Anubis

Anubis the God of afterlife

Anubis (in ancient Egyptian: Inpu or Anpu) was the God in charge of guiding the deceased during their journey through the underworld and bringing them before Osiris who would judge over them.

Anubis was the one superwising Osiri's test of weighting the deceased soul's value and registring it. If the soul passed the test, it was ready for eternal rebirth.


Templates used
The model used for its adaptation to Minecraft was the papyrus Book of the dead of Hunefer located at the Brithish Museum.



This is the original of the 19th dynasty belonging to the New Kingdom Period.
Anubis is clearly seen at the left side holding the hand of the deceased.

I used a simplified and modernized representation by Jeff Dahl (CC-BY-SA-4.0) to interpret it into the cube logig of Minecraft.





Characteristics of details and colors

Blue fur

There are sometimes representations of Anubis with a grey or white fur. This is a mistake, since the grey-white fur belongs to the representations ot Wepwawet, the brother of Anubis and god of war.
Anubis' fur is always blue. The deep blue represents the dark waters of the Nile and is used during the opening-of-the-mouth ceremony.

Black head

The head of Anubis is black representing the fertile soil of the Nile delta and symbolizing rebirth.

Color belt and chest plate

Anubis is always represented with a multi-colored belt and chest plate, with blue and red, sometimes also green parts, either stones or other material (this was not clear to me).
Some introduction to colors in Ancient Egypt.

Bracelets

He may have more or less bracelets on armbs, and sometimes also legs.

Tail

Anubis is sometimes represented with a tail, since he is sacret animal compagnon was the Egyptian golden jackal (today known as African wolf).

Techniques used

This skin was painted from scratch with the help of PMCSkin3D specifically for MC 1.8 skins. Solid colors with 10-15 % noise were used on the main layer, some 100% transparent cubes were used on the top layer, without any gradual transparencies.

A dog's face

Making a dog's face with shakal type ears was the major challenge in a cubic representation. It must be worked colourse for empty space and interpretative configuration of exposed parts.

The tail

The same was true for the tail. It should not only be looking as standing out, but also stay on only one leg, in order to be preserved integer during walking (not broken up in two parts).

Too many details

The many details of the dress were a further issue, since this made the avatar quickly looking nervouse and blurry.
A three-colour interpretation as in the picture above would possible have been simpler. But regarding the importance of colour codes in ancient relgions, I wanted to take the challenge and include as much detail as possible.

Face expression

It was harde than I thought to get a kean looking face, and not to make the dog too cute or looking as a rabbit or anything else.

Nails
I included a representation of the nails which I found on many paintings. Actually, I am not sure, if there is any meaning about it, but from my knowledge of Oriental cultures, I have learnt that long nails are a symbol of privelege and high status. So, here they are.