u/vVexedDrawing

I was tired of all the offensively uninformed depictions of wendigos, so I decided to create my own rendition. It definitely resembles a more typical undead creature, and it was difficult getting the design to be visually interesting while trying to adhere more tightly to the existing source material.

I heavily leaned into stylized proportions and the appearance of a emaciated and wiry humanoid. One description I came across describes the wendigo as ashen-grey, but I also wanted to lean into the symbolic concept of cold that the wendigo represents. The cool, dark purple accents mostly found on common locations of frostbite are intended to reinforce the idea of the cold.

I imagined the void in the abdomen as spilling out the contents of whatever the wendigo eats, reinforcing the idea of hunger, starvation, gluttony, and greed.

The glowing eyes are abstracted as another cold color accent. I mainly thought of how this emissive source would add to the atmosphere of a horror game taking place in a dark forest. The glow from beneath the ribcage is intended to represent the concept of a heart made of ice that is present in some oral descriptions of the wendigo.

Finally, the circle on the head is completely made up from the gestural lines I made while sketching the head. I felt like they added a nice additional visual element that lends itself well to the "Blair Witch" style 'woodlands horror'.

I was tired of all the offensively uninformed depictions of wendigos, so I decided to create my own. It definitely resembles a more typical undead creature, and I definitely took my own share of artistic liberties, but I hope you enjoy my slightly more faithful take of the wendigo.