I read some of your posts about demon fan designs, and I'm actually considering doing some myself. I'd like to do some designs for ones that haven't been included yet in the series as well as my own takes on some pre-existing ones for fun. I'm a little new to the Megaten fanbase however, so I'm not super familiar with the overall design philosophy they use for the demons just yet. Aside from reading up on the source material, would you have any suggestions for what makes a solid demon design?
Thank you for asking me this wonderful question, I've been working on the answer the past few days:
You know what? Some kind of guide about how to design an SMT demon effectively is something I should have written many years ago. One could say the blueprint can be found throughout everything I've written since Identity Crisis. Until then, the following few words will have to suffice.
You probably are just expecting me to say "copy the mythological image"--but there's actually much more to it than that. There's also no one "correct" way to do it. This is also not a guide to design exactly like either Kaneko or Doi but a general "SMT" aesthetic, which will hopefully be useful in designing something of your own.
SHAPES/FORMS: "MY BODY IS A CANVAS"
Designing a demon of course requires a first step--an initial spark of inspiration or a blank canvas.
The following Kaneko comment from the Digital Devil Apocalypse interview is perhaps one of the most useful in understanding where to begin, as he describes one of his own design failures:
I noticed that you gave the main gods of each mythology human forms.
Amon Ra, Takemikazuchi, Vishnu…might be a coincidence, but the greatest gods are still difficult to interpret. They are the bodily manifestations of natural disasters, so they’re illustrated similarly to the god Raijin, no matter the belief. They are accompanied by thunder clouds and flashes of lighting. I do have these images in mind, but giving them shape is difficult. I once drew a strange ball with lighting around it and put a face in its middle [Zeus in Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei], then added all kinds of details, but in the end it made me realise the human form is still the best.
Really, this "human form is still the best" guideline is just another way of saying, "keep it simple." Overly-complex, busy/cluttered designs tend not to be part of Kaneko's demon catalog, nor Doi's really--except for certain "horror vacui" details (like those on Amon's arms). This is why the SMT4 guest artist designs clash so much with the rest of that game's Kaneko compendium. Remember that demons are adaptation of concepts and figures from human ideas, much of them very old/ancient. But they have persisted this long precisely because they are relatable and grounded to things we can actually see/understand around us.
FINDING DESIGN RULES BY UNDERSTANDING PATTERNS
A design subject I like almost nearly as much as SMT demons is Star Wars aliens. They have rules (or, rather, patterns) and a general design philosophy very similar to demons that, when followed, makes them subconsciously interesting--but less so when it's not followed (ex. Jar Jar can be empathized with more than Ben Quadinaros). I think this gives them a grounded, believable appearance appropriate for the series' "used universe" aesthetic. And if I may be subjective for a moment, the aliens that appeal to me the most tend to be designed around terrestrial animals, which I think were at their apex in Return of the Jedi. Here are a couple that have always stood out to me.
Amanaman might be the weirdest creature in the original trilogy. He's creepy and alien--but also completely earthly in inspiration. Nicknamed "banana slug" during production, you can immediately see the similarities between one of those and Amanaman when you see a real one. Just add stumpy, twisted legs; gangly arms; and a spooky minimal countenance and you've got the perfect weirdo that will be seen for a total of 10 seconds in the final film.
Yakface/Saelt-Marae (one of the dumbest EU-sourced alien names, in my opinion) is nowhere near as wild as Amanaman. TBH, it likely stands out to me only because the original Yakface action figure has long had prestige and legend attached to it because it's so rare. He was called Yak Face during production but the actual face is so obviously that of a camel's, you wonder how it was confused.
So, if you were to make a Return of the Jedi-style alien for Jabba the Hutt's palace, the pattern to follow would be to choose a living animal to use as a base. As an example, I will go with…a box jellyfish.
So, based on Yakface and Amanaman, you could go two ways with adapting this into an alien: 1. making the jellyfish body the head and the tentacles "hair" or 2. making the jellyfish body the alien body and adding features to it. What would I do? Thankfully, there's an existing SMT example that sorta illustrates what it might look like: Yam.
Here we can see all the above principles in action: a human base body, which you can see is wearing the semi-transparent jellyfish (whether or not it is specifically a box jellyfish doesn't matter, it's close enough for this example) like a helmet. Really, it's practically tokusatsu and could be reasonably worn in live-action as a costume.
DEFINITION
"Definition" is a synonym for "context," but I think is also useful for thinking about limits/boundaries. But where are the context and boundaries from? Obviously, sources/culture. It's an argument I've yammered on about so many times, it's basically a cliche. But think of it this way, instead of designing a demon/god, you were redesigning a classic horror villain. Take Jason Vorhees. He actually has a few looks, though the hockey mask quickly became iconic to the character. But would you give Jason a chainsaw as a weapon? No, because a chainsaw is of course already associated with Leatherface. To do so would be the kind of potential gaffe that would be distracting to a design. There's no rule that says Jason can't have a chainsaw, of course, but it's probably not the best choice.
SIGNIFIERS
Signifiers can just be accessories/accoutrements that visually identify the demon. They're usually aspects from their myth/culture that easily identify them. Honestly, I can think of a lot more of these for Doi than Kaneko. Odin immediately jumps to mind.
He's got the spear, raven, and the fiery "missing" eye. Yep, as much as I think this is an inferior Odin design, it's still undeniably Odin-y.
