Tag: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Another batch of title cards for Buffy episodes.

For School Hard, I first looked up Die Hard ads because the title and a few of the action sequences are Die Hard homages. But they didn’t quite work with what I wanted to do. So I did Spike’s car running over the Sunnydale sign with the school in the background. The other I showed the smashed up parent/teacher night party.

Inca Mummy Girl, I looked at a bunch of Incan patterns for inspiration. I had trouble thinking of ways to combine that with general high school stuff. I ended up using a Incan Funeral mask with modern teen girl things on top of it.

Started roughing out ideas for season 2 of Buffy.

When She was Bad is kinda an odd title that is hard to play off of. So I focused on things that are important to the episode like the Master’s bones, the sledge hammer, and the ritual to revive him.  I thought the hanging hands would be good because everyone hanging upside down is pretty prominent in the credits in season 2.

For Some Assembly Required, I wanted to imply building a girl without showing dead body parts. So I looked at Ikea instructions and lego instructions

Wrapping thing up for season 1 with Out of Mind, Out of Sight and Prophecy Girl.

Out of Mind, Out of Sight was a little tricky at first because how do you draw someone who’s invisible. But then thinking about the episode I thought the year book would be a great visual. So there is the compact to kinda represent Cordelia’s narcissism. And I’d have that on year book open to everyone having written have a nice summer. Then in that same vein I opened a page of the year book which has a no photo available shoot. Then Marcy’s flute is there to make it a little more personalized to her.

For Prophecy Girl, I tried to channel bigger things. So I have shapes to make Buffy holding her stake in a pose that is kinda saintly. Then the master’s head would give a sorta halo around Buffy’s head while his dark body gives Buffy as a whole more pop from everything else. Then she is standing on the hellmouth with tentacle demon things coming out. And the other design I tried to channel some heroic fable looking stuff. Like Prince Phillip battling Maleficent vibe.

So this batch is for the episode Puppet Show and Nightmares.

Puppet Show everything I thought of was kinda on the nose and very goosebumps night of the living dummy. I thought maybe a different type of puppet wielding a knife could work. Then the title can go into the puppet holder thing. Then I thought maybe positioning the dummy like it’s dead could work. I have the top of his head cut off and I think I’m gonna put a carved in hole in his chest to represent the demon that needs a heart and a brain.

Nightmares was also kinda a hard concept to think of an idea for. That is a sorta hard concept to nail down visually. So I only really came up with one good idea. I have the villain of the episode smashing glass with a baseball bat. I was gonna put on each shard something to represent different things that the characters were having as nightmares.

So next two episodes are Angel and I, Robot … You Jane.

The first design of angel I did a grave moment that was an angel. I like the over all layout but it was too on the nose. The second one I did Angel’s silhouette in Buffy’s bedroom. I used the branches of the tree outside to make it look like the silhouette had wings. Then the branches being leafless adds an implied deadness to it. I’ll probably clean up that one if I go further. Angel is the one I finished up out of these.

Then for I Robot, You Jane, I wanted to be computery in a 90s way. The first I thought an error message on a computer screen would work. I figure the error message can say “Error: There’s a demon in the internet” and I’d have the title in 1s and 0s all matrix style. The other option is less spoilery but equal 90s tech. I thought it would be fun to have that old style printer paper with the circles on the edge. And then I used the mouses wire to make a noose to give the implication of danger and death in a more subtle way.