Jedakk's Masterpiece

[Deleted member jedakk]

For the next scene I did a lot of renders but only used one as an illustration. I think this is a pretty dramatic scene; the executioner is poised to drive a nail through Sabina's right foot, which is already bound to the cross. All she can do is stare and anticipate this further agony.

Once her feet were bound, she used them to push herself upward and relieve her wrists. But as the nails are driven in, she will lose this last chance for relief that does not cost her a price in agony.

Most people picture this part of the crucifixion with helpers holding the feet in place while the executioner drives the nails. I chose to have Sabina's feet roped to the cross instead for two reasons: First of all, even a girl like Sabina would have leg muscles strong enough to make it difficult for a strong man to hold her. If he relaxed for an instant, she might kick the executioner in the face or otherwise disrupt the proceedings. My executioners are experienced enough to avoid having that happen, plus their boss, the Carnifex Balbus, takes pride in a well-carried out execution.

Second, when I looked at the positions of the victim and executioner while nailing the feet, I saw that it would be much more easily done if the victim was raised rather than hanging. Poser isn't just for art; it enables you to visualize the way things and people fit together in a scene. It was plausible to believe that a victim with wrists nailed and feet tied would raise herself on the cross, even if she knew that doing so would accommodate the executioner's work.

I think Scene 17-51, the last picture, is particularly interesting because it's clear to see the threat of the cornu between Sabina's legs should she give in to the pain when the executioner strikes that nail he is pressing into her right foot.

I know this is a lot of pictures of the same scene, and everyone will be impatient for the executioner to bring his hammer down on that nail. That comes next.

 

[Damian]

Fact is often stranger than fiction! It definitely fires the imagination just thinking about the subtle details they might have used to make the agony worse, in the whole dastardly experience!

 

[Damian]

For the next scene I did a lot of renders but only used one as an illustration. I think this is a pretty dramatic scene; the executioner is poised to drive a nail through Sabina's right foot, which is already bound to the cross. All she can do is stare and anticipate this further agony.

Once her feet were bound, she used them to push herself upward and relieve her wrists. But as the nails are driven in, she will lose this last chance for relief that does not cost her a price in agony.

Most people picture this part of the crucifixion with helpers holding the feet in place while the executioner drives the nails. I chose to have Sabina's feet roped to the cross instead for two reasons: First of all, even a girl like Sabina would have leg muscles strong enough to make it difficult for a strong man to hold her. If he relaxed for an instant, she might kick the executioner in the face or otherwise disrupt the proceedings. My executioners are experienced enough to avoid having that happen, plus their boss, the Carnifex Balbus, takes pride in a well-carried out execution.

Second, when I looked at the positions of the victim and executioner while nailing the feet, I saw that it would be much more easily done if the victim was raised rather than hanging. Poser isn't just for art; it enables you to visualize the way things and people fit together in a scene. It was plausible to believe that a victim with wrists nailed and feet tied would raise herself on the cross, even if she knew that doing so would accommodate the executioner's work.

I think Scene 17-51, the last picture, is particularly interesting because it's clear to see the threat of the cornu between Sabina's legs should she give in to the pain when the executioner strikes that nail he is pressing into her right foot.

I know this is a lot of pictures of the same scene, and everyone will be impatient for the executioner to bring his hammer down on that nail. That comes next.

Great renders, thanks for sharing, the ones where the nail goes through the feet and her subsequent screaming and struggling must be the difficult ones!

 

[Damian]

I have become convinced that it's more likely the Romans used the X cross rather than the T, it's crueler and exposes the victim to more degrading and painful abuse! A central beam, (not necessary), would accommodate any devices for "rest" and "recreation", must try that next!

 

[Martha Come]

Thanks Jedakk, it's very beautiful. And thanks Damian for sharing some of your work. The girl's expression is ravishing, and the little hair on her cunt very sweet.....

 

[Madiosi]

For the next scene I did a lot of renders but only used one as an illustration. I think this is a pretty dramatic scene; the executioner is poised to drive a nail through Sabina's right foot, which is already bound to the cross. All she can do is stare and anticipate this further agony.

