Zenescope – Sweater Edition Part 1

Right around Halloween last year we decided to fix up some poor Zenescope comic heroines with Autumn-appropriate sweaters, similarly as we did with Applibot ladies before. 

Wicked Witch of the West 

In case this wasn’t clear from this old bingo, we hate what Zenescope’s Grimm Fairy Tales franchise did to Oz characters, especially the Wicked Witch of the West. Attempts at reinventing this villainess since the 1939 movie were hit and miss (mostly miss), but this one is easily the laziest and most insulting one. 

What the hell was the thought process behind the outfit is beyond human or Munchkin comprehension. I refuse to believe that evil magic is what keeps this thing on her body. It’s just too nonsensical.
Thankfully, with the sweater theme I didn’t have to reinvent the costume from scratch, just throw something comfy on top. I went with a loose turtleneck tunic, matching in color the inside of her cape and her hat’s detailing. I didn’t fix anything about her pose, but she did get pants/tights that match her gloves.

Thing I noticed rather soon was that after covering all the gratuitous flesh she became a blob in various shapes of purple, especially since her hair blended with the hat and cape. I figured that if her skin isn’t supposed to be green, then at least her hair can be, both for contrast and to match the overall image’s composition better. 

I didn’t remember it while editing, but other images of the Witch we had on the blog actually did sport very dark green hair, along with sickly pale greyish skin. Whoever changed the color scheme for that particular cover made a mistake and stripped the character of the last bit of distinctness. 

Very casual redesign overall, and while much less detailed than the rest of the image, I’m rather happy with the improved color scheme and the shading I did to match the cape. Hope you like it too.

~Ozzie