Back in August, the Warhammer 40,000 fan canon of made-up characters was accidentally granted a new villain, thanks to a weird glitch in Google AI overviews. An AI-generated answer to a lore question referred to the non-existent character ‘War Master Harvest Lupergirl’, a mistake that was circulated widely via social media as fans chuckled at the misfiring machine. And now we know what this hypothetical arch villain could look like, thanks to an excellent illustration by concept artist Pantmonger.
On August 26, Warhammer 40k fan HoodedBuddhist shared a screenshot on X of a Google AI overview they received when they asked the question “Have any Primaris turned to Chaos?” This gives the (incorrect) answer that some Primaris Space Marines have indeed fallen to the ruinous powers, and ends by claiming: “During the Horus Heresy, one Prime Master joined the Fallen Primark War Master Harvest Lupergirl and fought alongside demons”.
To briefly dunk on AI’s ability to provide useful information: there were no Primaris Space Marines during the Horus Heresy, so this statement is a non sequitur: despite the words ‘Prime’ and ‘Master’ being very popular in the Imperium of Man, Prime Master is not a rank it uses; and Primark is an international chain of budget fashion retailers, not the primogenitor of a Space Marine legion.
As of writing this article, that original post has been viewed over 18,000 times. That includes being spotted by Pantmonger – who goes by that name on X and BlueSky and prefers not to give their IRL name – who happens to be a concept artist and illustrator.
“As silly a prompt as it was, it made me think about how cool it would be to have the amalgamation of sci-fi Chaos, with old nature gods and rituals”, Pantmonger says. “I love the aesthetic of folk horror”, they add. So they decided to create their own visualisation of what this hypothetical character could look like.
Pantmonger used visual language from “a lot of the fiction I have read and watched around those themes”, like “Wicker Man, The Ritual, Dark Harvest, The Crooked Moon, Blair Witch”: hence why Lupergirl is armed with a sickle and adorned with a flower crown. Her Chaos mutations “tap the wild world, such as antlers – or maybe they’re tree branches”.
For the aspiring visual artists, Pantmonger explains their process. They “tend to start very rough, blocking out basic shapes and trying different elements, keeping some and discarding others”. The sickle started as a chainsickle, but they decided that would make it harder to identify what the weapon was supposed to be, and changed it to a more traditional form.
Once they’ve settled on the core pose they work on passes of the whole image, “each step further refining the whole image”, from “rough sketch to sketch to final lines”. Once the linework is in they block out the lighting in greyscale, create a layer for flat colors, and then merge them. After that, they iterate on that final design until they’re satisfied.
Their advice for new artists is “the annoyingly obvious one about practise and doing a lot of it: it’s true, if trite”. They recommend “speed painting and life drawing” as exercises that have taught them “a lot about abstraction”. They also advise not getting too hung up about developing a style: “as you learn and over time develop your own visual language to communicate your ideas, those choices, often non conscious, will become your style”.
We do love fan art from talented illustrators here at Wargamer: check out Lluis Abadias’ Warhammer 40k and Monster Hunter mashups. If you want to learn some accurate lore about the 40k setting, check out our guides to the Warhammer 40k factions, and of course our guide to the Warhammer 40k Primarchs. Even though she’s now been illustrated, Harvest Lupergirl will not be getting a spot.
Source: Wargamer