Once her feet were bound, she used them to push herself upward and relieve her wrists. But as the nails are driven in, she will lose this last chance for relief that does not cost her a price in agony.

Most people picture this part of the crucifixion with helpers holding the feet in place while the executioner drives the nails. I chose to have Sabina's feet roped to the cross instead for two reasons: First of all, even a girl like Sabina would have leg muscles strong enough to make it difficult for a strong man to hold her. If he relaxed for an instant, she might kick the executioner in the face or otherwise disrupt the proceedings. My executioners are experienced enough to avoid having that happen, plus their boss, the Carnifex Balbus, takes pride in a well-carried out execution.

Second, when I looked at the positions of the victim and executioner while nailing the feet, I saw that it would be much more easily done if the victim was raised rather than hanging. Poser isn't just for art; it enables you to visualize the way things and people fit together in a scene. It was plausible to believe that a victim with wrists nailed and feet tied would raise herself on the cross, even if she knew that doing so would accommodate the executioner's work.

I think Scene 17-51, the last picture, is particularly interesting because it's clear to see the threat of the cornu between Sabina's legs should she give in to the pain when the executioner strikes that nail he is pressing into her right foot.

I know this is a lot of pictures of the same scene, and everyone will be impatient for the executioner to bring his hammer down on that nail. That comes next.

Very expressiv pictures an interest informations. Thank You!

 

[Deleted member jedakk]

I have become convinced that it's more likely the Romans used the X cross rather than the T, it's crueler and exposes the victim to more degrading and painful abuse! A central beam, (not necessary), would accommodate any devices for "rest" and "recreation", must try that next!

I like the "X" cross for its humiliating aspect; it certainly exposed the victim completely, both to the view of the onlookers and to any other abuse the executioners might devise. On a "T" cross, the victim could at least try to press her legs together to protect herself, but on an "X" cross this wouldn't be nearly as easy or effective. For example, in these pictures Sabina presses her thighs together and turns her knees away from the executioner to protect her sex.


There's nothing at all she can do to evade the whip on her breasts, and eventually the continued agony drives her to spread her legs and offer her cunt to the whip in exchange for her welted and bleeding breasts.


My version of the "X" cross has the crossarms mounted on top of a low stipes, which, in addition to raising the victim higher and further exposing her, also provides a place for mounting a cornu or sedile of some type. In the following pictures, Lucilla is roped to such a cross. In the last one, she considers the best way to ease herself down onto the sedile mounted between her legs on the stipes below her.


Now being an engineer and somewhat of a woodworker, I also look at the complexity of cutting the three-way joint needed to mount those crossarms onto the stipes. I could do that, and Roman carpenters were masters of joinery like that, but it isn't a quick and dirty task like attaching a patibulum to the top of a stipes. But then like the bloodstained and weathered cross I show in Lucilla's crucifixion, it could be re-used for years.

 

[montycrusto]

I like the "X" cross for its humiliating aspect; it certainly exposed the victim completely, both to the view of the onlookers and to any other abuse the executioners might devise. On a "T" cross, the victim could at least try to press her legs together to protect herself, but on an "X" cross this wouldn't be nearly as easy or effective. For example, in these pictures Sabina presses her thighs together and turns her knees away from the executioner to protect her sex.


There's nothing at all she can do to evade the whip on her breasts, and eventually the continued agony drives her to spread her legs and offer her cunt to the whip in exchange for her welted and bleeding breasts.


My version of the "X" cross has the crossarms mounted on top of a low stipes, which, in addition to raising the victim higher and further exposing her, also provides a place for mounting a cornu or sedile of some type. In the following pictures, Lucilla is roped to such a cross. In the last one, she considers the best way to ease herself down onto the sedile mounted between her legs on the stipes below her.


Now being an engineer and somewhat of a woodworker, I also look at the complexity of cutting the three-way joint needed to mount those crossarms onto the stipes. I could do that, and Roman carpenters were masters of joinery like that, but it isn't a quick and dirty task like attaching a patibulum to the top of a stipes. But then like the bloodstained and weathered cross I show in Lucilla's crucifixion, it could be re-used for years.

