Used a combination of DAZ Studio, Paintshop, and GIMP. Inspired by classic jump scares, but I tend to dislike jump scares myself so I added a few extra frames to try and minimize the surprise. It took about 3-4 hours to assemble the first scene, them a few extra minutes for each of the other frames. Each of the four frames took about an hour each to render. I had never assembled an animated Gif before, so it took a lot longer than expected (about 3 hours) to set up, and get the image down to a more reasonable file size (the first was over 45mb!). The inspiration, as far as the theme goes, started with the witch from the titular book. I knew I wanted a scary female focus, something genuinely unnerving, not a sexy/seductress type. I started with a thin, wild-haired figure lit from behind with glowing eyes. That was largely the image in my head when I started. I got a little distant from that theme when I went towards and animated/jump-scare gif, making my witch more monstrous and less human to help with the imagery; long fingers, sharp teeth, zombie-like skin tone, etc. And the tentacles in the doorway? The first render looked like it was missing something...so I added tentacles. :P Overall this has been a fun entry to make, and I learned some new things. :)