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Olufemi the Nok Mage
This is another original character I created for Sekhotep’s story. I picture him as a supporting character with mystical powers (i.e. a healer or mage) who joins Sekhotep on some kind of quest across Africa. He is supposed to hail from the Nok culture of ancient West Africa, a culture that may have been ancestral to today’s Nigerian Yoruba.

[img][1045:463]http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2013/211/d/1/redesign_showcase_wip_by_geekyteen-d6fyof5.jpg[/img]

I redesigned a few characters I created. This is also technically a WIP, and the finished one will be a huge digital painting.

^ Thank you.

Heart Butterflies

This was originally going to be a heart background for a different project. But I decided to get creative and add more details, turning the hearts into butterflies.

^ That's very creative, turning cartoon heart symbols into butterflies!


Ishtar the Babylonian Empress
All right, now Sekhotep's story has a villain! Named after a Mesopotamian war goddess, Empress Ishtar of Babylonia is a power-hungry and racist young lady who covets Kemet's wealth and land, and she commands one of the most powerful military forces in the ancient Near East. Can Sekhotep stop her before she can conquer and enslave the Kemetian people?

FOOTNOTE: Originally the villain was going to be an Indian pirate lady named Savitri, but I changed it to a Babylonian empress just because I felt a Babylonian would pose a greater threat to an Egyptian like Sekhotep than someone way the hell over in India.

The Key to Heaven
The Key to Heaven is a three-part wheel that, once fully assembled, allows the carrier to travel between the earthly realm of mortals and the heavenly realm of gods and ancestor spirits. However, all of the Key's thirds rest in African kingdoms very far away from each other. The upper left component is kept in Mali, the upper right in Kemet, and the bottom one in Zimbabwe.

In my story, the Kemetian Pharaoh Sekhotep must gather all three fragments of the Key so she can access the heavens and find the means to end the drought which plagues her country. But there is a greedy Babylonian Empress who will go out of her way to stop her...

^ Actually I can see Allen's neck just fine even if he has long hair.

Sekhotep and the Key to Heaven Voice Actor Meme (link)

Perhaps it is too early to even consider this, but one way I like to motivate myself into continuing a project is to fantasize about its commercial success. What if, after my novel Sekhotep and the Key to Heaven gets finished, some animation studio (say, Disney or Dreamworks) picks it up and adapts it into an animated film? Which actors give my characters their voices?

I admit that these may not be the absolute best choices with regards to historical authenticity. I would have preferred to pick actual African voice actors for Sekhotep and Olufemi and a Middle Eastern actress for Ishtar, but since I can’t think of many prominent African or Middle Eastern voice actors off the top of my head, I went with Americans. However, Zoe Saldana did put on a convincing African (or was it Afro-Caribbean) accent in Avatar, so I’d be happy if she could do the same for Sekhotep.

I have more characters planned for my story, but unfortunately the original meme had a limited number of slots to fill in.

Hildago the Hispanian Vagabond
Hildago is another supporting character I created for Sekhotep and the Key to Heaven. He’s a fast-talking, wise-cracking vagabond hailing from the land of Hispania (now known as Spain), and he starts out filling the cast’s comic relief niche. Sekhotep and Olufemi first bump into him when visiting in the West African kingdom of Mali, where he’s searching for gold and, uh, “los culos de las negras". He quite fancies Sekhotep the moment he sets eyes on her, but will she reciprocate? And just why does he live a wanderer’s life anyway?

Sekhotep and the Key to Heaven Map
This map of Africa, which I made in Photoshop, is not necessarily complete, but right now all of the locations labeled on it feature in the story Sekhotep and the Key to Heaven as I have planned it so far. The major African civilizations that will be visited are Kemet (ancient Egypt) in the northeast, Mali in the northwest, and Zimbabwe in the south. One of the supporting characters comes from Hispania in the far north while the villain is Babylonian. I may add more labels in the future as I write the book and include more locations.

[img][800:647]http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/214/a/d/maahes_the_carcharodontosaurus_by_brandonspilcher-d6gbnjn.png[/img]
Maahes the Carcharodontosaurus
Named after one of Kemet's warrior gods, Maahes is a Carcharodontosaurus saharicus whom Kemetian priests have magically brouht back of life for Pharaoh Sekhotep to ride on her quest to recover the fragmented Key to Heaven. The enchanted gold bands over his ankles boost his speed up to match that of a modern automobile. Although an imposing and lethal fighter, Maahes does have an ornery personality as might be expected for an undomesticated dinosaur.

I came up with this concept for a steed while writing the second chapter of Sekhotep's novel. Originally I planned her to ride a much smaller, flying dragon, but then I decided a larger and more powerful theropod would work better for her quest (especially since she has more than one person joining her on her quest). Besides, dragons are tried and true in the fantasy genre, but you don't get so many fantasy novels with dinosaurs instead.

Still working on it, you can see the teeny tiny Autodesk SketchBook controls if you look closely:

[img][800:600]http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2013/214/f/c/basquing_in_the_ocean_wip_by_geekyteen-d6gbrox.jpg[/img]