Like ... the vila are a species of Slavic fae and/or nymphe-like creatures. Like, the Basiliskos, the elves, the boggarts and the vila are all so far removed from what they were in their original myths. Basiliskos and vila aren't even spelt correctly, and what she did with boggarts and elves is honestly wild.

The Basiliskos was a North African bird with a serpent tail whose touch is deadly and venomous breath would slowly wither you away. It could kill ANYTHING. Elves are from the Germanic Alf, referring to the magical creatures of either light (ljosalfar) or dark (dokkalfar) that were ambivalent towards humans. Boggarts were a type of Unseelie Fae that either served as household mischief, stealing your cutlery and trinkets, or as horrifying swamp monsters, stealing children. Vila were a type of Slavic shapeshifter, who might be found dancing in circles naked to lure in men, however joining uninvited meant death, and would turn into hurricanes or wild animals like deer but have ZERO bird or fire association.

It's a bit of a pain. First off, using the Perry Miniatures Agincourt Knight arms (specifically the ones from the English Army kit) do work well with the Fireforge Scandinavian/Norse models in several ways, but this particular set of arms just didn't quite fit, specifically the right arm (which I just realised makes him left handed. Oh well), so I had to cut the bent arm just above the elbow, glue the right shoulder in, glue the right hand and forearm to the axehaft, glue the left arm to the model and then glue them all together and hope that gravity didn't tear it all apart. But it worked and it works.

The second problem is that I'm using the Oathmark Elf Infantry heads for the models and though they have a good spangenhelm style helmet, I want to give him a bascinet but I don't want to go through brownstuffing on a maille aventail to cover the gap again. Especially since on average, bascinets go lower down the head, past the ears and to the top of the neck for coverage.

I have some white plastic piping that I could use to extend down the back a bit. Or maybe use it to make a bevor to make him a great bascinet, like this:

He will have a visor for his helmet to complete the look, just because I like visored bascinets but still.

P.2 for KOA au. The left was a quick first idea for Slade, though I’m not satisfied yet with that being his ‘mercenary’ clothes, and I need to figure a mask next. The right is just him in the default clothes shown for Varani— the temptation to just decapitate him was very strong with how. LONG. it took to do his stupid head. I’ll take the L on that side I want to blow him up.

Some more deets below..

Hey, here's where Dirtifer came from. I was actually really surprised to see a dockalfer show up in Wizard School Mysteries Book 1, I think I designed him before the book was released? Related was my attempt to draw a Beelzebub to varying results.

Most of this page is dedicated to the knucker and Lambton worm. The knucker was designed after seeing the kettles and pot-hole lakes named after knuckers. It made me think of them as a type of pest which lodges themselves into these holes, with spikes to prevent people from removing them. Their ears also have long scales or hairs to mimic reeds. The Lambton worm was drawn to make it look a little more like an eft, or juvenile newt, which the worm was supposed to resemble.

I do find it interesting how, much like trolls, their modern portrayals differ from their origins. I think JRR Tolkien's interpretation of Elves in Middle Earth is quite cool, but every pop-culture iteration inspired by his thereafter seems less and less interesting.

In terms of surviving folklore, a lot seems to have been lost in translation. As far as I know, the Eddas don't really emphasize a diminutive stature for Light Elves or Dark Elves, yet somehow both have ended up smol. I think perhaps it comes from the mixing of cultural beliefs about various magical, spiritual, or semi-spiritual beings. Some cultures had Gnomes and Pixies and the like, so when they heard about Elves they may have assumed they were roughly synonymous. Hence the surviving lore of tiny Elves helping shoemakers or building toys in Santa's workshop, or of Dwarfs (Dark Elves) being Dwarfy and doing Dwarf stuff while small.