Wizard Staff – Mark Smith’s blog

I modelled a wizard staff. I designed it to look like a skull, because when I think of a dark wizard using a skull as a decoration for a staff. It gives it an unknown feeling.

The main visual reference for the staff is the Life Leech from the 1997 PC game, Blood. I’ve played this game and I found the imagery very intriguing.

I was also inspired by the opening scene from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, where a corpse is made into an art piece. I found the idea of using a skeleton for something like that dark, so I imagined a wizard doing that as well.

I also went for more dark fantasy elements than high fantasy in my developments, because I prefer the aesthetics of that style, so I looked through the Berserk manga for inspiration. I was inspired by the texture and design in the imagery, so I went for a more abstracted style for my model. I’m interested in further exploring this style of imagery and seeing how it develops.

Here are the concept sketches I drew.

I started off with modelling the skull. I designed the skull to look more alien by having the back of the skull pultrude. I made it by cutting out faces on a sphere to make the eyes and nose. I manipulated the shapes and sizes using vertex.

I smoothed the skull model. After that I gave the skull teeth by manipulating the teeth models. Then I modeled the lower jaw.

The staff was created by combining several cylinder models and resizing them. This made it look makeshift. I hid the seams on the model by using ring models.

I attached a hand to the side of the staff to add to the macabre vibe.

Afterwards, I used Substance to paint textures on the model. I colored the skull purple as it gives off the idea that it’s from the skeleton of an unknown alien creature (also to make it close to the original concept art). I also gave the skull veins to give it more color.