ENG/ITA/ESP || She/her || Your local monster simp || I usually make shitpost of fandoms that I get obsessed || I'm not gonna put a list of fandoms bc they are a lot of ones +21
All of them are characters from different myths/folklore/books.
More info under here
I'm apologizing in advance for any spelling error I might have on the concept art or in this post.
For those aren't familiar, I wanted to use some demons from rl folklore and literature to design some characters that could be possible foes (for Ghost Rider or the supernatural side of marvel) that are connected to Mephisto and Blackheart, especially since Mephistopheles is from some different myths and literatures. So here we have Titivillus, Calderon, Cienllamas, Chispa and Redina.
I used more West European sources (mostly English, French, Italian and Spanish) since I'm more familiar to those texts (and I actually had to read both "The devil in Love" and "The limping Devil" before). I had place an screenshot of the part that these demons are introduced in each concept (Except Chispa and Redina since it is the same as Cienllamas) in their respective languages (if anyone wants a translation of certain part just ask in the comment and I will try my best to translate it).
What each one does in Mephisto's Court:
- Titivillus: Titivillus main role is taking care of Mephisto's personal library and goes to the human world to adquire especial texts for his master. Other times he would act as a spy on Earth and other dimensions and collect entire conversations in sacks that could be useful for his master. Sometimes he uses his powers to alter the spells/invocations/etc to mess with the results causing horrorific results for that magic user.
- Calderon: He is the personal servan/butler/steward of Mephisto, also Blackheart too. He doesn't like to be involved much outside of Hell, but if Mephisto orders it, he would comply. He is also a good spy and collects information and has a lot of secrets of many different demons even from Mephisto or other Hell-Lords.
- Cienllamas: he is the alguacil/sheriff. When a demon breaks their contract, any demonic law or if Cienllamas is ordered to capture someone, he will go to the end of Earth to catch them. He has many agents and subordinates but the closest and most relieable are the duo of Chispa and Redina and el Charro Negro (This one if from Mexico, I couldn't design in this batch it but maybe I will do a second if I found more demons). The main "jail" for demons/spirits/mages are the redomas (a type of vase used by alchemists) and rings with gemstones.
A small look on how I design each character:
- Titivillus has his earliest mention in 1285 and has references across Europe in both art and literature. In this take on him I took inspo from the expression of "rata/rato/topo de/i biblioteca" and "Lesserat" literally bookrat in different languages and the pun "Fe de Erratas/Fe de Ratas". The "Fe de Erratas" was a document that surged in the 15th Century located in the last pages of a book that had all the erratum/spelling mistakes of a book, this was a way that Inquisitors had to prove, (along other documents) that the book had passed the censor. I though that it fitted for a demon that is related to spelling mistakes. Also I used the Franciscan Monk's attire as a reference to the "name of Rose", also bc there were many Franciscan monks that his "ora et labora" was copying texts (also the pun of "Fe de Errata" > "Faith of Rats" helped). The palette is relatted to the inks used in manuscripts.
- Calderon is a lesser character in the "Devil in Love" novella. I grabbed the fact that he is invisible for Don Alvaro, but I wanted to add some charm and expressivity so I used gloves, elegant gloves from around 18th Century.
- Cienllamas: This was tricky, I have a lot of discarded designs for him originally he was going to be a 17th Spanish Alguacil (Sheriff) but I went to the cowboy/sheriff to make the design more recognizable for an outside audience (but keeping with cane as a symbol of power/authority). It was certainly easy to make that design more Spanish since Cowboys has their roots on the Andalusian and Salamatines Vaqueros via Latinoamerican Vaqueros. I chose the Aldalusian inspo, for the hat and the clothes under the coat. The fire-hair was because of his name "Cienllamas" literally "hundred-flames". Kinda lazy palette bc I said "Well red and yellow bc of the Spanish flag with black to pop-out" but then I realized that his attire kinda looked similar to the Inquisitors from the Monty Python sketch so... accidentally a reference I guess.
Why rings and bottles? In the "limping devil" the main character, Cojuelo, is trapped in a redoma, the second demon that is offered to Cojuelo's former astrologer is trapped in a ring with a topaz gemstone. In other Spanish literature the redoma or other types of bottles is used not only for demon, but also soul's of witches and magicians like Enrique de Villena in the plays of 18th Century. Probably this has both Greek myth's (via greek and romans) and African/Middle-East influence (via Al-Andalus), but that's a topic I would like to investigate more.
- Chispa: His palette and fire-hair is bc of his name like "Cienllamas", "Chispa" means literally "Spark" in Spanish, also to connect with Cienllamas as his subordinate. I wanted to go to the other way with his design, instead of a skinny-short for someone named Spark, I wanted someone big that doesn't look that could be very fast.
- Redina: The name Redina is Spindle in some dialects of the South of Spain and Latam so I center his design on using thread to capture his targets. The torso is like a type of spindle, the fingers are spider-like, etc. The clothes he wears are inspired of the traditional attire of Extremadura, but also there are some inspiration of a creature call Jarramplas. I could do something interesting since there was another mention of Redina in a play of the same author of "the limping devil". The play is around a mythical figure called La Serrana de la Vera a famous myth in Extremadura of a amazonian-like woman that is a remarkable huntress but also hunts men (so she lurks and hunts them). The main love interest (Mingo) had been called by some Redina during some scenes, also in the "limping devil" there are mentions of demons that are married to humans as well in other such as "Devil in love", Machivalli's short story "Belphegor", Fernan Caballero "The devil's mother-in-law"... (many of them involving a Spaniard for some reason.)
So I think I have most covered. Any criticism, questions, correction, etc, are welcomed.
Blackheart human disguise/form based on his history (In most comics his human appereance leans into a more goth -no emo- style.)
His human appareances has differences, race, height, hair or other features, but he usually sticks with this style, even in some instances in his normal form he choose to wear long coats, robes, etc.
I also added that in this one has a facial structure similar to a much younger ver of Mephisto since well magical genetics I guess.
Now I'm kinda mad that because Diablo, aka Esteban Corazon de Ablo, was created in certain circumstances (the creators not doing much research) they couldn't gave him a cooler backstory using an actually Spanish legend for him that would have made more senses his connections with Mephisto, why he left Spain, etc.
If someone is wondering: he is still an alchemist just that he was one of the seven students of the Caves of Salamanca.
Btw I think Diablo's backstory would be 100x better if it followed more the Spanish Alchemist practices. I mean, instead of stricking directly the deal with Mephisto, he attempted to catch him in a redoma (a certain type of vase) like a pokemon to be his familiar and after failing miserably struck the deal.
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