I wish I didn't care about historical accuracy

What I'm supposed to be doing is drawing David & Goliath.

What I'm actually doing is worrying over what Goliath's armour should look like. It says bronze scale armour, but the only kind of armour I've ever seen Philistines wearing looks more like plate armour, or perhaps leather armour. But maybe it is scale armour, with the plates drawn in rows? And how do the shoulder pieces fit? Were the Egyptians even drawing it accurately? Maybe I should look at other ancient scale armour instead? But the pictures are so vague! And what kind of tunic and armour did Saul lend David? What are the Hebrew words? And what are the other instances when these Hebrew words are used? And why is my database of Biblical costume words not working? And...

I'm not over-thinking this at all :-)

Samson & Delilah

This was a fun one! (Should such a tragic story be fun?)

I decided dreadlocks made the most sense of the story, and they almost took on a character of their own (they also seem to mysteriously alter their length from picture to picture - oops!)

 

Delilah was tricky, as I have no idea what Philistine women wore. So I based her outfit on Minoan/Mycenaean women, as they were Sea Peoples like the Philistines. 

 

I did think this might be a problem, as the favoured style amongst Minoan/Mycenaean women was a frontless blouse. While I'm sure Samson would have appreciated that, Sunday School teachers might not...

So I was glad to find this statue with a decently fastened-up dress!

Minoan lady

 Btw, if you don't know the story you can read it here.

And you can buy my PowerPoint presentation here.

Me too

From xkcd

I wonder which answer sounds more odd?

Q: Do you have a mobile number you could give me?
A: No, I don't

OR

Q: Do you have a mobile number you could give me?
A: Well, I do have one - but it's never switched on ...

Both, of course, followed by 'but you can contact me on my landline.'

I am an oddity, I know :-)

Coming soon to a classroom near you

This would be so much easier if I actually knew the muscles and didn't need reference for absolutely everything.

I'm not a Luddite

I am, for example, quite happy to buy stuff online.

However, when I go into a brick and mortar shop, I want to be served by a flesh and blood person. Someone who I can say hello and thank you to and will do the same to me. We might smile at each other - even enjoy a brief joke or some other form of human communication.

Self-service checkouts are fine for those who want to use them. Choice is good. But my personal choice is to stand in the queue and wait. Please don't require your employees to try to cajole me to do otherwise.

Thank you.

Abraham

I wrote this a while back and never posted it:

I'm about to start a new series of illustrations on Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I'm trying to design the characters properly, as I did the 12 disciples a while back. However, I'm finding it a lot more difficult to get a sense of these characters. It's hard to nail them down.

I think one reason may be that it's a different kind of writing. The gospels were written by people close to the events - by the disciples themselves, by people who knew them, or by people who knew people who knew them. Genesis is different: Moses was writing six or seven hundred years after the events (presumably based on early written or oral sources, but there's still not the same immediacy).

Perhaps partly because of this, the two types of writing have a very different feel. Genesis - particularly the story of Abraham - is epic. You get the sense of long distances travelled, sweeping views, vast starry skies, heroic battles. We are rarely in a city or even a village. Although you know there are a lot of people around (Abraham has a large entourage, including a private army of 318 trained men!) you get more of a feeling of a solitary hero.

The gospels are much more homely in feel - village life, city streets, jostling crowds, ordinary people. Although some of the travel is similarly extensive, even over some of the same territory, it feels much smaller and more enclosed.

And you know, that makes sense. When God chose a man, he made him great. But when God himself came to earth, he didn't come as a respected tribal chief with great wealth, many servants and a private army. He came as an average working class man from an unimportant town.


(You can see the pictures I ended up with here - click on buttons:)