And so begins Witchtober Year 3.
The original lineart for this was provided by  CecaeliaFanatic, who helped design Frau Hildegarde (more below).

Introducing Tiffany Angel's primary supporting cast. Followers of my work know a bit about Tiffany already, but for those of you who don't, she's the girl in pink. She's a pre-teen girl who was discovered to have a talent for witchcraft and has been studying it under a tutor. Tiffany is, however, a genuinely terrifying little girl. Like many children, she doesn't have a fully developed sense of right and wrong, something her largely absent parents never did anything to help with. She basically uses her magic to get whatever she wants without any concern for, or even real understanding of the long term damage this does to other people's lives. It's all fun and games for her. For others, it's a constant danger that most people are unaware of because she looks so precious. You'd never suspect her to be a monster.

To one side of her, the kid in the overalls, is Daniel. Daniel is an opportunistic bully who enjoys being in a position of power over other people, but he's more cowardly than most bullies, so he never does it on his own. Daniel has gone through his life so far by finding bigger, stronger bullies and following them around like those species of fish that hang around sharks and avoid being eaten by feeding on parasites, or cleaning their teeth. In Tiffany, he's found the ultimate shark to attach to - one who can even bully adults. He's quite happy with the situation.

On the other side is Sean. Sean ended up in this group out of self-defense. He's not a bully at heart, but he hates being bullied himself. He's friends with Daniel because their parents know each other, so he has ended up being a toady to various bullies just by association. He doesn't like the bullying, but it keeps bullies from turning their attention to him, so he sticks it out. Sean is a bit smarter than Daniel, though; he understands that Tiffany isn't fully aware of the harm she's causing and has no restraint. He lives in perpetual fear that "toady" may one day become a more literal descriptor than a figurative one, but he's afraid it will happen much faster if he stops being "friends" with Tiffany.

And the elderly woman in the background is Frau Hildegarde, a self-styled American Aristocrat. She'd had a reputation for being a cold and scary figure for a long time, with all the kids whispering rumors that she was actually a wicked witch. Of course, all the adults were dismissive of this - kids say all kinds of things about adults who aren't nice to them. But when Tiffany started to develop magical ability, her father, a rather ruthless corporate predator, started to wonder if maybe the kids were onto something. He arranged a meeting with Frau Hildegarde under the guise of discussing business ventures, but his real purpose was to see if he could find the truth. He did and the only thing that stopped him from being turned into a rat on the spot was the revelation of his daughter and the offer to pay her to teach Tiffany to use her magic - specifically, use it for his benefit. He would later regret this decision.
Hildegarde agreed to this, though not for the money. She had more than enough. No, Frau Hildegarde has her own plans for Tiffany; plans that don't have a place for Tiffany's small-minded, money obsessed parents.

---

Behind the scenes, picking Frau's color scheme took an absurd amount of time. The first iteration of her design was based on the evil queen from Snow White, but I felt that maybe I was hitting that vibe too hard, since her design already gave that off. So then I tried four or five other designs. I found one in particular that I really liked, but ultimately decide against it because the colors were too warm and I wanted Frau Hildegarde to give the impression of being cold and imperious at a glance. What I finally settled on, thanks to advice from several people, but especially  EduartBoudewijn, I settled on this Dark Elsa kind of look. I've always loved ice themed villains, so using colors that evoke ice and snow appeal to me and it instantly gets across that this woman is frosty.
All of the other characters were already designed, so the rest of the colors in this fell into place out of necessity. I'm overall pleased with the result, though I feel like if I'd planned the color schemes all at once rather than separately, I probably could have made it work a bit better. But it's fine.

More coming soon.