Mono Mondays: Hidden Away

On Mondays, we like to support our resident artist, Mono!  They're an up-and-coming scribbler of things dark and weird, and we consider ourselves lucky to have leeched onto— er, formed a mutually beneficial relationship with them.  You can watch Mono hard at work creating various pieces on their YouTube channel.  For those who don't feel like watching digital paint getting splashed around, we'll be showcasing a different piece of theirs right here every Monday.

This week, we aren't sure quite what we're looking at.  By design.

Mono calls this one "Hidden Away."  Inspired by horror games and deep-sea creatures, the premise is simple.  You're in the dark, as one is, and you can tell something else is in the dark with you.  A sudden glow reveals part of, but not nearly all of, the creature in the dark with you.  At first, the cheerful, almost cute face reassures you.

And then you remember: the creatures that glow like this, in the darkest depths?  They're predators.

As with all artists, Mono likes to look at their work and find ways to improve.  Now that they've got more experience with making glowing effects, they'd approach a work like this differently, "but it's still creepy and something you could see crawling down your wall at 3 am when you can't move."

We don't know about you, but the idea of something that's happy it's about to eat us is much more disturbing than a regular monstrosity.