Getting back in the saddle

What started as a small hiatus turned into a long absence; my apologies to all who waited. I am returning to this project with the byakhee. The description of this creature is one of the most macabre of all of Lovecraft's creations, yet rarely do I see it illustrated to its full potential. Hopefully my own rendition will capture the essential flavor of Lovecraft's description:

Out of the unimaginable blackness beyond the gangrenous glare of that cold flame, out of the tartarean leagues through which that oily river rolled uncanny, unheard, and unsuspected, there flopped rhythmically a horde of tame, trained, hybrid winged things that no sound eye could ever wholly grasp, or sound brain ever wholly remember. They were not altogether crows, nor moles, nor buzzards, nor ants, nor vampire bats, nor decomposed human beings; but something I cannot and must not recall. They flopped limply along, half with their webbed feet and half with their membranous wings; and as they reached the throng of celebrants the cowled figures seized and mounted them, and rode off one by one along the reaches of that unlighted river, into pits and galleries of panic where poison springs feed frightful and undiscoverable cataracts.
-H.P. Lovecraft, "The Festival"

Attached is a preview of the work in progress.