"Look Who We've Got Our Hanes on Now"

Well, they’re probably not Hanes, but I figure making an Egyptian loincloth to put on the characters would make viewing their models less grotesque than leaving their bodies as is. I have only modeled one detailed body before this, and the mesh got all complicated and nasty—so nasty that I never decided to rig the model. So, this was going to be a challenge.




















I tried some tutorials, making a couple of attempts this time around and kept going back to the drawing board because they didn't work. Finally, I decided to make a string of polygons around the bottom of the pectoral muscles, then another around the abs, and yet another sloping down off of the hips and going directly into the groin. From here, I added the collarbone and eventually connected all of the parts until there was just one body. Then I started the legs.
















Up until this point in the modeling process, I had been overwhelmed by how evident the Lord’s hand in this has been. I cannot model a face as good as the faces you see on this site. I cannot model a human body well, especially since anatomy/figure drawing is my weakest area as an artist—working on that. I am convinced that God has been the moving force behind my quality surge. He has also blessed with the anatomy/figure drawing in a similar fashion, and some of that is thanks to good friends He’s given me.
















When I did the legs I was frustrated and kind of went, “okay, now this is how I model.” That being said, the Lord then continued His habit of blessing the modeling, and the legs, as you can see, turned out fine. End of the day, the mesh is low-poly (good thing) and the mesh works. My professor was very impressed with the heads, now she’s impressed with the bodies as well. She thought so highly of it that she asked me if I wanted to be a modeler. I think I said something about it just needing to get done. The only part of the body I have left to model is the inside of the mouth.



















From here, it’s on to UV mapping (setup for texturing), then rigging (setup for animation). Well, when you got up this morning, I’d bet you never thought you’d be seeing King Nebuchadnezzar in his undies. If you did think that, you’re probably spending too much time chatting with me.

Ancient Sandals, A Free Sprite & Awesome God, & More Really Cool-Looking Ancient Guys

Back when my friend Lauren did the character sketches for me, she also took some initiative and did something additional that I didn’t even know to ask for. She came up with a design for the footwear of the characters. She figured this moccasin-like sandal would save me from having to model and animate the toes—efficient design for that purpose. I really didn’t care much for the design because I didn’t think it was historically accurate. Later on, I was doing some research online for some reason, and I ran across some types of Assyrian sandals/footwear. To my amazement I saw a sandal almost exactly like Lauren’s sketch. Well, my opinion changed real quick.
















I’ve been working on the heads of the characters lately—tweaking the original mesh and transforming the generic Sargon-like model into the individual characters. Last weekend a buddy of mine’s family came into town and I spent some time with them. I keep looking at his brother and thinking, “That’s more like my Daniel should be.” So, he was gracious enough, and I took some reference pictures of him to use when modeling out Daniel. Daniel doesn’t look that much like him, but his reference proved valuable in tweaking out the character. He does have hair, but it’s still in the works.

















Without a doubt, Arioch is quickly becoming my favorite character; he’s just full of depth with his many seasons of battle etched into his face (literally, once I texture him and add the scars). Late at night, recently, I went to school to do a little bit of work, and ended up doing a lot. I first worked on Ari’s copper/bronze Assyrian-style helmet. I got done with the main part and began to model the detail on the top. When I was doing this, the LORD pricked my heart a bit, pointed to a friend of mine working two computers down, and said, “Go see if he needs any help with anything.” So I went over and asked, He sent me down to the vending machine with some money to get a Vault energy drink for him and something for myself while I was there. I didn’t realize how thirsty I was—I really needed that, and so did he. When I got back to work, I saw something I had never noticed before—my design for the top of Ari’s helmet was wrong and I needed to redo it, and that’s what you see on his head—more accurate, and cooler-looking. Apparently I needed to take a break and get a Sprite to see that, and it was refreshing, too.

















I went on to do Wiz’s cloth hat, and tweaked his eyebrow into more of a King Sargon brow. I like his new look; he looks like a smart guy who maybe gets beat up or pushed around a lot for being such a loser. You know, he really needs to hang out with Daniel more—maybe he’ll learn something.

















