After an hour and a half I had the image on the (left) which I was very happy about. It was definitely creepy and disturbing but it was not creepy enough, something was missing that I felt was present in my previous designs.

Upon looking over my previous concepts I noticed I blacked out the face or kept it obscured or hidden in some way. So I decided to try it here by simply blacking out the face as if being permanently shrouded by the presence of an unnatural dread.

I felt the addition made the concept allot stronger in its creepiness as the shadow effectively renders the witches face unreadable which makes her much more menacing and disturbing.

After coming across a design that I liked I decided to render her final design. I drew up some thumbnail images of her waving her shadowy magic possibly in a gloomy forest of cave.

I found it difficult to come up with an idea that I liked for the final image as I felt a backdrop would inter-fear with getting across the idea of the witch, so I decided to drop it and use the thumbnail I created in my previous studies as It prity much nailed what I wanted from the character, design wise and it already had a strong eerie pose.

I opened up the thumbnail and doped it onto a big canvas in Photoshop and began to refine it using elements of my other thumbnails such as the design for the torn robes that came about in later concepts.

I did some more 20 minuet thumbnails, this time looking at of the possible appearance of the witch during her mortal lifespan.
These designs could also be used for her form that resembles her mortal appearance to better interact with her victims by creating the illusion of dealing with an ordinary woman. Making deals in this form would be far more successful as any potential souls would otherwise be intimidated or fearful of her true self.

After spending some time on the witch's twisted abominations I decided to re visit the witch and to concept her base or initial form.
The above images were a series of 20 minuet thumbnails to quickly flesh out my ideas.

The witch in the story appears in a variety of similar forms depending on her intentions. Her most common features include long white flowing hair obscuring a dark almost blacked out face. She is adorned by heavily torn robes but predominately she is nude, this was a deliberate choice to capture a distinct dark and eerie pagan ambience to the witch.

The Grey Wonderer
The witch may appear as a shrivelled old woman horribly doubled over and decrepit  making use of an ancient twisted looking staff as a walking stick. This form is known as the grey, or white wanderer and it is her most common form when interacting with unsuspecting victims.
In truth this form dates back to her original appearance as an elderly witch that has haunted the woods for many centuries. It is not until recently she has been augmented by the power of Nazjikile resulting in her now more ethereal and wraith like appearance seemingly restoring her youth and womanly figure. She acquires and augments her power by offering the children of a nearby village as sacrifice to Nazjikile the ancient dark God of chaos and death.

The Shadow Witch
The shadow witch is her new form which is a direct result of her gaining more and more power from her sacrifices to Nazjikile. No longer a decrepit old hag, she had become a creature of shadow and darkness, no longer bound by reality she floats eerily through the air as if moving through an invisible hidden realm as well as the mortal world.
As expected her power is greatly enhanced no longer bound by the limits of her mortal frame or the need to channel magic through a catalyst such as her staff she is free to cast and weave magic from the dark depths of the nether-realm and suffer non of the dangerous concisenesses that inhibit mortal wizards and sorceress. 

In the end I decided to go with the floating wraith like apparition for her initial form as it ticked all the boxes I wanted for my witch. The design moved away from the stereotype of the green skinned cackling broom raiding fiend of the night and more towards an ethereal wraith, an unnatural force of the underworld causing disease, famine and other atrocities using her dark shadowy magic.

Here are some High rez sketches of the various Homunis Creatures. These abominations were created from the decaying rotten corpses of the witch's victims, essentially they are the failed results of the witch's experiments trying to uncover the secrets of life and death.

In my odd doodling I stumbled upon a gap in the story concept, what exactly was the witch doing to these people she carted off into the wildness. I formulated an idea that perhaps the witch was experimenting with the people she lured into her clutches turning them into horrid abominations after exposing them to the demonic power of Naz,ji,kile. Another idea is these creatures are the poor souls she offered bargains and miracles to in exchange for completing a seemingly simple request which in reality is an impossible task the gullible mortal had no chance of completing. In accordance to the deal the witch gains the victims soul and the horrified mortal is transformed into a mindless slave forever trapped and tormented for their foolishness.

Above are quick sketches for three possible abominations created by the witch through her sorcery and arcain powers. Infulences were drawn from games such as Dead Space's Necromorphs and the Mandragoran possessed villagers featured in Sword of the Berserk :Gatts rage.

