What are some tips for designing demons and making sure if you put pop culture references in the design, that they arent shallow and can stand on their own, like SMT2 Satan and Melchizedek
Fantastic question! And you picked some great example demons.
To them, I add my personal favorite "Mythological character with a glaze of modern pop culture": Zaou Gongen. I think you know them, but, just for the record, here are each's references:
Satan: Xenomorph (head)
Melchizedek: Spawn's Redeemer
Zaou Gongen: Spawn
Now, to how much of a degree is each designed defined by the pop culture reference (in other words, how much of the visual identity is defined by the reference)?
Satan: Low. The "Big Chap" skull head is only obvious in retrospect. Other than the head (which is nonetheless stylized and not an exact rip of a Xenomorph's), Satan's body is entirely a Kaneko original. Because he had to be, there's no traditional imagery for Jewish Satan. At most, he just might be humanoid, like other Hebrew Bible angels.
Melchizedek: High. Like Satan, there's no real surviving imagery of Gnostic angels. Other than the anthropomorphic assumption, his body is basically all Redeemer. I guess there's not a huge amount of crossover between Megaten fans and Spawn, so this one went unknown for a long time.*
Zaou Gongen: Low-Medium. This one might be up for debate, but my first inclination was toward Low. It's because, unlike the other two, Zaou does have traditional imagery and it's at the heart of Kaneko's design. I think Zaou has been the prime example of a Type II design since we came up with these categories. It sounds to me that this is what you're trying to achieve. I would give these old spreadsheets a look over if you never have before, at least as a start.
*This got me thinking how similar Melchizedek is to Ultra Odin.
If Mel is all Redeemer and Odin is all Ultraman, there's really not that much difference between them in terms of design approach. Just that Odin does have traditional imagery and Doi did at least incorporate some of it into the design (missing eye, raven, spear) Also that the Ultraman in Odin is much more obvious a reference than Redeemer in Melchizedek. I think that a big part of why I've always been so down on the design.
Also know that the pop culture references are NOT random and tend to be thematically appropriate for the demon in question. Like, Spawn is actually a good guy, despite his fearsome appearance, which is an approximate modern match for Zaou's own fearsome appearance. Gotta appreciate that Kaneko logic!
In sum, find descriptions and imagery for the subject you want to design, then find something modern with similar attributes. The modern element should then naturally slot in or over the traditional form, almost like it was always intended to be there. But finding the modern match actually may be the most challenging part. I'm trying to come up with an example and am drawing a blank! Regardless, I hope these tips and info help you out.
