In Eastern Slavic tales, Babaika is a sort of boogeyman - it's been common practice to scare children into obedience by telling stories about them.
Babai, or Babaika, is a monster who steals the rowdy and unpleasant children in the night by stealing into the house and putting them in their old, dirty sack. What happens to the children afterwards is intentionally left up to the children's imagination.
Babaika is also intentionally not described; the imagination of the kids, thus, weaves the most terrifying image.
I decided to go for a spider vibe with this monster, similarly to how I went for a chicken / bittern vibe with Kikimora. I think it's a rather fitting analogy.
Next, the design is as androgynous as possible. I also took inspiration from the Mandela Catalogue youtube series, where monsters with vertically stretched eyes are rather common. Since Babaikas are cannibals, their teeth and chins are stained red.
What do you think of this monster's design? Do you like it or not? Please tell me in the comments to this post!
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