I find the trick of drawing one of these pages is three part:
- Try not to care what they look like
- Draw them close together
- Fill the page
Check out the one just below the winged one on the top left. He's got a really odd mouth and his eyes are black with white pupils. SCAAARY!!! I liked the long fingers with long nails. Starting it all off with a good one, not a great one, but an interesting one really helps to get the whole thing going because I have a place to go with it. I didn't "say" all I wanted to with that one, so I did the one to it's immediate right with spindly arms and odd fingers - fingers are not so obvious because he's holding a stick.
Every ring of hell needs a huge muscly demon in a bondage type harness, ram's horns and no pants. Extra scary. So that's why I did the one in the bondage harness. I think doing that one freed me up to just go for it and draw whatever, which is why I drew the bird type things with the single eye. Hell... carion, carion with one eye that sees everything. It's an easy logic step!
When I was sufficiently freed up, I had a yen to draw the one on the bottom center... yes, he's "making a pile" as it were. I wasn't going to draw him actually deficating, but by this point I felt I was drawing what isn't usually allowed and that was fun, especially with demons. It was probably at that point that I decided the devil in the bondage harness needed a wee wee, and so he got a very wee wee wee.
There are two others that are particularly interesting. The bull-headed one and the griffin like creature shown below
I thought they were pretty cool because I didn't think they fit the grouping. They do because of the line style and use of dark accents, but they are actually quite beautiful, not ugly or repulsive like the others, which is an interesting idea. Are there devils that are beautiful and amazing, not hideous or repellent?
Who knows? When I go to hell, I'll let you know what I find!
Who knows? When I go to hell, I'll let you know what I find!