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.