The Wendigo (Patrons) (Patreon)

I was informed by a friend of mine that The Wendigo was a bit of a controversial figure to even depict at all due to its cultural significance with Algonquian speaking indigenous peoples. I’d never heard of this creature before it being suggested to me for this week’s spooky theme, so I wanted to do a bit of research before putting pencil to screen.

To my surprise, it was actually very hard to find any reference for its original depiction as opposed to its more popularized, deer-headed counterpart. So, in my research, I found this excerpt from a book called “The Manitous: The spiritual world of the Ojibway” by native author Basil Johnston describing it as “gaunt to the point of emaciation, its desiccated skin pulled tightly over its bones. With its bones pushing out over its skin, its complexion the ash grey of death, and its eyes pushed back into the sockets, the Wendigo looked like a gaunt skeleton recently disinterred from the grave. What lips it had were tattered and bloody… unclean and suffering from suppurations of the flesh, the Wendigo gave off a strange and eerie odor of decay and decomposition, of death and corruption.”

I tried to stick as closely to that as I could with slight variations from other descriptions such as long arms and legs, or long claws (that last one is a bit of a stretch tho). Definitely tried not to go too Hollywood with it.