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Captain Toenail

Hairy Imps

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I remember reading somewhere that when the monsters were being designed, the Doom imp was envisioned to be 'a yeti-like creature, covered in brown fur with protruding steel spikes', but I can't find it again. Anyone know where I could have read this?

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It's more like they were originally thought out as the eventual Heretic imps turned out. From the DOOM Bible:

Flying Imps
Annoying little bastards, the imps come in different flavors, with later ones firing spikes and fire.

I think someone pulled your tail about hairy imps, maybe some bygone April 1st.

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I heard about them being furry. To me, fur takes away from the scariness. Same goes for the Shambler of Quake. When I found out he was supposed to have shaggy fur, he just lost my fear of him.

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Wasn't it from an interview of id members? Someone had mentioned that imps were supposed to be menacing with their brown scary fur....

...what's this imp fur obsession all about anyway?

I think I'll stick to the PC Master magazine definition, which nicknamed them as "lizardmen" (then again it called Barons of Hell "Minotaurs").

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Some people seem to think of the brown skin of the imp as being fur. I never understood this. But to each their own. I've always seen the imp as a sort of leathery creature.

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Gez said:
For the Doom bible, what we call imps is what it calls demon troops.

Yeah, that too, although the combination of both names (troo in the sprite + imp) and the final characteristics show they merged the ideas of the flying imps and demon troops into the least powerful demonic enemy.

Originally, Tom's ideas seemed to try to add variety and economize graphics (same or similar sprites with different colors with somewhat different but similar function.) The final monsters set is more distinctive than that, with each monster having a more or less unique role, thus making some original ideas unnecessary and adding others. I think that's largely John Carmack's doing, at least the organizing theory, as he always pushed to make each bit meaningful and necessary, eliminating redundancies and non-fundamental variations.

Visually, the imp, baron of hell and cyberdemon seem derived from the monsters in the box art by Punchatz in different ways. And talking about hair, the baron of hell sketch seems to show hairless legs. I'm guessing they added fur later to distinguish it from the demon, so there wouldn't be two entirely pink monsters.

Now I recall that fraggle (I think) once posted a WAD or something with a pink imp to insinuate the brown imp is furry.

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The only creature I can envision as having some sort of fur is the Baron and Knight. The "goat legs" portion is obviously some sort of short fur, much like that of a goat or horse. By examining the sprites, especially near the hooves, it's pretty clear that it's fur in this instance.

Imps on the other hand, there is just no reason to believe they have anything but a leathery hide. The musculature is just too pronounced and the shape of the body is too smooth.

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Technician had said:
Skin. Although I remember Masters of Doom quoting Adrian’s original sketch was hairy.

It may look that way but the book doesn't refer to a sketch, it just attempts to describe the imp. Kushner's the one assuming it's hairy, not Adrian:

More darkness was coming from the art room. Doom was precisely the kind of game Adrian had always wanted to do: something that could allow him to exorcise his most nightmarish visions. Along with the others, he and Kevin dreamed up the most hideous creatures they could imagine: the Imp, a red-eyed Bigfoot-like beast with brown fur covering his muscles and metal spikes protruding from his shoulders and arms; the Demon, a snorting pink bull with bloodstained teeth and horns; and, meanest of all, the Cyber Demon, with a gun for an arm and a ripped-open torso.

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Maes said:

...what's this imp fur obsession all about anyway?

and there's a link going even further back. i bet in a year or two a new similar thread will appear and eventually it'll link to this one... let it be forever known, you shan't wear an imp costume to a furry convention.

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myk said:

It may look that way but the book doesn't refer to a sketch, it just attempts to describe the imp. Kushner's the one assuming it's hairy, not Adrian:

Well, you've found the quote that the OP was looking for.

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PRIMEVAL said:

The Shambler? No, not according to id Software.

It's quite obvious that the shambler is supposed to be hairy.

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kristus said:

It's quite obvious that the shambler is supposed to be hairy.


When you see its back, I can see it. But from the front (which is the most common view), I don't see it. Granted, I formed my vision of him as a kid about 6 or 7 years old and I never realized he would be furry.

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If an imp's furry, then and imp is pretty much a cute little mammal to me. I'm going take one home with me and raise to be my own, damn it.

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I dunno...its general appearance is reptilian, if not for the lack of a tail. It also looks lean and muscular, not quite ape-like like it would be with a fur of that color. If it was another color (grey, greenish) it would be more obvious, but brown is really playing games.

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Hmmm. I always assumed the Imp was supposed to be furry. Kind of like a short haired gorilla that threw fireballs. That's how it looked to me when I first played the game.

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I assumed the imp had short fur like a boxer. As for the shambler...I can't imagine how it would not be furry


On the doom 1 box art the imp looks obviously not furry

yeah

but I still think of him as furry anyway :P



cool shambler

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kristus said:

I've always seen the imp as a sort of leathery creature.

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I always thought of the Imp as having short brown hair like a dog. Then again, until someone pointed it out a few years ago I thought the Baron and Hell Knight were wearing brown trousers, so my opinion doesn't count.

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Mr. T said:

I always thought of the Imp as having short brown hair like a dog. Then again, until someone pointed it out a few years ago I thought the Baron and Hell Knight were wearing brown trousers, so my opinion doesn't count.


As did I. Pixels aren't enough to determine whether the texture of a monster's skin is hairy or not. I'm still going to go with David Kushner's description as I assume that for a book like that to be made, the information should have to be accurate.

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40oz said:
Pixels aren't enough to determine whether the texture of a monster's skin is hairy or not.

The simple sprites leave space for the imaginative and the stupid to draw unexpected conclusions, but since there is no sign of hair or fur, there is none explicitly. And the imp does indeed look leathery smooth, much like the marine's gloves. In low res art, you need to highlight details for them to be evident, or else they're gone. See what EarthQuake said above about the legs of baron of hell, for example.

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magicsofa said:

On the doom 1 box art the imp looks obviously not furry

yeah


How could those creatures be imps? What they are is another can of worms, but let's open it anyway...

They don't quite look like anything in the game. The closest would be perhaps Barons, if you take into account the lack of body spikes, the heavy muscling, horns and snouth but none of them is portrayed from the waist down so even that certainty is denied. Furthermore they don't even look goat-like in physiognomy: their snouths remind me more of a grinning babboon or (on some) a bull.

But definitively nothing like imps would possibly look like even with greater detail: imps have a bald earless head much like that of a snake or a lizard and even the way they open their jaws reminds me more of a snake.

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Maes said:

How could those creatures not be imps?


I dunno you tell me

They are throwing fireballs so they must be imps or barons, and considering their numbers and the fact that its doom 1, it would make sense for them to be imps.

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