My life as a crappy artist - Sahrvin Demon

You of course remember the Sahrvin Demons from episode 9, Harm's Way, from season 5 of Angel, right? Any good Angel fan would, right? I barely recall the dang thing and I was on the design team for it. So that everyone is on the same page, this is a Sahrvin Demon...

The Sahrvin Demon is on the left the one on the right we will address another day since I am solely responsible that that visual atrocity...

I was able to find some time to take a fresh pass at another monster that I designed while working on Joss Whedon's Angel series. This time around the Sahrvin Demon was the lucky winner. Here is my original design for the Sahrvin Demon from 2003...

 

RAWR! I am a demon of the desert so I of course have a head wrap and bad skin.... and quills... desert things have quills, right? RAWR! MY, look at that impressive signature... you must be a really good artist....
© 2003 Almost Human

Okay... so they wanted two desert demon clans,  one male and one female and they were going to be feuding or something. Fair enough... My art director at the time did a really cool design of a demon in a very large head wrap, goggles, and more wrapping around the neck so you could just see this horrible mouth. Production loved it and approved it... they just wanted us to loose the wrapping and goggles......... AND so begun a really protracted redesign of the demon with production disliking everything that was sent to them. They obviously already approved a design and we were being dumb and difficult be giving them the wrong stuff........ JUST TAKE THE GOGGLES AND WRAPS OFF! Fun fact, I was not originally on the design team for the demon but I really wanted to be. So I did a bunch of designs on my own time and brought them in to try to convince my boss that I could do more then just photo composite in photoshop. Eventually, I was brought on this demon and that is when I created the above image. This and one by another of our artist is what finally got approved.  All things aside, here is something... newer, for the design of the Sahrvin Demon...

 

Taking the Sahrvin Demon back! 

© 2012 Christopher Burdett 

The motivation to go ahead and do this redesign was I thought it would be a good way to test out doing a time lapse video. If you missed it, you can see it HERE! I wanted to do a desert demon creature, but I wanted it to feel a little more natural and realistic, instead of a generic demon with a vague head wrap. I got some reference and thought about desert animals so this thing ended up with a reptile / bird deak face. Not sure if it is really scary, but I like it better and it was fun to draw... and made for a good time lapse test. And the turban thing is a lot better designed and thought out! 

I painted a LOT of Sahrvin Demon makeups. Not only were there a bunch in the episode, but they popped back up later in the season. One of my tasks was to paint the armies of makeups that were often called for. Multiples, repeaters, and anything were there was to be more then one makeup artist applying a makeup. Here are some additional images from set and the shop of the Sahrvin Demon army. RAWR!

 This is why you do not use a flash when photographing a makeup... YIKES!

 Complete turnaround of a Sahrvin Demon makeup in all its glory.

The Sahrvin Demon army is ready to deploy to set with face pieces, cowls, hand appliances, and teeth (in the turquoise container). Everything you need for a demon invasion!

That is all for another exciting week on the blog, see you back here on Monday! Until then...

For more samples of my work or to contact me regarding my availability head over to my website: www.christopherburdett.com