Because of Buffy’s relatively modest make-up budget, Optic Nerve will often find ways of re-using various appliances on other characters; the fish creatures from Go Fish, for example, were eventually brought back in a new and dramatically different form.

“Of all the things we’ve done on the show, the fish guys are my favourite,” claims Vulich."We re-used them for two demons, and then again for the Hellhounds at the end of the season; we snipped off the fins and the little horns and patched them up and then repainted the suits and put on new heads, and for the Hellhounds, we put a lot of hair on the bodies to make them look different.”

Because the prosthetic pieces are manufactured by Optic Nerve in their shop and passed on to Todd McIntosh who ultimately applies them on set, there has to be a good deal of mutual trust and respect between both parties, otherwise the system can become a recipe for disaster.

Of course that’s not to say there isn’t the infrequent crossed wire between the shop and set. “There was one day,” remembers McIntosh, “where Joss had said, ‘I want a white veiny demon’, and somehow the information came to me through Vulich’s people that they wanted it sort of meaty-looking and bloody, like the skin had been peeled off, so that’s what I did: I painted that thing raw.

“When we broke for lunch, I ended sitting at the table with Joss, who said, ‘Gee, I guess my idea of a white demon went by the wayside!’ I had heard nothing about it, so within the 20 minutes or so between lunch-time touch-ups and getting to the set, we airbrushed the whole thing a soft pale flesh tone, and you could see that red rawness through what looked like a vein of cobwebs over the face. That was the Anya demon from The Wish, and Joss was thrilled.”