I love the way we can see how every knot is tied; you are a perfectionist, Jedakk

 

[Deleted member jedakk]

Fact is often stranger than fiction! It definitely fires the imagination just thinking about the subtle details they might have used to make the agony worse, in the whole dastardly experience!

As if being nailed to a cross to die slowly wasn't bad enough, I imagine that one of the naked and helpless victims' worst fears was that the executioners had a lot of time on their hands to think up awful things to do to them. There were no rules and no limits as long as the victim was seen to be fairly punished for her crimes. And then according to some sources - which I haven't been able to verify - the victim, once condemned, was dead already under Roman law and therefore not subject to any considerations of humaneness or mercy.

 

[Damian]

Yup. terrible stuff for the poor victim, man's inhumanity is legend! Great pics as usual Jedakk!

I like the "X" cross for its humiliating aspect; it certainly exposed the victim completely, both to the view of the onlookers and to any other abuse the executioners might devise. On a "T" cross, the victim could at least try to press her legs together to protect herself, but on an "X" cross this wouldn't be nearly as easy or effective. For example, in these pictures Sabina presses her thighs together and turns her knees away from the executioner to protect her sex.


There's nothing at all she can do to evade the whip on her breasts, and eventually the continued agony drives her to spread her legs and offer her cunt to the whip in exchange for her welted and bleeding breasts.


My version of the "X" cross has the crossarms mounted on top of a low stipes, which, in addition to raising the victim higher and further exposing her, also provides a place for mounting a cornu or sedile of some type. In the following pictures, Lucilla is roped to such a cross. In the last one, she considers the best way to ease herself down onto the sedile mounted between her legs on the stipes below her.


Now being an engineer and somewhat of a woodworker, I also look at the complexity of cutting the three-way joint needed to mount those crossarms onto the stipes. I could do that, and Roman carpenters were masters of joinery like that, but it isn't a quick and dirty task like attaching a patibulum to the top of a stipes. But then like the bloodstained and weathered cross I show in Lucilla's crucifixion, it could be re-used for years.

 

[Deleted member jedakk]

Great renders, thanks for sharing, the ones where the nail goes through the feet and her subsequent screaming and struggling must be the difficult ones!

Nailing is not as difficult to do in Poser as tying with ropes! The ones that are really difficult are the ones with several characters touching and interacting. It's a kind of choreography where you decide who the central player in the scene is, work out the pose for that one, then pose all of the other figures around her. If you screw up the main character's pose somehow, it can mean a lot of rework to get all of the connected poses to match.


In this picture, for example, you'd see the finished work as two executioner's helpers holding the victim down while a third drives a nail through her wrist. But from my point of view, the patibulum on the ground is the base for everything. I already know the coordinates I've chosen for the left wrist nail; these have to be the same throughout the series because the nail will never move once it is driven in, and neither will the victim's wrist. I got those coordinates by posing the victim on her cross the way I wanted, then working backwards to all of the scenes that got her there.

So with the patibulum placed where I want it in the scene - far enough in front of the stipes to give plenty of working room for the executioner, and to allow for a dramatic dragging scene later - I posed the victim lying on it with her arms positioned so the left one is right on top of the location where the nail needs to go. I actually do that by placing a nail there and moving her wrist onto it, then pulling the nail out. Poser characters are amazingly resilient!

Once I have her posed correctly with her butt on the ground and shoulders resting on the patibulum, I pose the executioner's helper straddling her and position his hands so that they appear to be holding her down. I pose the nail with its point touching her wrist, then position the executioner and his hammer so that his hand is holding it. The other helper holding her right arm down against the patibulum is the last thing.

So it takes a good bit of planning to get everything to come out as you envision it.

 

[Wragg]

Nailing is not as difficult to do in Poser as tying with ropes! The ones that are really difficult are the ones with several characters touching and interacting. It's a kind of choreography where you decide who the central player in the scene is, work out the pose for that one, then pose all of the other figures around her. If you screw up the main character's pose somehow, it can mean a lot of rework to get all of the connected poses to match.


