SciFi and Fantasy Art: Strix! that which cries by night

My representation of a Strix (plural Striges) a demon from Roman mythology, which were skrieking vampiric birds that attacked children at night to drink their blood. However unlike the later and the more modern vampires which we're more familliar with, these were not risen corpses, or the undead, but were a sort of living vampire, they were believed to be demonic women that could transform themselves into these creatures, or individuals that had been turned into them as punishment. Later in history towards the Middle Ages they were associated with witches. The word 'Strega' is Itallian for witch. 

Striges are not the most well known of mythical creatures, and as such descriptions of what they looked like are somewhat vague and differ somewhat, and pictures or illustrations of them are even rarer; so far, i've cerainly seen none here on Elfwood. But after spending several hours trawlling through the internet researching them, the most common description  of them is having the appearance of a bird of prey-in particullary screech owls, though in other sources crows are sometimes mentioned, and in others in Ancient Greek myth -where they originated-they're described as being similar in appearance to harpies, women with the body of a bird (usually a crow) and portrayed with breasts filled with poisionous milk and huge talons. 

In the end i decided to create an owl-like bird with just a hint of human features

handrawn with ballpoint pen and coloured on the computer using paintshop pro