Tonight is Krampusnacht, and here you can see my final Gryla puppet, from a project started in the post Gryla, alongside her cousin Krampus, from a project completed in the post Happy Krampusnacht.

Gryla has come a long way since the last post.

The addition of the black feathers made a huge difference to her look, adding what I think is a slightly wilder and more fairy-tale element. To my eye she also has a sense of early Games Workshop art, very 1980s and punky, or like John Blanche’s illustration for the Sorcery Fighting Fantasy series.

I had originally covered her body in strips of brown fabric, which I thought would make her feel like she was draped in rags and weeds, like Grendel dragging himself out of the mere. But this looked really terrible, so I tore the strips off, which left little blobs of dried glue with hairy fibres sticking out. This texture looked really great, so I added more, which is where her lumpy skin came from.

And now she is ready for Christmas, to roam the wilds, spreading festive fear wherever she goes.