Additionally, there may be such a thing as an "SMT Signifier" that distinguishes an SMT design from others. Because, being "copyright-free" characters, mythological characters aren't going to belong to anybody but there's still value in making them stylistically distinctive.
This is the impression I got from Doi's commentary on Amabie, where the flesh around her eyes is supposed to be eerie/repulsive, despite hers being a "cute" design. I think this is one of Doi's smartest comments ever, not to mention his Amabie is extremely effective.
SILHOUETTE
Finally, consider the overall silhouette of the design. Is it unique/distinguishable compared to other demons? So many SMT1 gods use a similar base human body as a form, yet they are all distinct thanks to a combination of different poses and signifiers. The human form may be the best approach for many gods, but too many in a lineup with the same base shape will look a bit boring without some variety of accessories or implication of dynamic action appropriate for the demon in question.
Of course, all this advice is mainly for anthropomorphic demons, though I wonder of some of these guidelines might still be useful for designing beasts. That, of course, will be up to you! I hope this is helpful!
KANEKO'S CRIB NOTES LXVI: A RACIST (?) METAPHOR FOR VENGEANCE
I'll be honest with you all, we're running out of cribs. Who knows what the landscape will look like next year. Only one thing is for sure: Kaneko's bare, spooky carcass will be on full display at least once more by our fine friends at Colopl.
LEPRECHAUN: An often controversial design because "why is an Irish fairy clad in a Union Jack boot, isn't that a bit insensitive to Ireland? "; however, Eirikr puts that argument to rest with an exhaustive look into the design's context. And yeah, Leprechaun's "scandalous" boot is clearly cribbed from the one used by the Spice Girls' Geri Halliwell.
HOMO GORLEO: There are two things to say about Metaphor's human designs. The first is that most seem to be inspired by the works of Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch, like Gorleo here, which iterates on a figure found on the center panel of Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights triptych.
HOMO AVADES: The second thing we can say about the Metaphor humans is that we're frustrated by the lack of transparency regarding who designed them. One would assume that would be Shigenori Soejima, but Atlus has been less than forthright about something so apparently obvious. For the time being, we'll just have to credit them to "Studio Zero Art Team." Avades itself is at least more clearly adapted from the central figure of the the right panel of Bosch's Garden.
NYAMI NYAMI: We've made light of Doi in the past for over-relying on Wikipedia as a source for things, and, hey, it happened again for Vengeance's Nyami Nyami, this time an image of a wood carving of the deity used on the JP Wikipedia page that Doi clearly saw while researching and used as a reference, not that we're faulting him for it!
AMABIE: A design actually borne out of Atlus piggybacking on a Japanese Amabie meme during the Covid-19 pandemic, Doi's Amabie is based on a 19th century woodblock print that's the genesis for virtually all modern depictions of her.
Damn, they're all pretty good, too. Anansi especially is one of his best designs yet, I think. On a level with Sukuna Hikona and Mephisto. Finally, a fruitful application for the Doi peg-legs. I'd also be curious to know if Onyakapon is cribbed from anything in particular. I doubt it's directly adapted from any one traditional source, based on the overall construction and the continuity of these sort of art deco motifs, but maybe something Mizuki or Mizuki-adjacent.
He did mention in the Manananggal commentary wanting to design more demons from the cultures of the global south, so it's nice that he's not being suffocated by production demands in that regard.
The demon we will be introducing this time is "Anansi". A god or spirit believed to have originated from the Ashanti tribe, and is said to be a mischievous trickster. His success is not limited to West Africa, but today he is reported to be active in various parts of the world.
Anansi is often seen playing an active role in folk tales as a representative of the sky god Nyame (another name for Onyankopon). The wide range of folklore is also appealing, such as being involved in the creation of the sun, stars, and moon as a god, and bestowing technology and knowledge on humanity as a cultural hero.
There are many different forms of these creatures, such as a human figure or a transformed spider, but in fact, there are no icons that represent representative figures that have been passed down since the mythological period. Therefore, while the devil's appearance in this work is based on Ashanti's design, it is basically designed based on the original interpretation.
What we paid particular attention to in the design was the reproduction of the figure, which is said to be both a human and a spider. The problem was how to give the impression of being half-human, half-insect. In the end, we grew spider legs on the back of the human body and used them in various shapes, but we also created a distinctive silhouette, and I feel that we were able to create a unique impression as a design. If you look closely, you can see that the compound eyes are a charm point that adds to the spider-like character.
Regarding the gourd placed on the head, one of the most famous stories of Anansi is the one in which he tries to trap all the wisdom of the world in a gourd, but then releases it from the emptiness. So I tried putting a gourd on my head straight. As for the curve ball, it might have been interesting even if the head was shaped like a gourd (lol).
Well, this work also depicts a new story of Anansi, in a different form from the mythical story. This is a quest that expresses Anansi's personality, so please look forward to it.
So, something i recently learned about SMT4A is that Doi got SERIOUSLY fucked over by Hashino certain higher ups on the game's design team, with the best examples being the human characters
...and now I'm REALLY wondering just how much of his designs that I've seen people hate on for almost a decade are really even his fault to begin with, especially when both SMT4A and SMTV have proven he's capable of some absolute bangers (Idunn, new Odin, Krishna, Fionn McCool, etc)
