Legendy - Vodník

Photoshop

So I've been working on this personal project for awhile now. It originally started as a game idea (still hoping for it to happen one day) which revolves around Czech legends. There are many legends that are connected to different places around the Czech Republic and when I was reading this book about Prague legends to see if there would be enough characters for my game, I felt like I was reading little stories from some RPG game. So many great characters! The problem was that I never liked the way they were portrayed and illustrated. Lots of them are supposed to be scary but they are not even a bit.
Look at the character "Vodník" for example. According to one legend, he is supposed to be a fallen angel who fell from a sky right into the river. Another legend states that he is a corpse brought to life when the cemetery flooded and holy water got washed away from his body (my favorite version :-). Also, he is a dude who is supposed to live in rivers and ponds, drown people, and take their souls.  He then keeps the souls in some sort of jars, hidden under water. He can shape shift into different animals or objects. Damn! That's what I call a scary character right from some video game.
Most of the illustrations portray this "creature" in a very old fashioned way which I don't find scary at all. If this guy came to my house to watch my kids while I was gone, I don't think I would feel concerned. Well okay, maybe a little, but the point is, most of the illustrations are for little children. The same goes for the illustrations of other Czech legends...so I decided to give them a small makeover. More legends are coming soon.