Here I have experimented with exaggerated silhouettes to quickly concept ideas for the witches true from.

Using this technique I can quickly express my ideas and experiment with silhouettes as well as detail at the same time. This is much faster than traditional pencil drawing and is far better suited for the task of speed concepting than traditional pencil drawings. 

I wanted the witch to have some kind of concealed true form she hides from her unsuspecting victims until the last possible moment when there is no hope of escape.

The witch is in a seance being enhanced and empowered to far greater levels by tapping into the currently dormant Demon God Naz,ji,kile feeding on the fallen god's energies that have permeated throughout the lands ever since Naz,ji,kiles imprisonment five thousand years ago at the hands of the Dark Heart linage.  

A new Story an old Fear!

After pondering on my new story and looking into myths and legends across Europe and pretty much the rest of the world I wanted to take something most people of many faiths, religions or simply folklore enthusiasts would easily recognise the witch!

But I did not simple wish to slap a stereotypical witch in there and call it a day I wanted to take the basic concept of what a witch represented and re shape it into my own twisted demonic force that conforms to the lore of my own dark fantasy universe, Spawn of Darkness.

What we perceive a witch to be in modern times has been shaped largely by the demagnification by the Catholic church and other monotheistic religions. Feeling that any mortal creature with supranational powers of any kind must be of the devil or under his control. The situation was made worse due to the fact that a witch was predominately female, which allot of monotheistic religions usually hold in contempt for bringing about the fall of man according to their beliefs. 

This theme of the superstitious primarily monotheists having a fear of a woman with power or knowledge seeking their revenge against society, the church or men in general is a common theme seen throughout folklore. A very good example outside of monotheism would be the Onryo, whose origins can be found in Japanese folklore. They were the angry and extremely disturbing spirits of frail and weak women beaten and abused in life, now seeking there revenge on the people who wronged them. Such spirits have featured in films such as The Ring, The Grudge and the Korean horror A tale of Two Sisters. Onryo have also made there way into games such as Project Zero and S-Ko from Guilty Gear. 

I also want to draw inspiration on the fear of going missing or being taken by an unknown possibly malevolent force. Tales in recent history would include witches, hags and strangely enough female sasquatch who carried large baskets on their hairy backs and used it to whisk away children into the night.

Modern versions of this fear manifest in the phenomenon known as alien abduction, films such as The Forth Kind, Fire in the Sky and The Mcphersons Tape all deal with the stress and anxiety associated with being taken against our will by an unknown force for unknown reasons. 

This fear can also be applied in a third person perspective e.g. seeing a loved one be taken by an unknown force. In recent history legends of changelings being found in the cribs of a children's bedroom was a sign the real family's child had been taken and replaced with a deformed and hideous parody of a human infant.

There are also the endless tales of children and adults being lured to their deaths by mysterious beings and creatures. Creatures such as mermaids, selky, kelpie and sirens charming sailors and unsuspecting villagers to their watery graves. Witches luring dazed and charmed villagers into the deep depths of the forests and dying of exposure to the wildness. History is full of such tales and legends and I intend to draw upon this primal fear to enhance the eeriness of the story.   

My first conceptual idea being originally inspired by the TV documentary series River Monsters produced by Animal Planet featuring Jeremy Wade, I felt was not a strong enough idea or at least I did not find it all that inspiring.

It wasn't until I started playing around in Skyrim in my spare time that I started to formulate a new conceptual idea.

During my travels around Skyrim I started to love the idea of a dark medieval fantasy for my setting instead of the tribal like dream time I was envisioning prior. This would also allow me to link my project with my graphic novel project I have been planning for a while now. In essence this will allow me to ease my way into the overall project of Spawn of Darkness a trial run if you will.

After linking the project with Spawn of Darkness a new plot began to quickly unravel in the dark depths of my mind. Using the basic formula of my previous story idea I will re shape it accordingly twisting and contorting the concept to fit my new theme.

 With the basics of my story and brief in mind I start to draw up some designs of the lake monster and the tribal like nomadic warrior that will encounter this beast after it as terrorized a nearby village.

I chose a female protagonist as it is slightly unexpected when dealing with a tribal worrier. She is stout strong willed and incredibly durable able to withstand the onslaught of even the deadliest monsters.