Saturday, September 14, 2013

On overcoming my problem with demons and devils Part one: Demons (Abnormally picture-heavy for my standards)

Okay, so last night's post was kind of a haze of exhaustion, but I hope it was still clear.

Anyway, I want to relate what's happened to me this afternoon. I was looking through the "more like this" page for this picture:

When I stumbled upon a glabrezu drawn by the same artist. And... it didn't look like a four-armed dog-crab-ape-guy, it looked like... well, a demon. So I decided to do a little experiment-- I'd look for demons and devils of a similar nature to the classic D&D ones.
And lo and behold: results!

Type I
I actually like Vrocks a lot. Something about a lanky, stooping vulture-man is Boschy enough to stand out, but seems classic enough to suit my sensibilities. In my mind they hardly need fixing at all, just a reminder that they should be less a person that is a vulture and more some kind of horrible vulture that walks like a man, so here's some that are just nice examples of awesome vulture demons:
Type II
Now Hezrou, them I don't like. D&D is littered with toad monsters, from slaads to bullywugs to froghemoths to just plain old giant frogs and toads. They need an angle. But starting from toad isn't too bad, toads are warty and gross and associated with witches sometimes. However the goal is less a toad-demon and more a demon that is sort of toadlike in execution. These three hit the spot for me:
Type III
Glabrezu are so absurdly specific in their design I thought I could never like one. But this is the pic that kicked this whole silly art show off. This doesn't look like a thrown-together mass of animal parts, it just looks like a demon to me.
I think being hulking and four armed works in general-- searching for "four armed demon" resulted in a couple other winners:
Type IV
I can't hate Nalfeshnee too much actually. I think boars work. But the standard of giving them tiny little angel wings is stupid-- I think maybe someone was trying to inject some sort of bathetic humor and failed. Still, the pig demon is a good concept. I always liked Ganon after all, and most of the pics here are of him
Type V
Actually Mariliths don't offend me so much either. I don't know that they look like demons to me but they look like they belong on a heavy metal album, which is good enough. Less convinced of the need for six arms, but I don't hate it either. They should not be as sexy as succubi, but there's no reason they can't have a sort of aggressive dominant sexuality about them-- nor is there any reason they have to be sexy.



Type VI
Balors are balrogs. And that just works, no need to reinvent the fucking wheel. Here's some nice balrogs. Downward curving horns are a must for me, on Balrogs and on black dragons alike.

Succubi
Well like I said before succubi are another one that I don't have an aesthetic problem with. Also, I'm not your fucking spank bank.
Well, okay, here's one.

 This is running a bit long so I'll put devils in their own post, up next.

2 comments:

Konsumterra said...

http://blackpaint20.tumblr.com/

Konsumterra said...

this is my goto blog for demon pix