Character design

From the start of the project, I had an idea of what I wanted to make, but I felt that the idea could be worked more interestingly than a lizard man. I wanted to keep the claw aspect of what I was thinking of and came up with instead of hands, the demon had blades.

These were the first set of sketches I did of the blades. The rightmost image has the blade and the bone fused together.

I thought that this idea would be impractical because, although the demon doesn't need to eat, how would it open doors and things?

I went to the drawing board and wrote a full backstory to the character and the use of the character (film). The use of scalpels in his life in prison made me think, the blades should be implemented in a similar way. I immediately thought of a Mantis, which gave the character a working title of Man-tis.

I had to think of how the character would activate his blades, but didn't want it to be a standard "Wolverine" style. Then, whilst looking through some comics, I came across my Marvel Zombies book (written by Robert Kirkman), and remembered a panel where... Wolverine... had an accident.

Wolverine's blades burst out of his arm. That is PERFECT for what I need. I reversed how the blades popped out.

They pop from the wrist/hand and give the image of a Mantis. I made the blades larger scalpels instead of samurai swords. The blade is attached into the Carpel bones.

This image shows the blades coming from the character's arms. I wasn't fully decided on the face. He needs to have more electric chair execution equipment.

The demonised face coloured in Photoshop.

Heavily inspired by the Deadites from Evil Dead, but with elements of Tony Scoleri from Ghostbusters 2

A mask worn for electric chair execution, but with a hole cut in for the character to see. His demonic eye is a form of psychological offense, the milky white eye with no pupils is very creepy.

A deathmask/bag is placed on his head, with the electric skullcap. The awkward arms are to show the details of his elongated skeletal/demonic hands and the scarring which the blades burst through. Electric surges through his body and along his blades making him even more lethal.

The first sketch of the character was slightly too human. This was before I opted for the hands and blades rather than just blades.

And the lizardman variant that I was first toying with.