This isn’t character work this time! Or at least, on paper. Last year I got a book called “The Field Guide to Witches”, where artists reimagine different types of witches from sketch to full illustration. One of those steps was to design and imagine where the witch would live. I thought that was interesting, so I decided to apply that step to my character Sigi, who is a Volva, or the Viking version of a witch.
Sigi lives in a Nordic-inspired, urban, poor, factory-and-unemployment-heavy area with a lot of waterways and heavy winters. She also works at a lace factory. I imagine her living area to have a heavy gilded-age aesthetic – lots of industrialization and income inequality. I referenced bay cities like Montreal and Copenhagen, as well as industrial-era factories and environments. I wanted to get across that Sigi lives in an area with lots of struggle, and that struggle makes people party harder.
