Bansidhe

https://www.deviantart.com/ryuyujin/art/Mandrake-Warhammer-40K-Month-2019-813243337

There is something special coming for Halloween weekend. So we are starting a count down to it with revisits of past creepy artwork, all ladies with a dark and/or twisted side to them or story around them or a connection to the comic book world.

So sit back, put on some spooky music, and enjoy the nostalgic and scary visual tales we weave!

I hope to hear a few of your own or your own interpretations of these artworks in the comments!

Today's entry is the second of the "Hanged Man" images or more accurately, the honorary member. In 2019 I started doing posters for each Arctic Comic Con, an Alaskan Comic Book and Fan Convention. Each major comic book company was slated to get a representation, and I wanted to start with the ladies. But I wanted to do one for Battle Zone Ursa and Games Workshop 40k even though Games Workshop is not a comic book company at all but a table top game company.

Plus I really wanted to give my Glowyrm a big sister.

I like drawing monsters though the call for it is rare, and while researching dark eldar, also known as the Drukhari, I ran across these eccentric, nightmarish yet oddly visually appealing killer shadow demons. Something about their primal and base, yet clearly intelligent, calculating and otherworldly nature appealed to me. I was reminded of old school fae and fairies, and being a student and lover of old tales I went, DUDE! MUST. DRAW. MANDRAKE!

So in addition to Glowyrm, now have Bansidhe!

Story time-ish (Games Workshop should pay me for my constant promotion of their stuff the stingy b*stards ;P  ) !

When your enemy is over half a universe away, and even warp travel will not let you reach them, there is one type of assassin you can hire to do the deed. But take caution, for these deadly masters of ice and shadow are as twisted and mutable as the warp itself and far more cruel, ruthless and sadistic then any Drukhari ever dreamed of being... a strain of dark elf who's blood is tainted by the demonic, who's hedonism both transcends Slaanesh and harkens back to the savage almost alien primeval minds of countless ancestors of the past.

A Mandrake may accept an offered job for the seemingly simple and arcane price of a song, a true name, a first kiss, or a last heart beat in addition to the traditional payment of slaves most Drukhari ask for. But do not be fulled by the seemingly benign nature of such requests as they are far from it, these things holding a great deal of power for the Mandrake asking and often used in dark primal rituals to strengthen their powers or swallow more of the webways into their dark twisted space.

Never think you can run from a Mandrake either. Target or an employer that could not or would not pay up, those who betray them are skinned and their hides used for crude clothing. Mandrakes almost never loose their prey either, living shadows capable of literally popping up any where and anytime so long as there is shadow and darkness present. They move a silently as death itself and can literally freeze the blood inside your veins solid with a touch.

They are the elven bogymen, the thing under the bed or behind the closet in a grim dark world full of Space Marines, Tyranids, and Chaos Lords... only they are not ghosts of lore but very very very real.

The ultimate assassin. The dark Baba Yaga. The Mandrakes.