn out like crap and I could put it aside - but it didn't. It was beautiful. So then I sat down to do a color study, thinking that the sickly-otherworldy-green would ruin the piece - but it didn't. Two weeks later she was does - and I hadn't worked on any other projects at all - including the client piece I had been working on when my computer crashed originally. She was a standalone for a long time, until I kept getting requests for others like her. Cupcake came along in 2011 and I'm currently working on Ice Cream Cthulhu. You see - it's not about the sexual enticement at all (except of the viewer) - it's about the specific horror women feel about the terrible balance between the pleasures gained from beauty and from dessert. Hopefully, that answers your question.
By the way - I had never actually read Call of Cthulhu until after the piece was done (and watched the amazing HPLCS film), and to learn that the original story took place in March blew me away. Sometimes, I kind of feel like Cthulhu actually commissioned the pieces himself - since they came to me so vividly.
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Sure, I'm just being a nitpicky Cthulhu purist (?!) rather than reading the symbolism, since if Lovecraft's Cthulhu was awake enough to physically offer anything to anyone, the world would be a seething postapocalyptic horror of madness and death. And anyone unlucky enough to SEE any part of his true form would certainly be in no shape to notice the desserts.
I'm just being unhelpful; ignore me.
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Cthulhu himself is using desserts as part of his technique to inspire madness.
I believe that the horror so described by Lovecraft would have indeed driven many in 1926 to insanity - note how many people actually believed that Orson Wells radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds" was actually believed by the general public no matter how many times they said otherwise during commercial breaks. Today, Cthulhu would be hard-pressed to scare anyone more than the average horrors of the modern world. We lived through the Cold War where every day for 50 years could have brought apocalypse - but we survived. The first thing Americans would do upon hearing Cthulhu awakened would be to summon Chuck Norris, Bruce Willis and the Navy Seals. True fear would be far from our minds. As Buffy once said so eloquently to the Demon who could not be killed by any weapon forged by man: "That was then. This is now."
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somehow this concept (Cthulhu dispensing tasty treats) is even more scary than normal cthulhu. 
awesome style
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