Now finally, King Nebuchadnezzar! He has a thicker brow ridge to enhance his intimidating appearance when seen from a low angle like his subjects view him. He has an almost “Steve Carrell” style nose, and his face and expressions are intended to be a bit like a young Marlon Brando. He is sporting a crown like seen on a relief of the last king of this empire, Nabonidus (you’re probably more familiar with his regent, Belshazzar). This crown resembles the crown of Upper Egypt with the color of the crown of Lower Egypt. I think there may be some more tweaking to be done on this model. Eventually all these characters will have ears.

The Beginning of the Modeling and King Sargon

Now time to go from preproduction work to actual production work. I had been working on a model for the project off and on for about 7 or 8 months, but I quickly scrapped it once I heard my professor basically say that if you can't model really really well, don't do it: it will hurt your animation. Well, so long, model, time to go all out and use a tutorial.

I didn't have Lauren's sketches scanned in when I began modeling, so I used an old favorite of mine from Babylonian art: the head of Sargon. I don't know why, but that ancient Akkadian guy just looks cool.

I followed the tutorial (the Joan of Arc tutorial, very good), and ended up with Sargon, the mighty ancient king. From Sargon, I intended to push points and polygons around to end up with each of the characters. I finished most of Sargon's head and decided that the old model was good for something after all. So, I copied and pasted the old mustache, eyebrow, and beard over from the old model. I reworked and remade some parts of the hair, and was happy.

Next class, I'm working on my cool new model, when I get advice from the friend of a classmate, who happens to hang around a lot in my class, but her advice enhanced my modeling quite significantly. Later that night, I finally found my modeler, who I didn't have contact information for before that night. I'm going to keep working on these models but leave her as much modeling as she wants to do, which will hopefully be a lot.

Tonight I reworked Sargon into Wiseman, then Wiseman into Arioch. Both Wiseman and Arioch still need some work, but progress has been made. I think I need to make Wiseman's face as thin as Arioch's is now, and make Arioch's face as wide as Wiseman's. Wiseman (or "Wiz") may stay closer to Sargon's appearance than the other characters because I like the look of Sargon. Also, I need to make them look less homogeneous and more individual.

Wiz has somewhat longer and looser hair than Arioch (or "Ari"), and that's because of their respective occupations. Wiz is a magician and soothsayer priest--his role is advisory, whereas Ari is a soldier and must maintain a tighter haircut and shorter beard. In Babylon, the length of a man's beard and length of a man's skirt usually reflected his importance in society, however, Arioch's beard and skirt, as well as that of other soldiers, may be the exception because they need to keep both shorter to be fit for their military duties. Ari's ball of hair in the back is pushed down because of his helmet.

Next step, Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel...

Character Sketches

Here are the character sketches, which my talented friend Lauren redesigned for me. My original designs are the Illustrator artwork. Lauren's designs almost make you wish this was a 2D project.

Each one has the name of the character with the meaning of that character’s name underneath (poor Wiseman, always left out). I figured the names were valuable in figuring out some of the character.

Nebuchadnezzar is, of course, the main character. His name means “May Nabu Protect the Crown.” (Nabu was the Babylonian scribe god). He is an extremely powerful king who has been very well educated in the arts, sciences, literature, religion, politics, and war. He rules over the world and everything in it. Only God is more sovereign than he is. He is married to a Median princess named Amyitis. The have at least one son, crown prince Evil-merodach (Amel-marduk).















Arioch is the captain of the guard/chief executioner. His name means “Lion-like,” and after being seasoned by war, he is. He is the strong and silent type, earthy, aged, and scarred from battle. He remains loyal to Nebuchadnezzar and silently bears witness to all that God does with Nebuchadnezzar.















Daniel is a young Judean noble who was taken to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar’s forces. His name means “My Judge is God,” and follows that to the point of being very conscientious and wise. His Babylonian name “Belteshazzar” means “Prince of Princes” or “Bel’s Prince.” (Bel would be the equivalent of Zeus, think “Baal”), Daniel is a prophet, and God has given him the ability to understand dreams and visions of all kinds. Daniel is well educated, possessing both a Judean education and a Babylonian education. Nebuchadnezzar begins to favor Daniel above all other wisemen.


















Wiseman is, well, a wise man (by occupation only). His wisdom is worldly, and thus prone to fail when dealing with the things of God. Wiseman is probably Chaldean, which is also Nebuchadnezzar’s nationality. Nebuchadnezzar respected and valued Wiseman and his associates in the past, but now that God has begun dealing with Nebuchadnezzar, Wiseman is out of his league, out of favor with the king, and simply out of luck.