Baba Yaga

Within the strong idea in my mind, I started to gather a lot of references. I focused on a house first, so I was searching for the concepts already made by other artists, to give myself a starting point. However, I was also looking for photos of existing buildings and objects. At that time, I was considering the style that I am going for, and I decided to keep the textures quite realistic, but at the same time a bit stylised with the proportions and overall look. I created 2 mood boards: one with pieces of art made by other artists and the second one with existing objects I found. The main building is inspired by the old, wooden log cabins, plenty of them can be found in the small villages in Poland. I would like to add more personality to it by including details like hanging dry herbs, pieces of cloth, skulls, and torches. I want this place to fill somewhat neglected and controlled at the same time. I begin the concept art creation by study the overall silhouette of the bui...

When I was younger, I used to read a lot of legends and tales about fantasy creatures. I was particularly interested in Slavic mythology, ritual and beliefs. Then I started to play The Witcher, game based on a book written by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski. This story was full of  Slavic tales and legends, so I was inspired to create something related to this. When I was a kid, I went across a very famous tale about an old, grumpy woman with supernatural powers called Baba Yaga. Origin of this story is not exactly clear, probably it came all the way from Russia. However, it seems like a lot of different cultures have a creature similar to Baba Yaga in their mythology. For example, Germans have Frau Holle, Italians Befana, and English Black Annis. But there is something special and creative in Slavic stories, so Baba Yaga doesn't have an ordinary house in a forest, she lives in a house on chicken legs, which she can move wherever she wants to.  I remind myself of this s...