One thing both Middle Age Europe and Asia have in common is their abundance of mythological creatures. There were many to choose from, but I was interested in creating a character whose alignment was on the evil side. So this time, I decided to create a demon character.
When trying to take aspects from both European and Chinese demons, it was a bit difficult to make one cohesive character. While both were demons, they had opposite features; European demons were depicted as more scrawny and beastly, while Chinese demons were built and seemed more human-like. So, I went the easy way out and gave them a Satyr-like body, with goat legs and a human torso and head. Only one of my reference images had a demon with goat legs, but I decided to go for that idea anyway, since in medieval Europe, goats were associated with the devil.
Picking the colors for the demon was much easier. I really had only two colors to pick from: red and dark brown. At first, I tried a really desaturated and dark color scheme. Although it didn’t look bad, I felt that it lacked some personality. So I tweaked the brightness and saturation settings, and that turned out to be much better. The red is eye-catching, but not over-saturated to the point that it burns your eyes. Also, the bright red resembles the Chinese demon much more.
This leaves us with the finished image. It’s not the most complicated and intricate design in the world, but I think there’s beauty in simplicity. I had lots of fun making this character, because I don’t often draw non-human characters. All in all, I’m very happy with how this design turned out.
