Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Fly-through Bible pictures!


I've just come across an interesting addition to the 'Look & Learn' website. Click here to go to their new 'Animations' section then select the '3D fly-throughs' option.

By far the best is the second one, which is titled "Christ walking on the Sea of Galilee' and based on the picture above. All these animations are done from flat original 'Look & Learn' artwork which presumably is then digitally separated into levels. I've been wanting to try something like this with our Bible pictures, except I would like to take it a step further by combining this technique with our 3D Bible pictures! That would give you a fly-through animatic that you could watch with 3D glasses! Wow!

Because our Bible pictures are already in separate digital layers, in theory, it should be relatively easy to do! Shouldn't it?
Look & Learn offer this '3D fly-through' technique on most of the pictures in their vast picture library. All the superb pictures in their library are also available for commercial licensing.
Picture © Look & Learn Magazine Ltd 2008

Related links:
Look & Learn
The Bible Story

Monday, July 21, 2008

The Temptation of Christ

The Temptation of Christ
Just finished illustrating the 'Temptation of Christ' Bible story. There are five pictures in this set which brings our total Bible picture count to 711.

Pictured above is one of the wilderness backgrounds that I've used in this story, (in black and white, and color). This mountain range took me a whole day to draw in brush and ink! The image looks a lot softer in digital color.
Bible artist William Hole shows the temptation taking place on a snow-capped mountain, presumably Mt Hermon. He also depicts Satan as a naked man with transparent wings.

I decided to 'play it safe' when depicting Satan. I didn't want to stray too far from the Biblical texts. I did take the liberty of clothing Satan in a black robe which served the purposes of hiding both the bodily form and facial features. This also alludes to the darkness of Satan.
We know that Satan was a fallen angel. What type of angel is still debated. There is one thing however that all angelic beings seem to have in common, (which I've also included in the pictures), and that is hands! We find that Angels have hands from Revelation 8:4. Cherubim have hands in Ezekiel 10:7-8, and Seraphim have hands in Isaiah 6:6.
I've avoided wings as although we know that Seraphim had six, and Cherubim four, in most descriptions of angels, wings are not mentioned. Many artists who have shown Satan to have wings have illustrated bat wings as opposed to bird wings, which I suppose looks more sinister!

Part of picture 3, which shows The Lord Jesus and Satan on the roof of the Temple, can be seen here. It would have been difficult to show Jesus standing on the very edge of the Temple roof looking down, (although this would have been more dramatic), due to the anti-bird spikes around the perimeter of the Temple roof! See the What did Herod's Temple look like? post.

Picture 4, which shows Satan offering the Lord Jesus the Kingdoms of this world and their glory, (Matt 4:8), can be seen here.
Bible illustration blog reader 'Greg Owen' has done an impressive 'Graphic novel' version of the Temptation story which can be seen here. Greg used his wife as a model for Satan! (Brave man!) More of Greg's work here.
Your comments are always appreciated!

Related posts:
Drawing the Devil
Drawing Angels
Drawing Cherubs