The Making of "The Buffalo Demon"

I've put many hours into the artwork, design, and animation for this piece, and an amazing group of people has also contributed their voices, time, and talent to it. I hope you'll enjoy it!

Art resources

After writing and mercilessly editing my script, I took a field trip to the San Francisco Asian Art Museum to work on the visual look of the piece.

Designing the look of Mahisa was fairly simple (you need an evil-looking buffalo? I can do that) but designing a character to represent Durga took more thought. I settled on a character based on sculptures of Durga and other goddesses that date from 900 to 1000 C.E. These sculptures have small waists, large hips, and extensive jewelry, and are clothed in a clinging garment around the hips. The Durga you’ll see in my piece has a body shape, clothing, and jewelry similar to these older Durgas, but she also has the long hair, large eyes, and frequently sweet expressions you’ll see in most popular, contemporary representations.

I studied a series of Rajput paintings (18^th century Indian paintings from Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan) to formulate the style for my own paintings, borrowing their flattened perspective, large expanses of light, flat colors as backgrounds, and eschewal of shadows in favor of outlines to define forms. Interestingly, when I combined these conventions with my personal drawing style, the resulting images actually reminded me of Warner Bros. cartoons as much as Indian paintings! Not the expected result, but I went with it.

I also drew on a visit I made several years ago to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where I spent an hour with a series of illustrations from the Ramayana. What interested me most about these was that they showed the same character several times in the same picture to illuminate different points in the narrative. I decided to use this same fluid approach to time in my images of the battle scenes in my piece.

The sound of awesome

One of the best parts of creating this piece was working with some super-talented friends.

Dia expertly recorded an amazing voice acting session for us, and everyone contributed a unique touch to the character voices. Lori was a fierce, powerful Durga, Jared gave a gorgeous, stentorian performance as Mahisa. Adrienne, Jenny, Dia, and Jared were hilarious and versatile as the various other demons, and Adrienne also made a brave and mighty lion.

Karla outdid herself creating music with GarageBand; her extensive searches for just the right instruments and samples, and her inspired combinations have paid off in an elegant soundtrack that seamlessly creates the right mood for each scene. Karla also tirelessly edited the voice recording sessions, compiling voice and music files ready to tweak and place in each scene.

I listened to the sound for this piece many, many times while animating the images, and I marveled each time at everyone’s brilliant sound work.

Painting, painting, and more painting

I spent a month creating 29 separate gouache paintings on paper, including separate background paintings, which I put together into the images for this piece. The battle scenes in particular are compiled from series of images that I planned and sketched together, then executed in pieces, scanned, and assembled in Photoshop. This piecemeal approach made it easy to create and store the paintings; if, for example, I had painted the battle between Durga and Mahisa on one continuous sheet, I would have needed a piece of paper that was six and half feet long.

Flashes of inspiration – and irritation

What can I say about Adobe Flash? This Web animation software has allowed me to create some Web artwork that I’m very proud of… on the other hand, it has sometimes taken me to the edge of sanity! This time was no exception. Happily, I survived the week of combining the sound and images and animating the transitions, and the artwork is ready to open tomorrow, Tuesday, October 25^th.

Click here for more about the story of the buffalo demon.

Watch It!

If you haven’t seen Gothtober, the world’s only Halloween countdown Web art calendar, yet, do take a look at some of the other pieces on it… as always, it’s a grab-bag of Web art pieces that range from funny and cute, to gross and scary, to amusingly odd, and are sometimes all three at once.

By the way, as you can probably tell, I did not create The Buffalo Demon with a child audience in mind, so please watch it yourself before deciding whether to share it with a kid.

You will find my piece at the following link; on the Gothtober page, click on the square that says “25.” http://www.gothtober.com/index.html

The Buffalo Demon

It’s October again and I have another piece of art on Gothtober.com. This year’s piece tells an ancient Hindu story in which a demon in the form of a buffalo (yes, that’s right, an evil demon that looks like a bovine with big horns) takes over the world with his army of demons, and has to be taken down.

About the Story

My main resource for the story information was the Devimahatmya, an anonymous text written about fifteen centuries ago in northwest India. The story of the buffalo demon is one of three narratives within this text, and depicts an epic battle on a grand scale. While I chose to reduce the number of characters and scenes for necessary brevity, I have otherwise tried to follow the text fairly closely in my retelling. However, I’m sure I have made mistakes in the way I’ve represented some elements, so if you know Indian culture or this story better than I do, please forgive them.

What’s all the fighting for?

A fierce battle is not a typical subject for me, and, while seated at my drafting table, painting various decapitations and impalements, I did occasionally ask myself why there is so much violence in this story. Although the stories of the Devimahatmya were written down during India’s Classical Age, a time of peace and advancement, they doubtless existed before this as oral traditions, and they reflect the experience of ancient people for whom mortal danger and hand-to-hand combat to the death must have been everyday realities.

As far as I know, the Western view of beings like demons sees them as decidedly evil, and the idea of their redemption is usually not considered. However, in a worldview where all souls are re-born countless times until they reach an ultimate liberation, even demons have a chance at eventual enlightenment. The Devimahatmya’s buffalo demon sequence ends with a long hymn of praise sung by the gods for the conquering goddess Durga, during which they extol her compassion.

…Though they may have committed enough evil to keep them long in torment, even as you strike down our enemies… you think, May they reach heaven through death in battle with me.

Why does your mere glance not reduce all [demons] to ashes? Because when assailed by your weapons and thus purified, even those adversaries may attain the higher worlds. Even toward them your intentions are most gracious. (1)

I find this idea of a transcendent, purifying death in battle sort of chillingly beautiful; it’s inspiring that the demons actually benefit from being killed by Durga, but it still sounds really freaky.

Higher meaning

Like any classic that has withstood the test of time, you can interpret the story of the buffalo demon through several different lenses, such as the ongoing struggle between good and evil in the world, or as a reflection of the individual’s internal battle between the selfish ego and the higher impulses that tame it. There is also something intriguing in the character of Mahisa, the buffalo demon, in that he is not quite what he appears to be (what is his true form, really?). However, even after researching details and contemplating the meaning of this tale for the better part of a year, I still feel like the story is operating at a higher level that I can’t quite pin down.

Click here for more about how I created this piece.

Watch It!

If you haven’t seen Gothtober, the world’s only Halloween countdown Web art calendar, yet, do take a look at some of the other pieces on it… as always, it’s a grab-bag of Web art pieces that range from funny and cute, to gross and scary, to amusingly odd, and are sometimes all three at once.

By the way, as you can probably tell, I did not create The Buffalo Demon with a child audience in mind, so please watch it yourself before deciding whether to share it with a kid.

You will find my piece at the following link; on the Gothtober page, click on the square that says “25.” http://www.gothtober.com/index.html

(1) Devadatta Kali, translator and commentator, In Praise of the Goddess: The Devimahatmya and Its Meaning (Maine: Nicholas-Hays, Inc., 2003), p. 84