My life as a crappy artist - Lissa (Ashanti) Demon Variant

On Friday I shared with you the design and redesign that I created for the Lissa (Ashanti) Demon for the seventh season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There was one variation to this demon that went as far as the drawing phase, though I am not sure if it was ever shown to production, or if the design was killed in house. For this variant, I was apparently designing the Ood of Doctor Who a good 4 years before their time... OR I was simply drawing something with a face full of tentacles because I thought it would be neat. Whatever it was, here is the rejected Lissa Demon design...

RAWR! I am a rejected design that may or may not have been seen by production...

© 2002 Almost Human

Okay... it is a demon with a tear away face with drippy tentacles... and not a whole lot else going on... like interesting forms and details. As I have mentioned previously with my redesigns, the one big fault my old work (besides being old work) is that there was not a lot of time and thought given to the forms and details. Things feel flat and simple. Granted, I was still very much learning as I went in the less then hospitable environment with not a lot of time to actually get my thoughts onto paper. Not that I would ever make excuses for my old work, it is old, I have moved on and thankfully, I hope, I have moved my skill set along as well. Having made some time, I revisited this abandoned variant and came up with something... newer...

Taking the Lissa (Ashanti) Demon Variant back!
© 2012 Christopher Burdett

I will be completely honest, if production would have seen this new version they probably would have rejected it in second for it being 'dirty'. Oh well. They had a thing about things being 'dirty' or at least things being 'dirty' in their heads. No matter what the past would have said about this, I wanted to make something better for me now. Going back to the idea that since this was a severed head it could be anything tried to push it a little further with something weird and inhuman, while keeping the original face tentacle action in some way. I think... I HOPE it is a more interesting and weird monster. More time and thought was put into it this time around, no matter the case!

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

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

My life as a crappy artist - Lissa (Ashanti) Demon

You of course remember the Lissa (Ashanti) Demon from episode 7, First Date, from season 7 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, right? Any good Buffy fan would, right? I barely recall the dang thing and I designed it. So that everyone is on the same page, this is a Lissa (Ashanti) Demon...

So this is apparently a demon... until that moment when the head leaves the body then look out. cause it is gonna get weird. Weird like this...

OH THE HORROR!!! Bad screen grabs!!!

For some reason my archives lack an image of the completed and painted Lissa Demon head, which is a real shame since it actually looked really cool. The interwebs were no help until I remembered Buffy is streaming on Netflix and I went and gathered some bad screen grabs from the episode. Not the best, but you get the idea.

Now that all that is out of the way... I was able to find some time to take a fresh pass at another monster that I designed while working on Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire series. This time around the Lissa Demon was the lucky winner. Here is my original design for the Lissa Demon from 2002...

RAWR! I am the severed head of a demon! Not sure why it is dated 2003, it was created in 2002. The episode aired in February 2003, but the art was done months before.
© 2002 Almost Human

This is one of those classic moments I had way too many of when I worked in LA. The design could be anything... ANYTHING... because the finished product is a severed head and will never be a makeup or have to conform to human anatomy. I then was given about a hour, maybe a little more to come up with new and exciting ideas... and of course my brain shut down. The above drawing was the best of the three to four sketches I was able to work up in the allotted time. Looking back on it now, it actually is not too bad and while it could have been pushed more, it was totally fine for the situation. It is what it is... It needed to be a crazy demon head that had moments before been a person of some fame who had been brought on the show as a guest star. Done and done.... RAWR... or something. Moving right a long to 10 years later I attempted to update this design with something newer...

Taking the Lissa (Ashanti) Demon back!
© 2012 Christopher Burdett

To be honest, I am not happy with how this drawing turned out. I mentioned on Wednesday that I have been in a funk when it has come to my personal work and the last couple pieces have failed to hit the mark in my opinion. I think this piece was chief among them. Making the time to work on this was hard to big with, my schedule has been rather tight lately, which I am sure has let to some of the issues with the piece. This piece took weeks to complete with a little time being spent here and there... this is way to long for a piece like this to take. In the process I think I lost control of it. Had big ideas for it, but I think it got sidetracked more then once. Oh well... can't win them all and hopefully I am back on the right track with my drawing.

Going through my archives I did find a lot of pictures of the demon head as it was being sculpted. I was not the sculpture on this, but I thought I would share the images all the same. Neat stuff...

RAWR! I am made of clay!

That is all for another exciting day 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