Negotiating with Baba Yaga

Another development piece for a short Doctor Baer story. In some of the stories featuring Baba Yaga her house is surrounded by a fence capped by human skulls, whose eye sockets glow eerily. I’m playing with that image to see what it might look like if Baba Yaga had some sentient skulls who assisted her similarly to how the Wisps assist Doctor Baer.

I’ve also updated the runes on Baba Yaga’s mortar. In the previous drawing I was aping some approximations of ancient Slavic script, but I remembered that I was sitting on a mystical alphabet I designed over 20 years ago:

Which appears at least twice in Two-Faced Statue.

Baba Yaga’s mortar got updated with these runes:

I’m not telling what it says. But I do plan on releasing a lot of Doctor Baer merchandise with this writing on it, so observant readers will eventually figure it out.

I’ve still got a lot of work to do on the outline, but my goal is to begin thumbnailing by the end of August. I’ll share what I’ve got as I go!