Anyway, so I started with Nebuchadnezzar, he being the only character whose clothes I actually have full reference for from ancient sculpture. If you Google “Nabonidus,” look at the images that come up, and you should see a carving of a guy that looks remarkably like my Nebuchadnezzar. This Nabonidus was the last king of the Neo-Babylonian empire. (He was the king who ruled when the regent Belshazzar saw the writing on the wall and lost the empire to Darius the Mede). I intend to have decorations like the ones on the robe textured into Neb’s robe. As for the ring on Neb’s finger, I figured, how effective could a king be without a signet ring? So, I gave him one. The signet ring’s seal will be textured in, probably as the dragon/serpent that Neb seemed to be so fond of.
Arioch is the coolest, I just have to say. He’s sporting his Assyrian copper/bronze armor with an under-tunic/robe beneath the rows of scale/chain mail of his breastplate. He is wearing chain mail and cloth grieves (leg armor) and doesn’t have gauntlets on his arms, as these apparently were not used. His left arm sports a wood and copper/bronze buckler. His other hand will carry his spear, which is close to the height of an actual Assyrian spear.
This Assyrian flavor to Arioch makes me wonder a bit about his background. Jonah didn’t want to go preach salvation to Ninevah because of the abhorrent atrocities that the Assyrians committed against the Israelites; having seen relief sculpture documenting some of it while doing research, I can see why he hated them so much. My thoughts at the moment are that Arioch grew up there around this but somehow softened and mellowed when he joined the Neo-Babylonians. If I ever get to do the full blown story on Nebuchadnezzar, Arioch will be the guy who silently witnesses all that God is doing, and can’t help but believe as well.
Wiseman has no reference whatsoever for his outfit, so I had to use all the rest of my research and artistic license to make an educated guess. I gave him this simple robe, but couldn’t stop there. Randomly at 4:30 in the morning, for no apparent reason, decided to keep working and give Wiz the earrings I saw on the lamassu statues (Google it and look at the “extra large images,” you’ll see what I’m referring to). The actually seem to fit him. This got me thinking, “Ah if Wiz was the wise man/sooth sayer/magician/sorcerer/ that he was, wouldn’t he adorn himself with all sorts of jewelry, particularly amulets, and the like to attempt to earn the favor of whatever gods he could?” So, not only did I give him the earrings off of the lamassu (think Mesopotamian version of angels), I also gave him a sun/flower bracelet, and central gold piece of the sun inside a crescent moon, kind of day and night idea with that one. That fits perfectly with Neb and his dream. The problem for Wiz is that he doesn’t know the One who made the day and the night.
And that brings me to Daniel. Wiz came in to the king with all of his charms and supposed favor-bringing trinklets but failed. Daniel comes in, not with jewelry, trinklets, amulets, or even a hat or beard for that matter, but in the name of the LORD, and that made all the difference. So here is Daniel, with his plain robe, which has a more Israeli flag color scheme, further distinguishing his vastly different ethnicity from the other characters.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I also finished the inside of the mouths, which I hadn't done yet. The teeth and gums are compliments of my friend Grant, who also happens to be the guy with the Sprite thing from two posts ago. I tweaked his model to suit my characters and installed a mouth and tongue around it.
Now they're off to the UV mapper then on to texturing and rigging.
