This is an illustration from 2021 that I spent a lot of time on. The original was an ink sketch that I wanted to turn into a full up color drawing and I did not take the most efficient approach.
For some background, Baba Yaga is a folklore monster... some times in movies portrayed as a male demon. I am Slavic though, and our version of Baba Yaga is an old witch that flies around on a broom stick or a mortar. When I was little my grandma used to try to scare me with stories of Baba Yaga and even told me her house was a tiny little utilty hut between the big apartment buildings we lived in. In the folklore, her house is actually mobile, and has chicken legs to move around on. Also the old crone is portrayed as cannibalistic, especially preferring the taste of young children.
I was intrigued... though I don't think I was ever really scared of the old witch. I just never found the Bulgarian "babas" scary, though other people might be onto something!
This is my interpretation of Baba Yaga's house, I like the idea of living trees that are their own characters, and chicken legs are just too tasty to be spooky!
For some background, Baba Yaga is a folklore monster... some times in movies portrayed as a male demon. I am Slavic though, and our version of Baba Yaga is an old witch that flies around on a broom stick or a mortar. When I was little my grandma used to try to scare me with stories of Baba Yaga and even told me her house was a tiny little utilty hut between the big apartment buildings we lived in. In the folklore, her house is actually mobile, and has chicken legs to move around on. Also the old crone is portrayed as cannibalistic, especially preferring the taste of young children.
I was intrigued... though I don't think I was ever really scared of the old witch. I just never found the Bulgarian "babas" scary, though other people might be onto something!
This is my interpretation of Baba Yaga's house, I like the idea of living trees that are their own characters, and chicken legs are just too tasty to be spooky!
This little wizard is not Baba Yaga, but is a visitor, and the tree is reacting to the intruder. If you pay attention to my drawings you may see this little red robed wizard show up in quite a few places. There must be a good reason to visit Baba Yaga, but we might never find out the exact cause.
Ink drawing sketch is how this started.
I refined this ink sketch digitally and then colored it. It looked cool, so I thought why not do illustration around it by placing it into a scene? This did not work out very well as the colors were clashing, the values were wrong... I spent a lot more time on this than I should have. Even now in 2025 I did some adjustments and painted in some details to clean this up. In the end some gradient maps and color overlays seem to have brought the image more together. I get frustrated looking at it though.
I refined this ink sketch digitally and then colored it. It looked cool, so I thought why not do illustration around it by placing it into a scene? This did not work out very well as the colors were clashing, the values were wrong... I spent a lot more time on this than I should have. Even now in 2025 I did some adjustments and painted in some details to clean this up. In the end some gradient maps and color overlays seem to have brought the image more together. I get frustrated looking at it though.
