File puptcrit/puptcrit.0803, message 346


From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Mathieu_Ren=E9?= <creaturiste-AT-primus.ca>
To: <puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org>
Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2008 22:26:32 -0400
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Horrendousness


Very inspiring, Conrad B.

I particularly am attracted to the idea of blurryness you mentionned.

Suggesting rather than illustrating.
Maybe an ultra minimalist creature with a disgusting "barely there" fuzzy 
secondary texture (long individual hairs sticking out like on some 
"hairless" rat or cat).
Kind of like designing it in photoshop, then applying a strong Median, then 
a Gaussian Blur to it all, then coming back to emphasise only a few lines, a 
few shadows.

Barely anything to register in the face, but as you said, EYES that tell.
The silhouette would make or break the character.

Yet another more precise lead to follow, so thank you!


As for Shelley's descriptions of the Monster, I heard the audiobook just 
last fall. Maybe it was even more powerful than I thought, and implanted 
descriptions in my memory that weren't actually written.
But I thought I remembered a few descriptions scattered throughout the 
book...

Argh, now I gotta check the references out...
This is what I could gather at first browse, choosing anything that could be 
used to create a visual, including "impressions":

"by the glimmer of the
half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature
open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.
How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate
the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to
form?  His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as
beautiful.  Beautiful!  Great God!  His yellow skin scarcely covered
the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous
black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these
luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes,
that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which
they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.
[...]
 He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be 
called,
were fixed on me.  His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate 
sounds, while a grin
wrinkled his cheeks.
[...] his stature, also, as he approached, seemed to exceed that of man."
[...] He approached; his countenance bespoke bitter anguish,
combined with disdain and malignity, while its unearthly ugliness
rendered it almost too horrible for human eyes.
[...] Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even YOU 
turned from me in
disgust?  God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own
image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the
very resemblance.
[...]sometimes it was the watery, clouded eyes of the monster,
[...]


The full book is here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext93/frank15.txt

And there are plenty of other public domain books!






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