A WHOLE HORROR BOOK’S WORTH OF BAD NEWS

There is no single flavour of horror in this collection. It lurches cheerfully from zombie apocalypse to urban fantasy, through cosmic monstrosities, carnivals, vampires, mutants and occult clergy, pausing only to rummage through some old books and stare meaningfully at a severed-looking hand.

Brad McDevitt Stock Art – Horror Collection 4 contains 25 image files covering 20 distinct subjects, suitable for adventures, sourcebooks, bestiaries, fiction, ’zines, handouts and whatever other grim little publication you are trying to drag over the finishing line.

Most of the collection is supplied as TIFF artwork. Two additional PNG files are included for the Zombie Horde. Several pieces also come with greyscale alternatives, which is handy when your print budget is less Hammer Horror and more church newsletter.

The artwork is available for personal and professional projects, subject to the attached licence.

WHAT IS ACTUALLY IN THE FOLDER

• Zombie Horde – TIFF

• Zombie Horde – greyscale PNG

• Zombie Horde – PNG

• Creepy Doll

• Scarred Woman

• Scarred Woman – greyscale

• Chthonian Wyrm

• Falling Death

• Punk Vampire

• Mutant Hand

• Urban Fantasy Tarantula

• Alien Invader

• Serpent Man

• Old Books

• Old Books – greyscale

• Blind Bat Priest

• Blind Bat Priest – greyscale

• Elder Thing

• Psycho Killer

• Techno Demon

• Gruesome Zombie

• Melting Mutant

• Bad News and Booze

• Lord of Worms

• Carnival of Terror

That is 25 usable files, rather than the inflated claim of 25 completely different illustrations. The distinction is worth making.

DEAD PEOPLE, MOSTLY UNCOOPERATIVE

The collection begins with a Zombie Horde supplied in three forms, then adds a Gruesome Zombie for closer work.

The horde is the obvious choice for an outbreak, siege, mass rising or any chapter in which the problem has moved beyond one corpse and become a matter for local government. The separate zombie works better as an individual encounter, bestiary entry or face for the thing currently pushing through the barricade.

The three Horde files give you a TIFF, a standard PNG and a greyscale PNG. That is useful practical variation rather than padding disguised as abundance.

Falling Death also sits comfortably among the collection’s undead and mortality-soaked imagery, though the filename leaves its precise use open. A falling corpse, apparition, doomed victim or supernatural manifestation are all possible homes for it. Put it where it earns its keep.

THE MUTANT END OF THE SWIMMING POOL

Several illustrations concern damaged, altered or downright badly assembled bodies:

• Mutant Hand

• Melting Mutant

• Scarred Woman

• Serpent Man

The Mutant Hand can serve as evidence before the creature itself appears. Leave it at a crime scene, preserve it in a specimen jar, attach it to something that was previously believed human, or use it as a visual marker for mutation rules.

The Melting Mutant is less coy. It suits body horror, toxic accidents, failed experiments, radiation, unstable transformations or magic behaving like industrial waste.

Scarred Woman, supplied in standard and greyscale versions, is much broader in application. She could be a survivor, investigator, villain, mercenary, witness or player character. The scars tell us that something happened; they do not oblige you to use the artist’s original context.

The Serpent Man belongs equally well in pulp horror, occult conspiracy, lost-race fiction, urban fantasy or science fiction. He might be ancient, alien, transformed or merely representative of a species with excellent posture and unfortunate public relations.

HORROR FROM FURTHER AFIELD

The Chthonian Wyrm, Elder Thing, Lord of Worms and Alien Invader give the collection a strong streak of cosmic and extraterrestrial horror.

The Chthonian Wyrm can go underground, beneath ruined cities, below archaeological sites or somewhere under the characters’ feet where it has been listening to them discuss explosives.

The Elder Thing is ready for cold expeditions, lost civilisations, forbidden biology and ancient remains that prove significantly less dead than the funding proposal suggested.

Lord of Worms has the sort of title that can support almost anything unpleasant: a cult patron, corpse-god, undead sovereign, parasitic intelligence or monster whose worshippers have taken decomposition as a sacrament.

The Alien Invader is direct enough. It can be used for an invasion, containment breach, first contact, government conspiracy or the revelation that the lights over the moor were not weather balloons after all.

These images need not share a mythology. On the other hand, they can. A worm cult uncovering an alien ruin and mistaking its occupant for a god is already most of the way to an adventure.

CITY NIGHTS, BAD HABITS

The Punk Vampire, Urban Fantasy Tarantula, Techno Demon, Psycho Killer and Bad News and Booze pull the collection towards modern horror.

