heya! I was wondering if you could perhaps help with concepts for a monster design that has been eluding me.
to put it simply: what are your thoughts on designing something eldritch? a physical form but not, something that hurts to look at but might benefit from having a proper way to depict, mostly for art reasons. I keep coming back to concepts that still feel too rooted in reality for something that is ostensibly outside of it.
the character I specifically am trying to design for has space and snake theming that I've been circling around, but in general, I'd be interested in hearing what your approach to describing the undescribable might be.
admittedly, eldritch design is not my strong suit! but I think it works best when it can only be seen in small portions. eldritch horror is all about the unknowable, things that are so impossible to wrap your little mortal head around that being able to perceive all of it will drive you mad.
I can't find it, but there's a tumblr post somewhere that describes it like, if an ant crawled around on some computer parts, it would not understand what it was interacting with. the eldritch horror comes from the ant briefly being able to understand what a computer chip is, and then returning to normal ant life. it knows that it had some special understanding of this unusual thing, but now it can't remember all the details, and trying to explain this to other ants would be impossible.
odd little metaphor, lol but basically if you're designing an eldritch entity, you shouldn't design it as a whole thing necessarily. just bits and pieces, disconnected and obscured. the point of it is that it cannot be described, but it's also kinda boring to not describe any of it!
for a space snake theme, you can describe scales that are darker than the night sky, but somehow full of glimmering color. cold and smooth, in a way that burns. maybe describe the smell of it! outer space apparently has a smell, astronauts have described it:
Outer space has a particular stench. But why?
the common theme of these scent descriptions is "burnt". the descriptions make me think of the times i've been in historical reenactment blacksmith shops. there is a very particular smell in all that heated metal.
basically, just pick like 3-5 specific details you can describe, and leave the rest of it up to imagination.
