N’Askrikhil, Void Sovereign
Your thoughts are merely ink for his ledger.
Ruler of the psychic abyssal plains, N’Askrikhil siphons the memories of fallen kings to fuel the grand machinery of his subterranean, Illithid empire.
The Inspiration
I feel strongly that there are too many images of illithids (mindflayers) out there that look like cute octopuses rather than evil mind-suckers. I had to create my own version to redress the balance.
When coming up with N’Askrikhil, I wanted the result to be evil, ancient, aloof and disdainful – a tall order for something with an cephalopod for a face. The mindflayer that I had in mind (pardon the pun) needed to evoke D&D illustrations but with a slight comic book vibe. And so the monochrome, space-uniformed illithid was born.
The Craft
This artwork was created, nearly exclusively, with solid black shading and line work.
The piece was pyrographed using a very thin wire tip in order to create the sharp lines necessary to render the tentacles and uniform details. Most shading was achieved using dark lines or dots rather than smooth gradients, with the main exceptions being some skull details and the eye on the right of the picture. This helps achieve the starkly lit effect that I intended.
