Random demon designs

For Rebel Angels, I had to come up with an entire murder worth of demon designs. I'm talkin' a helluva alot. Nothing too mainstream, mind. I didn't just want a bunch of boring bat winged, horn headed uglies. No, sir! I wanted deeply weird, Hieronymus Bosch type monstrosities that mixed horror with humour, that wore pointed hats and had frogs emerging from various orifices, replete with hands on legs and feet on heads and roses instead of noses. I wanted cats and dogs living together!

That's Bosch. 

Yet he is not the only dark conjuror of trippy demonic beings that aren't. Who dares challenge the King of WTF? Why, none other than the esteemed Louis Le Breton, who matched his fiends with sins and The Lesser Key of Solomon. 

Oh, how well I know these gentlemen in my imagination.

Between Bosch and Breton lie all my favourite demons. Well. Most. Everyone can be inspired at least once, after all. 

This is a selection of unsung background demons from Rebel Angels, for no particular reason whatsoever, other than I found them on my hard drive. They aren't top line (hence their background status), but hey, even a mediocre character has to make a living. 

Pre-decapitation evil chicken running with axe

A Furry in hell

Guilt hack

Helmet clanker

Pattern pate

Wheelscreecher

Slime hat

Mr. Spiketail

Demon Statues

Bronze ones based on the etchings of Louis Le Breton, and resin ones of Bosch's creations.

Just in time for Christmas.

Demon Design 101: Louis Le Breton

The Lesser Key of Solomon, MacGregor Mather edition, is graced with some truly macabre illustrations, courtesy of Breton.

Derived in part from the 16th century's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, the Lesser Key of Solomon is broken into five parts, the most interesting of which is the first, the Ars Goetia. It describes seventy-two demons that Solomon bound to service with magic symbols.

Each is given a rank, interests and expertise (natural philosophy, astronomy, rhetoric), method of seduction (laziness, vanity), powers (noisome breath, conciliates friends and rulers, finds hidden treasures, flight), and the number of demon legions at their command.

It includes illustrations by Louis Le Breton taken from the 1863 edition of the Dictionnaire Infernal. That's the best part. In fact, you can skip the whole Lesser Key and just go straight to the Dictionnaire Infernal. Just make sure it's the 1863 edition.

Louis Breton was born in 1818 and spent much of his time doing bland marine paintings that disturbed no one.

Then he blind sided the world with the most bat shit insane demon designs ever created.

I've referenced several in the book: Asmodeus, for example, appears as Breton depicted. I wanted people to recognize Assman from his earlier 'portrait'. Albeit cruder and more graphic, as my humble abilities allow.

I also used Breton's Baal, only for Kurgoth, Hell's Justice Minister in Hell Lost.

Baal's actually the root of Beelzebub (Baal Zebub, 'Lord of the Flies', in rabbinical texts; a sly way of saying he's shit and his followers are flies); so I have some lee way with him, since he never existed in the first place. Or Beelzebub didn't. One of them. Whatever.

Next to Bosch's mad hybrids, Breton's demons are my favourites. They're unique. Original. Much more interesting than the typical buff or bodacious Hollywood demon with bat wings and horns. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but variety is the spice of life.

Artist Ariana Osborne created a series of gorgeous cards using the illustrations.

Next up: The biggest, the baddest, the best: Bosch!