top of page
Search

Waking The Witches

Writer: ghostleelemur
ghostleelemur
4 days ago
3 min read
  • A woman possessed writhes while tormented by demonic forces.
  • A woman in peach light with dark hair is accosted by the clawed hands of demons.

"The Witches" started as a self-challenge around the end of September to create a "Halloween" section for Daydream Misfit with a self-imposed deadline of, of course, Halloween. We originally conceived of it as a standalone page to which we'd add horror-related galleries and stories as time passed, starting with "The Witches," "Murderess Magazine," and "Vampire Nurse Recovery Ward." At some point we decided to create a new "gallery portal" page, which ended up being "Moontangle Manor," and to let the projects have their own space.


The first image we created was of a woman writhing in pain or ecstasy at the touch of demonic forces, as shown above. That eventually transformed and became one of 3 promo pieces for the set, intended for social media. The other two are pictured below.


  • A woman with wild clear blue eyes and levitating hair stares at the viewer with the caption "The Witches"
  • A woman with a fierce expression and angry eyes glares at the viewer while her mouth is covered by a logo with the text "The Witches"

While we were pleased with how the promos turned out, in the end they were a bit of a bait-and-switch. The actual 16 images we used for "The Witches" are completely different in tone. That's because as we started generating and editing images for the series (in Ideogram and Gimp, respectively), we realized that what we were putting together wasn't a horror series at all. Although we knew from the beginning that this image series would have a feminist bent, we hadn't figured that the women in them would want to tell a different kind of story.


As the project started to come together, we understood that these women weren't going to be doing anything particularly "witchy." No cauldrons, no broomsticks, no pointy hats. We started with a broad lists of "specialties" we wanted to include: water witch, fire witch, wicked witch... later to include tech witch, car witch, beach witch, and others. And we determined that the point of the gallery would be that our witches were simply representing for their craft. Their identity and lifetime of skill in pursuing their vocation would be the magic they bring into the world.


From the beginning, we wanted to add a border to each image. Originally, we wanted the style for each of these to be Art Nouveau, though as we continued, different kinds of frames manifested. Here are a few of the borders we generated that didn't end up being used.


  • An Art Nouveau border featuring snails and shells.
  • An Art Nouveau border featuring silver latticework.
  • An Art Nouveau border featuring many colored stones.

The next phase was to conjure up the witches, edit them in Gimp to make sure they all seemed to belong to the same universe and looked their best. Then they were matched to and integrated into their borders. The editing for the series took around 30 hours in all. Here are a couple of examples of a witch's final version with and without border.


The Beach Witch:


  • A witch woman walks the beach at sunset picking up trash in a black bag.
  • A witch woman walks the beach at sunset picking up trash in a black bag with a colorful border.

The Book Witch:


  • An African-American witch woman in brown skirt, sneakers, and a white sweater sits in a circle of books as a storm approaches outside a large window.
  • An African-American witch woman in brown skirt, sneakers, and a white sweater sits in a circle of books as a storm approaches outside a large window with a design border.

And here's an overview of the whole gallery including all 16 witches. Please click through to see all of "The Witches" and their Daydream Misfit coven. Within the gallery, you can click to view the larger version of each image.


A screenshot of "The Witches" gallery at Daydream Misfit.

Finally, here are a couple of the witches who sadly didn't make the cut. 16 was the right number, so the Lake Witch and the Swamp Witch were relegated to being forever outtakes, though hopefully not outcasts. We're proud to present them here for you to enjoy.


  • "The Lake Witch," an outtake from the series "The Witches" on Daydream Misfit showing a woman in blue dress, green coat, and dark boots walking up an incline toward the viewer with a lake and boat in the background..
  • The Swamp Witch, an outtake from the series "The Witches" on Daydream Misfit featuring a blonde woman with an artificial leg drinking beer on the dock of a swamp in the afternoon.

Thanks for looking, and please subscribe to Daydream Misfit for more of our visual projects.


1 Comment

Rated 0 out of 5 stars.
No ratings yet
Add a rating
Smudge
4 days ago
Rated 5 out of 5 stars.

nice

Like
Blue38.jpg

Let's Stay in Touch

Subscribe to get email updates and access to exclusive subscriber content. 

Thanks for submitting!

© 2026 by Daydream Misfit. Crafted with passion and powered by creativity.

bottom of page