My original tumblr post here. This image was researched by Bacchus at ErosBlog as part of the “Δ commission.” The research was originally published at Hedonix as “Δ 024 – This Won’t Hurt Much.” Here is what Bacchus found.

Q [from Faustus]: Almost certainly young Dr. Herbert West, but who drew it?

A [from Bacchus]: The earliest source in this image’s current Tumblr chain of provenances is this post at Uncanny And Slightly Spooky. The tags found there include #herbert west, #re-animator, and #jeffrey combs, confirming that this is indeed an image of Dr. Herbert West, the character played by Jeffrey Combs in the 1985 sci-fi horror comedy Re-Animator. According to Wikipedia, Re-Animator was a film adaptation of a 1922 H.P. Lovecraft short story called Herbert West — Reanimator.

Although the artwork as found at Uncanny And Slightly Spooky appears unsigned, additional tags at that source include #i recently discovered jeffrey combs films, #and now i’m completely hooked, #expect lots of nerdy horror boy fanart in the near future, and #fanart. Taken together, these tags strongly suggest that the artist is the operator of that Tumblr blog. A quick look starting at the front page currently shows additional work in the same style with tags that are clearly by the artist.

The Tumblr itself offers just a few clues to the artist’s identity, but they are sufficient. The url prefix is “eckses” and a theme element says “Maltese. Does art stuff.” There’s a DeviantArt artist called eckses whose art appears similar and whose profile identifies him as from Malta. It appears near-certain that “eckses” is the artist who created this image.