This month’s cover piece might have struck you as familiar ... Whether you’ve seen this ominous creature in the wild or in viral videos, this is Siren Head, an original cryptid by Trevor Henderson. Henderson is an artist, illustrator, and writer based in Canada who illustrates monsters, ghouls, and creepy creatures.
BRADLEY POWERS: Where did your fascination with cryptids come from? Do you have a favorite cryptid?
TREVOR HENDERSON: When I was really young, I saw a movie called Harry And The Hendersons, starring John Lithgow. It's about a family that hits a sasquatch with their car and sort of adopts him into their lives. I was obsessed. The fact that the family had the same last name as my family probably had something to do with it, but either way I started mainlining as much information about bigfoot, yeti, skunk ape, sasquatch as I possibly could. This, of course, led me on to finding out about cryptids like Nessie, Ogo-Pogo, Mokele Mbembe, the Chupacabra, the Mongolian death worm, the Hopkinsville Goblins, the Fresno Nightcrawlers, etc. etc. It was a deep well to jump into! It all got swirled up with the horror movies my dad was showing me at the time, too, and helped foster an eternal love of creatures. As for my favourite cryptid, it changes often, but right now it's either this weird faceless monster called the Pascagoula Humanoid, or the Loveland Frogman, which is a human-sized frog that walks like a man and has a magic wand for some reason.
BP: Some of your works, such as Long Horse, have a story or almost an urban legend to support them. You often tell snippets of these stories in the captions of your posts, building on them little by little. As an artist, how do you choose what elements should be visual versus written to create such enticing stories?
Long Horse.
TH: I try and keep it kind of loose. I always do the painting or drawing first, and then try and figure out the best way to accomplish a feeling or vague idea in the simplest way possible. Of course, I try to summon a mood or a weird atmosphere or hint at the intention of the creature. It's a challenge to do all that with a few sentences. But of course, you can build and build on it and make this web of story between all the pieces of art involving the character. It's fun and hopefully keeps everything mysterious and intriguing! I'll even often realize I've shown too much of a creature in a painting and have to obscure it or walk back some of the detail to keep things sort of realistic. The last thing I want to do is spell everything out, so that's always at the front of my mind.
BP: Your works vary in style–some reminiscent of baroque paintings with their high contrast and drama, others made by building off a photograph and appearing very realistic, while this month’s cover piece has a looser watercolor-esque quality to it. What medium did you use when creating this month’s cover piece? Explain your process for these different types of works.
TH: I actually make everything with the same program, Procreate, on my little iPad. I have 3-4 different brushes that I use depending on what sort of style I'm going for at the moment. It usually depends on the atmosphere I want for the piece or just how I envision it in my head. The cover image came into my head fully formed and I really wanted to focus on these very bright evening colours, so the style quickly presented itself.
BP: This month’s cover art features your character, Siren Head. I actually remember when Siren Head went viral–I remember laughing with my friends over dancing Siren Head videos on the school bus. As an artist myself, I understand how difficult it can be to release your work into the world knowing that you can’t always choose how it is received. How did it feel to have your creation blow up in popularity? What struggles did you face?
TH: It was very, very weird! I don't think you can fully ever prepare for something you make blowing up in the way that Siren Head did. Of course, I was and continue to be absolutely honored that, for whatever reason, Siren Head resonated with people. All of the fan art, music, writing, everything has been amazing to see. At the same time, often when something goes viral it sort of gets chewed up in the content mills of YouTube and Roblox and all that stuff, and you have to just pretend not to see it, because otherwise you will go insane. It would be a full-time unpaid job to try and moderate how my characters are represented and used online and it's just not possible, so you can only sort of hold firm to your own personal idea of the character.
BP: If you could pick any of your other creatures to gain huge popularity, which one would it be and why? If you’d rather none of them went viral again, explain why.
TH: I have a few that I think could be really fun in different projects, each with a different tone. I have this guy called The Man With The Upside-Down Face that I think would be great in a Blumhouse or Neon released indie horror movie, and I have these weird cenobites-from-hellraiser kind of shrouded pain nuns called The Sisters of the Ever-Sharpening Blade that could be very fun in a gothic period piece type of narrative. Honestly, any of 'em! Long Horse would be really fun to see realized as a Henson Studios puppet!
BP: You post about many horror movies on Instagram. What genre of horror movie do you draw most inspiration from? Any movie in particular?
TH: I love horror movies to death, obviously, so I try to take inspiration from the whole breadth of the genre. I love horror that works with putting the uncanny in mundane spaces, like suburbs or everyday cityscapes. There's a whole wave of new horror movies like Skinamarink, The Outwaters, We're All Going To The World's Fair, etc. that really understand the loneliness of these spaces (as well as the internet!) that I really vibe with and feel inspired by in my work. But really, there's so much good stuff out there.
BP: Thank you so much, Trevor, for unpacking your world as an artist for us and for taking us behind-the-scenes with your creatures! If you’d like to see more of Trevor’s work you can check out his Instagram, Bluesky, or portfolio, and you can get your hands on a print of your own here.