I like that, Deon. The face and Beard have a lot of really nice details.
The brazier on his head makes me think of the way tongues were depicted in renaissance art.
Maybe that's why: because those who were touched by the divine actually had flames over their heads.
I never liked the way halos looked in christian iconography; I think having a little ball of flame above their heads conveys the same idea, while generally looking more badass than floating gold rings.
By comparison to some descriptions of angels, those are positively tame and comforting to look at.
I know, originally I was thinking of going with one of those designs (FLAMING THREE-HEADED OX WITH EYES ALL OVER ITS BODY... etc...) but then I thought that I didn't really need to copy the exact appearance from scriptures or whatever. I thought I'd take the
idea of their appearance (i.e.majestic and brilliant but terrifying to behold) and apply that to the
stereotypical view of angels as a winged humanoid.
The first one is so... fleshless. I like it.
actually the idea I was working with was that the angel has little understanding of way organic bodies work, beyond what is immediately visible.
It does have skin, but it is more like grey leather stretched over a flimsy metallic skeleton than actual living tissue. also, the majority of the body is supposed to be hollow (no mucscles) and filled
ichor, the golden blood of the gods (from greek mythology).
Anima-like bandages
These things add a lot to the character and show that the thing should appear to be "scary". I think it comes from mummies and leprotic characters.
ha ha, actually the bandages are there because I haven't decided whether or not it should have eyes yet! I don't know if I wanna make it like, for example, the angel of death in hellboy 2 (eyes everywhere
except the face) or have something like
eyes made of fire (which is closer to the biblical description)
I guess a proper explanation for the bandages would be that the aformentioned church-golem angel grew to big for its armour, and tore it off exposing the puppet-body growing underneath. however, as you can see in the first angel pic, the head is smaller compared to the body; maybe it didn't grow so much and as such the scrolls and tapestry binding it were able to stay wrapped around it. yeeeeah.
also, I think the word your looking for is "leprous" not "leprotic".
oh and Vester, what do you mean by "anima-like?" that word has spiritual connotations, I think its latin for "soul" or something. Of course you could just be saying it looks like some anime character....