Traditional stories play a big role in our world. My favorite stories are fictional stories about imaginative worlds that give magic to everyday life and so stimulate the imagination. Such stories exist in different cultures, and I have currently focused on the stories of the country in which I live.
Diverse beings are at home in German legends and fairy tales. As a character designer and as a human fascinated by storytelling, I started to keep myself busy with these creatures intensively. As a side project, I am working on a book that is dedicated to German legends and the fantastic human and animal creatures that occur in them. This free project will develop over a period of several years.
The companion of St. Nicholas
The figure Krampus comes from the folk customs of the Alpine countries. According to tradition, Krampus appears on December 5 as the companion of St. Nicholas. While Nicholas presents good children, bad children are punished by Krampus.
In the beginning were various visual designs for character designs created, and later sketches were made for finding colors.
Water Spirit in German Mythology
Nixies are humanoid and often shape-shifting water spirits in Germanic mythology and folklore. While mermaids live in the sea, nixies occur in rivers and lakes. In the stories they may resemble mermaids, but belong to the water spirits and are usually much more cruel. They have the ability to transform into human beings and blend with each other. Some nixies drag their human victims into the water, without considering that people can‘t breathe underwater. Other mermaids, however, also kill out of pure pleasure and sometimes commit acts of revenge against their own folks, if they remain too long among humans. As a rule, their victims are young and male, but sometimes also children.
For the design of the nixie I tried to create a catchy silhouette. Further individual designs were developed out of this silhouette.
The German legend tells of a mountain spirit called “Rübezahl”, who lives in the Giant Mountains in Silesia. His mission is to protect the mountains, the forest and in some stories even a precious treasure. The figure of Rübezahl can take different forms – as a giant, rock, tree, monk, miner, raven, donkey or even as Satan. Rübezahl is the lord of wind, rain and sun and is generally friendly towards people. Those who ask him for help receive his support. Sometimes he also takes care of the poor and the sick. The gifts of Rübezahl turn into gold for the good people, while the bad people are punished in different ways.
I created my first illustration version a few years ago, in which Rübezahl was depicted as rocks. However, one of the sketches inspired me to develop another version in the form of a human giant.
Every year the Walpurgis Night is celebrated as a feast of the transition from winter to summer time. According to a legend from the Harz region of Lower Saxony, witches rode brooms, goats or cats on the Sabbath of the Blocksberg to meet the devil and other demonic beings.
In the context of this legend, I mad different character designs for these witches to highlight the individuality of their personalities. The peculiarities of witches and their appearance have different reasons, which should emphasize their diversity. Their means of transport are also individually adapted to their preferences. Years later, I created a coloured illustration of the so-called chief witch.