The Punk Vampire is not obliged to brood in ancestral property. Put them in a squat, club, condemned station, music scene or criminal underworld. Immortality has survived many changes in fashion; there is no reason it cannot survive this one.

The Urban Fantasy Tarantula works as a monster, familiar, transformed human, spirit or conspicuously oversized piece of city wildlife. It is particularly suited to projects where the supernatural hides in ordinary places rather than waiting in a castle for somebody to bring torches.

The Techno Demon can occupy the muddied border between machinery and the occult. Possessed hardware, infernal augmentation, digital summoning and experimental cybernetics are all available. The title gives you permission to be gloriously irresponsible.

The Psycho Killer is a human-scale threat among all these cosmic things. That can be more useful than another creature. Human villains move through ordinary society, understand locks and may have access to the same police procedures as the investigators.

Bad News and Booze is quieter and therefore versatile: aftermath, revelation, a weary witness, a bad headline or the moment somebody realises that the evening’s first drink was optimistic.

THE CLERGY HAVE SEEN SOME THINGS

The Blind Bat Priest appears in standard and greyscale forms.

That filename alone contains enough implied history for a character: priest of a subterranean cult, transformed cleric, mutant prophet, servant of a bat-god, occult scholar or something masquerading as a religious figure because robes are excellent camouflage.

The image can anchor a cult section, introduce a recurring villain or serve as a character portrait for a campaign where faith and monstrosity are not mutually exclusive.

There is no need to explain everything immediately. Half the pleasure of such an illustration is putting it on the page before the full revelation and allowing the reader to wonder what in God’s name they are looking at.

Possibly God has nothing to do with it.

CREEPY OBJECTS AND WORSE READING MATERIAL

Not every horror illustration needs to be a creature posing for its entry in the bestiary.

The Creepy Doll and Old Books are useful precisely because they are objects.

A doll can be haunted, cursed, inhabited, used as a ritual focus or entirely innocent while everybody blames it for events taking place elsewhere. It can appear in a child’s room, an evidence locker, a museum case or sitting somewhere nobody remembers leaving it.

The Old Books are supplied in standard and greyscale versions. They can stand in for grimoires, journals, family records, ritual texts or the sort of research material that gives investigators accurate information at severe personal cost.

They also make useful chapter furniture. A book image can introduce magic, history, research or lore without tying the page to a specific character.

CARNIVAL OF TERROR

Carnivals offer bright lights, masks, crowds, temporary structures and people whose job already involves looking unsettling.

The Carnival of Terror can be used as a location piece, chapter opener or illustration for a whole adventure. Perhaps the carnival is haunted. Perhaps the performers are monsters. Perhaps the show is a cover for ritual activity, disappearances or a travelling community fleeing something even worse.

The great advantage of carnival horror is plausible deniability. Strange makeup, unnatural movement and impossible costumes are all part of the performance until somebody fails to take theirs off.

WHY STOCK ART EARNS ITS PLACE

Bespoke commissions are wonderful. They are also hungry creatures that consume budgets, deadlines and the attention of whichever artist has suddenly become impossible to contact.

Stock art is the practical answer for everything that does not absolutely require a unique commission.

This collection can provide:

• Character portraits

• Monsters and bestiary entries

• Chapter-opening illustrations

• Crime-scene or clue imagery

• Occult props

• Modern-horror atmosphere

• Cosmic-horror creatures

• Decorative breaks in long stretches of text

It is especially useful for smaller supplements, adventures and ’zines where commissioning two dozen separate illustrations would turn a modest project into an act of financial self-harm.

Use the strongest pieces prominently. Scatter the smaller or more specialised images through encounters, sidebars and lore sections. Keep the variants for alternate editions or different layout needs.

That empty box marked ART has been sitting there judging you for long enough.

FILE BREAKDOWN

The download contains 25 files representing 20 distinct subjects:

• 23 TIFF files

• 2 PNG files

Alternate versions are provided for:

• Zombie Horde: TIFF, PNG and greyscale PNG

• Scarred Woman: standard and greyscale TIFFs

• Old Books: standard and greyscale TIFFs

• Blind Bat Priest: standard and greyscale TIFFs

The other 16 subjects are supplied as individual TIFF illustrations.

Some artwork may also appear in other Brad McDevitt collections where it crosses comfortably between genres.

LICENCE

The files are supplied for personal and professional projects under the terms of the attached licence.

Read it before publication. Check the requirements for credit, alteration and distribution rather than relying upon the ancient legal principle of “I assumed it would probably be fine”.

Browse the wider Brad McDevitt Stock Art range for more monsters, characters, scenery and other useful things to place between the paragraphs.

The horde is advancing.

The doll has changed position.

The old book is open to a page that was not there yesterday.

At least the artwork is dealt with.