Angel (1999)

Many of the same effects artist who had contributed to Buffy the Vampire Slayer returned for its spinoff series Angel. Chief among these returning was John Vulich and his firm Optic Nerve Studios, with Robert Hall and his Almost Human studio also contributing special makeup effects for later seasons.

The Haxil Beast in 'Expecting' was a sculpted rubber suit with scaly textures along the shoulders and the head sculpted to be domed along the back; perspective and camera editing was used to make it appear that the demon towered over the other actors in the scene.

The lizard demon in 'The Ring' was realized as a performer in a latex mask sculpted with a wide skull shape and flattened nose, painted to resemble the skin colouration of several real-world amphibian and reptile species.

The unnamed female assassin demon in 'Sanctuary' was also realized as a prosthetic mask and gloves, with the face designed to have a slightly arachnid appearance with pincer-like jaws and two pairs of eyes; unfortunately the demon is only briefly seen in the episode and mostly in a fast-paced action sequence at that.

The Thrall demon in 'Dear Boy' was a large puppet, designed as a slimy fleshy blob with a demonic visage embedded within it; an operator out of shot would control the Thrall demon's expressions.

The Thrall demon puppet behind John Vulich in a behind the scenes video

The Drokken Beast in 'Belonging' was realized via heavy prosthetic makeup; the performer wore a bulky, muscular rubber suit with elongated arms and a bulging neck giving an inhuman quality to the creature's posture, and the facial prosthetics being slightly pig-like in design, with droopy ears and tusks.

The Hellbeast in 'Over the Rainbow' was a similar design to the 'Hellhounds' from the Buffy episode 'The Prom', and may have been either an alteration or a recasting of the suits made for that episode; the Hellbeasts have a more mottled texture painted over them, with matted hair applied over the head giving the demon a more 'wild' appearance.

Also briefly seen in this episode was a 'Flehegna' beast, which was just glimpsed as a puppet head poking from a stable door; the puppet head has traits combining goats and wolves.

The third season introduced the demon Skip, who sported some of the most complex prosthetics work on the series; Skip's design was slightly insect-like and biomechanical in design, with the torso and head prosthetics being sculpted only; the legs were concealed by a garment that would mean less work for the sculptors to do! Keeping with the demonic imagery, Skip naturally has two metallic horns sticking out from the side of his head.

Quite a few demon prosthetcs were made for the episode 'That Old Gang of Mine', in particular for the sequence when a crew of vampire hunters hold them hostage.

The most complex special makeup effects work in the episode however was the Yarbnie demon that is brutally attacked by the vigilantes; a heavy prosthetic suit designed so that the performer's head was attached to an elongated neck going from the top of the bodysuit.

The episode 'Fredless' had its cast dealing with an infestation of bug demons; cockroach-like creatures realized as performers in heavy prosthetic bodysuits that were fitted with legs that had to be operated by puppeteers off-camera, with the performers own legs edited out of the shot digitally. There is a behind the scenes shot that shows that the performer had to wear extra prosthetic makeup under the bug head mask as is, presumably to not let their actual skin show from gaps in the mask.

The episode 'Quickening' introduced grappler demons, realized as grotesque and misshapen facial prosthetics with tusks jutting out of their chins.

The summoned demon 'Birthday' appears in an action sequence that is shot in a way that meant it was hard to see on-screen; a shame as the demon suit design is one of the more complex and unique in the show. The demons head is sculpted to be wide and slightly frog-like with its wide mouth, as well as smaller mouthes where its eyesockets would be. Adding to its grotesque design is the bodysuit sculpted to have a pronounced ribcage and swollen belly.

The Senih'D demon in 'Couplet' was a performer in a sculpted muscular bodysuit painted to have a tar-like texture, with horns protruding over the body.

The fourth season introduced 'The Beast', which was perhaps some of the most complex prosthetics work done on the series yet; according to Christopher Burdett, 'The designs for this were all over the place since production was HEAVILY involved. They really wanted us to make a rock and lava version of the Hulk meets Darkness from Legend... and after many attempts to give them something different and new the art department gave up and gave them what they wanted.'

Christopher Burdett's concept art, close to the final on-screen design.

The painted maquette used as reference for the suit sculptors.

Earlier unpainted maquettes for the Beast, the first experimenting with different horn designs.

The final Beast suit was sculpted and painted to resemble being made out of cooled lava, with a facial prosthetic homaging Rob Bottin's design for Darkness on Ridley Scott's Legend. Due to the Beast's regular appearances in the series, makeup had to be regularly applied on each day of shooting, and new suits had to be constructed midway through the season thanks to the materials not being made to last long. Two main Beast suits were made; a 'hero' suit and a stunt suit. Another problem that befell the Beast suit was that during the first day of shooting both the hero suit and the stunt suit had their right arms torn off by their respective performers, which required emergency repair work!

The Voynok demon in 'Supersymmetry' was again a performer in a prosthetic bodysuit, this one being sculpted to have a scalry texture with horn-like protrusions sculped on the facial prosthetics, and horns fitted on the shoulders.

The comically grotesque Bohg'Dar demon in seen in a bar in 'Salvage' was realized as a prosthetic mask and arm appliances, worn by performer Brett Wagner - the makeup was later worn by Christopher Burdett for a charity event in the first image below..

There was other grotesque demons that had only brief appearances in the fourth season's bar sequences, such as the somewhat insensitively named 'Fu Manchu Demon', designed to be a prosthetic makeup with a skull-like visage and facial hair.

Another demon was the Frotor demon, realized as a prosthetic mask with large horns and a scowling expression.

Several other prosthetics were made for various background demons in the series, these images being found on Christopher Burdett's blog.

The barely seen 'hideous demons' shown being slain in 'Shiny Happy People' were actually fairly complex prosthetics, with spine-like bones hanging from their chins; due to being background designs, there was no real interference from the the production office, allowing the effects artists to go all-out on the design.

The finger-eating demon in 'Magic Bullet' was realized as just a latex prosthetic mask and gloves, the mask designed to be slightly reptilian or amphibian-like, with large slit nostrils and antennae-like tendrils poking out of the face.

The Spider Monster in 'Sacrifice' was realized in a similar manner to the bug demons from 'Fredless'; the creature suit had articulated legs that had to be puppeteered on set, with the performer's actual legs being edited out of the frames digitally. It took multiple sculptors to realize the suit in just a few weeks before filming, with the final suit having the performer's face visible rather than obscured by a mask like the earlier bug demons.

The Keeper of the Name in 'Peace Out' was realized as a muscled bodysuit (that may have been a reuse or resculpt of the Drokken beast's bodysuit) with a prosthetic mask designed to be reptilian in appearance, with several horns over the head and its mouth gruesomely stitched shut.

The Grox'lar beast that briefly appears in 'Just Rewards' was realized as a performer in a static latex mask and hand prosthetics, the mask designed to have a vaguely reptilian appearance.

The series finally had werewolves appear in the episode 'Unleashed', drastically different to either of the werewolf suit designs previously realized for Buffy; Nina Ash's werewolf form was realized as a full body suit with very little fur to give it a more uncanny, human-like appearance. The werewolf suit is barely visible in the actual episode however, and is more clearly seen via promotional materials and behind the scenes images. The suit itself was auctioned off on PropstoreAuction, though the page for it incorrectly has the preview saying it's for the Teen Wolf series!

Sources:

- Doodles, Designs and Art of Christopher Burdett blog's entries on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel