South of Inferno - Character Value and Contrast

For Dante and Satan I really wanted to emphasize the direction of their shape language. A lot of Dante's features and clothes all point downward, where Satan's primarily points up. This makes Satan a lot sharper than Dante and in my eyes makes him seem more dangerous.

As for the designs themself, Satan was inspired by crabs. I wanted him to have a organic armor-like situation going on and that just made me think of a crab's carapace. For his wings, based on Christian's instruction I made them upside down. I also gave him two sets of smaller malformed wings which I imagine are mangled from having to bust through the crab-like carapace to be free. 

For Dante, I looked at paintings depicting Dante to get a vibe for his appearance and outfit. I wanted him to look scholarly and kind of sad, and worked in a pair of ye olde glasses.

My linework for Dante and Satan

The greys

Finished Product