For the past couple of years I’ve been doing little bits of animation and/or character design for the DVD series “What’s In The Bible?” from VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer.
Volume 11 has just been released. It covers the book of Acts, explaining what happened after Jesus ascended back into Heaven and how His followers travelled the known world telling others about Him. There are lots of stories including miracles, persecution, imprisonments, and even martyrdom.
Perhaps the most well-known character is Saul, an angry Pharisee who took special delight in chasing down Christians and throwing them in jail. That is, until the day when Jesus appeared to him face-to-face. Saul became a new man, changed his name to Paul, and spent the rest of his life traveling thousands of miles to spread the good news about Jesus. Along the way he also wrote about two-thirds of the New Testament.
My job was to design Paul. Besides looking like he belonged in the same world as the other characters he had to have a face that could look like an intimidating villain at the beginning of the story and a kindly, likable friend by the end of the story. So it was a bit of a challenge. The client also requested that he have a slender build, dark eyebrows, and a goatie.
I started by doing a bunch of thumbnails, searching for the right look:
Eventually we settled on the following design:
Here’s the trailer for Episode 11:
[youtube_sc url=rRgqiUTL39w width=430]
And here’s a clip showing Saul’s conversion:
[youtube_sc url=I_7tdhPHcHw width=430]
You can order “What’s In The Bible?” volume 11 either as a DVD or as a digital download at whatsinthebible.com. I don’t get any royalties or kickback if you buy, I just really believe in the project.