Haeckel Yithian

UPDATE: Shirt design is now available at Teepublic: www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/7406…

Just finished this illustration of a member of the Great Race of Yith from H. P. Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time" done in the style of an Ernst Haeckel biological plate.

"Shadow" mentions that the bodies of the Great Race beings were native to Earth. So I imagined them as gigantic, bizarre echinoderms. Surrounding the central Yithian are other species from this highly-diverse fictional Yithozoan lineage.

Most Great Race depictions make them into bilaterian creatures with two arms, a head and the weird trumpet things kind of flopping in the back. But I like the idea that the Yithians are radially-symmetrical and the appearance of having arms and a head arranged like a biped is purely an illusion. Thus, I illustrated the two claws on top of the body with the sensory structure off to one side.