The Silver Claws 3D
This page will be updated regularly as I complete the characters. My hope is to have at least enough characters to make a Christmas Video card for this year. After that, it's just a matter of getting a script together for a short movie.
The Silver Claws are characters from a role-playing game that my friends and I have been playing for over a year now. It is set in the old west and most of the characters are werewolves, or Garou if you are familiar with the White Wolf World of Darkness games. I am the storyteller, and my friends have made some very interesting characters which have inspired me to try and visualize their adventures in the 3D CG medium.
The first character I hope to complete is Athalius Maxwell, who is the sole responsibility of Josh Collier. Athalius is a mage, which gives him extraordinary powers over the forces of reality. He follows the tradition of the Euthanatoi, who believe that reality is an ever-evolving cycle of birth and death. Their job is to make sure that the cycle is upheld by putting weak and evil creatures back into the cycle so that they may have a chance of being reincarnated as a better being. Athalius was trained in the sect by a Caribbean slave named Mojambi. Unfortunately, much of what Mojambi tried to teach Athalius was lost in the translation. Still, Athalius keeps to a strict but simple code of ethics while meting out justice as a Federal agent in the mid-nineteenth century.
Athalius appears older than he actually is. Part of this is because, during his initiation into the Euthanatos tradition by his mentor, his hair was turned stark white by what he saw in the Underworld. Years of travelling across the continent on horseback have dried and tanned his skin, further aging his outwardly appearance. While investigating a series of murders in New York City, he received a scar from an ancient vampire which marks him for death amongst their kind. He is an acerbic, old curmudgeon who argues over the slightest detail with the group that travels with him. His oldest friend is the Honorable Jonathan Silver, who was present during the New York case. Along with the other Silver Claws, he is presently hunting the evil Dr. Emeritius Tucker who was responsible for a mass possession of U.S. Cavalry troops at Fort Leavenworth by evil spirits of corruption, which his friends call "Banes". They tracked him to Amarillo then to New Orleans. The matter has yet to be resolved, though Athalius used his magic to wreck the train that carried Dr. Tucker to New Orleans, breaking his nemesis's spine.
These are the pictures I've made so far of Athalius. I used Animation:Master 99 for the 3D modeling and Adobe Photoshop for the textures. I am in great debt to Bill Fleming for the tutorials he has published in Serious 3D Graphics which is now Mastering 3D Graphics, and the 3D Creature Workshop book and online magazine for both the modeling and texturing I've done so far. You can check out the Mastering 3D Graphics site here, and the 3D Creature Workshop site here. If you decide to subscribe, tell them Dave T sent ya. I am also indebted to Josh, Jason, Fred, Evan, Kristen, Jim, and Tim for putting up with my half baked plots and making them interesting stories.
Check out the rest of my 3D site here. It's chockful of Poser stuff and will be getting more Animation:Master stuff as I get it done.