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...