Cowboy
2009
18 x 24”
acrylic on canvascollection of Phil Nelson
(Source: hommegurl)
progress shot of the painting for the Material Possession art show on the 17th. Probably calling this one Sixteen, the next in a sequence starting from Fourteen, which was an illustration for Conclave Journal (Fourteen is pretty old; forgive the fucked anatomy and linework please):

They know where his room is; they can follow the chemicals in the
trails on the carpet, their black tongues digging through the shag to
find him. Six told me once that they can taste, in the air, (“In
empty space,” he said) the particular ways about you. The way your
bones are strung together, and how they slide among all your meat.
Those things.“Fourteen is a dancer,” said Six. “The clients can…” and here he
stuck his cigarette in his teeth, freeing both hands to grope for the
word, “taste the way he moves. The air he displaces when he walks
through a room—they can feel that, even after he’s gone.” Six was a
heavy smoker. They loved the chemicals in his lungs. I could hear him
cough, when they took him to his room. The keeper kept Six fed on
cigarettes, brought through just for this purpose. Each of us, we’re
a little different. Thirty-one flavors, says Six.I like how Fourteen wears his mask tilted down a little, so the fringe
swings loose. I like his sticky skin, the musk of it, the furrows
dragged in the mucus shellac at the end of his shift. Sometimes he
just goes to bed without washing, and fuzz from his blankets gets
honeyed up in the slickness, and I like that too.
and then Fifteen (also oldish, anatomy is screwy here too)…


Fifteen never had a story, but he’s from the same universe as Fourteen—the Brothel Between Worlds, where the horrors from beyond the stars drop in for whatever services a creche of press-ganged human slaves can provide.
Interdimensional monsters despise the tender, mobile human face, of course, which is why Fourteen and Sixteen have tentacled masks. Fifteen’s mask was set aside for the purposes of portraiture, but it is likely similar.
Exposure to the various, unwholesome essences tracked in or exuded by planet-devourers does cause mutation over time, and there is the occasional child born into the house. Fourteen is apparently whole and human, but Fifteen seems gracious about his “arm”. It’s difficult to tell whether Sixteen’s teeth were filed down, changed organically over time, or if she was born this way. She may have gotten her cephalopodean pupils from her father. Or her mother.
And really, does it matter?
Objectify the Rent Boys That Service the Shoggoth Johns Daily
Fourteen (by vebelfetzer)
I usually doodle something on the package. Generally a hex, or something obscene.