Posted on 05/21/2016 10:32:39 AM PDT by OddLane
H.P. Lovecraft wrote of the night-gaunts in his poem "Night-Gaunts" and in the story "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath." He certainly had a vision of what they were and how they behaved because, as a child, he was tormented by them in his nightmares- which I'll talk about a bit later. They were later expanded upon in the writings of Brian Lumley, who hinted that they may have mouths with which to suckle Yibb-Tstll's black breasts.
The alternate title to this post could have been "Why I Hate Wings On the Backs of Humanoid Anatomy." For almost a quarter century I have struggled to come up with a feasible way that wings on a humanoid (while still retaining normal arms) could work and, for now, have concluded, like so many others, that it just doesn't- not with our bone structure and musculature, anyway.
To carry the weight of the human body, the wings would have to cover an extremely large area, with a wing span of something like 25-30 feet. Now, the muscles needed to move such limbs would be immense, requiring additional bone area on the scapula and sternum- and these muscles and bones couldn't interfere with the existing arms.
It just becomes ridiculous. Wings just growing out of shoulder blades always bothered me, even in the most beautiful depictions of angel or demon. For the purposes of fantasy, it really is best to ignore it and just plop those wings on there. What I am going to do, then, is take my very limited knowledge of physics and physiology and try my best to come up with a solution for a humanoid with wings while at the same time freely ignoring some of the complications.
(Excerpt) Read more at kurt-komoda.blogspot.com ...
Old Ones ping
That is very, very cool, Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath is very underrated. That guy loves to draw night gaunts and came up with some awesome designs for flying humanoids.
Freegards
I believe that humans have an ancient, primordial fascination - almost obsession - with flight. It’s as if we were meant to fly but made a wrong turn. Dreams of flying dominated my youth and still assert themselves at times.
I identify as a bat.
Now gibmedat wings.
Just found my copy a couple days ago. I plan on re-reading it!
Very interesting Lovecraft drawings with discussion of efforts to depict realistic wings.
Chthulhu’s Wings!
Chthulhu for President. Why vote for the lesser evil?
So the wings may as well be butterfly wings?
(Let's see you dub *this* guy "Shapka.")
LOL.
Dear Noumenom,
For all the artwork i have seen through the years ....
Chthulhu, in all his visage, can get more respect, than either dried-up-prunish Hillary or Bernie.
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