To begin creating a more final design, I created what would be the shape and positioning of the snake. I quickly drew it out in the bottom left hand corner, but decided I wanted something a lot smoother whilst still keeping this position. I redrew it, enlarged it, and duplicated it so I could begin working on some designs. After thinking about what it's design should be, I decided that I actually wanted to base it around the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and that there could be four snakes, each one representing a horsemen, and once the snake was full then the corresponding horsemen was summoned.
After quickly looking into the horsemen I noticed that the first horsemen, commonly known as Pestilence, actually goes by another name in the Bible: Conquest. Taking this into account, I made sure I had five duplicates of the snake so I could create a design for each horsemen, and I can decide whether to use Pestilence or Conquest as the first horse after the designs are complete. When looking at each horsemen, I wanted to take into account any specific trait that that horsemen was associated with, or what the name of the horsemen itself is associated with. For example, War is noted to have a large sword, so I included that in it's design, as well as giving the snake armour and scars to show that it has been in warfare.
The designs for the snakes became pretty simple and fairly linear once I looked further into the horsemen, with little changes to them. In order to make it even easier to place a snake to a horsemen, I made sure each snake was coloured to match their horsemen (Pestilence/Conquest = white, War = red, Famine = black, Death = pale).
In the top left is the Pestilence snake, which I gave it the appearance of having a fungal disease that snakes can be infected with that causes their scales to thicken and become crusty with over raised blisters. I also made it's eyes pupil-less and coloured it to give it a cloudy or glazed effect, as well as having some kind of puss seeping from under the eye. I added cracks to the tongue and darkened the inside of it's mouth and tongue in order to give it an ill appearance.
To the right of this is the Conquest snake. Conquest was depicted as wearing a crown and wielding a bow and arrow, so I tried incorporating these into it's design. Whilst the bow was pretty difficult to add without it looking odd or a bit out of place, I made the arrow pierce the snake, and simply added the crown to it's head.
In the top right is the War snake. As previously stated, War is said to wield a large sword, so I added that to the design by placing it in between the snake. In order to give it a more war-like appearance, armour and scars were added to it to show it had been in conflict.
In the bottom centre is the Famine snake. I found this snake to be the trickiest to work with as it was a lot harder finding things to incorporate into the design. Famine is depicted as holding weighing scales, so I added them in by placing them on the snakes tongue. In order to give the impression of famine, I added a rotting apple to the design as well, and in the end also had to add some locust as I noticed that they link in with famine well.
Lastly is the Death snake. I felt this one had some fairly obvious design choices, so I replaced the head and partly the tail with a skeletal structure. Whilst Death itself is often associated with a scythe, I decided not to add it as it is not what Death actually had and I feel it would be too large and clumbersome. It originally did not wield any weapon or object and came in with Hades instead, but I could not find an easy way to add this into the design, so I instead added a simple black robe to tie in with what Death is more commonly depicted as.
I tried adding some lighting effects to the metal parts of the various designs by using the same technique as I did with the shadows, although I painted the areas with white instead of black, and then lowered the opacity. The final designs are below, and personally I am thinking to use Pestilence over Conquest, and that I should perhaps think about only using one of these in my final piece since it would save myself time as I am slightly behind.
I also decided to quickly design some floor plans showing where and how they would be sat in comparison to one another, as since there are multiples it only makes sense.
The idea is is that a liquid begins pouring into the snakes' mouths very slowly over time, and once their mouths start overflowing, the excess liquid pours down into a small trench that leads to a large bowl, and once that is filled, a portal is created and the corresponding horsemen is then summoned. The snakes would fill at different rates in order to keep to their order of arrival (so Pestilence/Conquest, War, Famine and then Death).
The first design is a simple circle with the snakes dotted around it evenly, with trenches leading from the front of each of them and ending at a large central bowl.
The second design is the four snakes sat in a line, with the bowl sat in front of them all.
The final design is similar to the first, only sat in a diamond formation.
My favourite would have to be the diamond design as it would looks a bit smoother and I have an easier time imagining it standing out from it's surroundings (like on some kind of raised stone platform) as opposed to the other two.
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