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Blood Meridian - Landscapes #3

Cormac McCarthy's literary masterpiece 'Blood Meridian' (rightfully described as 'the ultimate Western') had a profound impact upon me. The intensity of his prose and descriptive passages border on an almost biblical, hallucinatory form of poetry.
Alongside recent character designs from the novel, I decided to try and depict some of the landscapes he describes in the American Southwest of 1849.
If you haven't read the book, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

'..they rode above the gaunt rill of water past a place of bones where Mexican soldiers had slaughtered an encampment some years gone..the bones and skulls scattered along the bench...like the ossature of small apes at their place of murder.'

'..they rode above the gaunt rill of water past a place of bones where Mexican soldiers had slaughtered an encampment some years gone..the bones and skulls scattered along the bench...like the ossature of small apes at their place of murder.'

'...Toadvine pushed aside the dried cowhide that hung for a door and they entered a place where all was darkness and without definition...in the shadows dark figures sat smoking. The place reeked of woodsmoke and sweat.'

'...Toadvine pushed aside the dried cowhide that hung for a door and they entered a place where all was darkness and without definition...in the shadows dark figures sat smoking. The place reeked of woodsmoke and sweat.'

'At dusk they halted and built a fire and roasted the deer. The night was much enclosed about them and there were no stars....fires that burned red and sullen along the invisible ridges. They ate and moved on, leaving the fire on the ground behind them.'

'At dusk they halted and built a fire and roasted the deer. The night was much enclosed about them and there were no stars....fires that burned red and sullen along the invisible ridges. They ate and moved on, leaving the fire on the ground behind them.'

'...they entrained upon a hollow ground that rang so roundly under the horses' hooves...and that night as they lay in that ground each heard, all heard, the dull boom of rock falling somewhere far below them in the awful darkness inside the world.'

'...they entrained upon a hollow ground that rang so roundly under the horses' hooves...and that night as they lay in that ground each heard, all heard, the dull boom of rock falling somewhere far below them in the awful darkness inside the world.'

'They found the lost scouts hanging from the limbs of a fireblacked paloverde tree. They hung gray and naked. Their tongues were drawn out and held with sharpened sticks thrust through them...torsos sliced open with flints until the entrails hung down...'

'They found the lost scouts hanging from the limbs of a fireblacked paloverde tree. They hung gray and naked. Their tongues were drawn out and held with sharpened sticks thrust through them...torsos sliced open with flints until the entrails hung down...'

'They rode for days through the rain and they rode in rain and hail and rain again. In that gray storm light they crossed a flooded plain with the footed shapes of the horses reflected in the water among clouds and mountains...'

'They rode for days through the rain and they rode in rain and hail and rain again. In that gray storm light they crossed a flooded plain with the footed shapes of the horses reflected in the water among clouds and mountains...'

'The house was a low adobe structure with a courtyard of dust and a few sickly plants clinging to life along the walls. The few flowers that did bloom were small and pale, as if they were as weary of the sun as the people who lived there.'

'The house was a low adobe structure with a courtyard of dust and a few sickly plants clinging to life along the walls. The few flowers that did bloom were small and pale, as if they were as weary of the sun as the people who lived there.'

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