In this picture, for example, you'd see the finished work as two executioner's helpers holding the victim down while a third drives a nail through her wrist. But from my point of view, the patibulum on the ground is the base for everything. I already know the coordinates I've chosen for the left wrist nail; these have to be the same throughout the series because the nail will never move once it is driven in, and neither will the victim's wrist. I got those coordinates by posing the victim on her cross the way I wanted, then working backwards to all of the scenes that got her there.

So with the patibulum placed where I want it in the scene - far enough in front of the stipes to give plenty of working room for the executioner, and to allow for a dramatic dragging scene later - I posed the victim lying on it with her arms positioned so the left one is right on top of the location where the nail needs to go. I actually do that by placing a nail there and moving her wrist onto it, then pulling the nail out. Poser characters are amazingly resilient!

Once I have her posed correctly with her butt on the ground and shoulders resting on the patibulum, I pose the executioner's helper straddling her and position his hands so that they appear to be holding her down. I pose the nail with its point touching her wrist, then position the executioner and his hammer so that his hand is holding it. The other helper holding her right arm down against the patibulum is the last thing.

So it takes a good bit of planning to get everything to come out as you envision it.

Good grief, Jedakk! What an incredible amount of work and planning!

That's what makes your images so realistic, nothing jars the viewer!

 

[montycrusto]

Good grief, Jedakk! What an incredible amount of work and planning!

he makes it look easy, but it's really not

 

[Deleted member jedakk]

Well, one of the things that makes a big difference is that I had a story to illustrate. By going through the story carefully, I could plan scenes and create a storyboard so I knew what scenes I was going to illustrate. Which is not to say that I always followed the plan; I ended up skipping some scenes, notably stripping scenes, because I just didn't have the technical expertise to create a quality illustration of the executioner's helpers stripping Sabina's dress off.

FYI, now I do! I've gotten better at that and I know how to make dynamic clothing drape and fold over a figure, following its movements as well as slipping off like real cloth. So I'll go back as I have time and create a really good scene or scenes of Sabina being stripped of her clothes prior to her whipping, and of her loincloth prior to her crucifixion. Those scenes would be too dramatic not to create.

I also ended up inserting scenes that I didn't include in the original plan. That's the reason you see some renders that are numbered oddly, like nailing scenes 19x1 and 19x2. Originally I had scene 19, which was driving the last nail, and scene 20, which was nailing the titulus in place. But then I realized that I needed a scene where the ropes holding Sabina's feet were removed and where she was beginning to experience the full horror of being crucified, so those two scenes had to be numbered in such a way that they'd alphabetize in order where they fit.

So bottom line is that it makes a world of difference when you're starting out to create a scene if you have a plan that tells you what characters will be in the scene and what the action is that is going on.

 

[Madiosi]

Well, one of the things that makes a big difference is that I had a story to illustrate. By going through the story carefully, I could plan scenes and create a storyboard so I knew what scenes I was going to illustrate. Which is not to say that I always followed the plan; I ended up skipping some scenes, notably stripping scenes, because I just didn't have the technical expertise to create a quality illustration of the executioner's helpers stripping Sabina's dress off.

FYI, now I do! I've gotten better at that and I know how to make dynamic clothing drape and fold over a figure, following its movements as well as slipping off like real cloth. So I'll go back as I have time and create a really good scene or scenes of Sabina being stripped of her clothes prior to her whipping, and of her loincloth prior to her crucifixion. Those scenes would be too dramatic not to create.

I also ended up inserting scenes that I didn't include in the original plan. That's the reason you see some renders that are numbered oddly, like nailing scenes 19x1 and 19x2. Originally I had scene 19, which was driving the last nail, and scene 20, which was nailing the titulus in place. But then I realized that I needed a scene where the ropes holding Sabina's feet were removed and where she was beginning to experience the full horror of being crucified, so those two scenes had to be numbered in such a way that they'd alphabetize in order where they fit.

So bottom line is that it makes a world of difference when you're starting out to create a scene if you have a plan that tells you what characters will be in the scene and what the action is that is going on.

in german a rhyme:
Ein Plan steht niemals fest, weil er sich ja ändern lässt.
A plan is certain never because he can change, yes.

 

[Martha Come]

I like the "X" cross for its humiliating aspect; it certainly exposed the victim completely, both to the view of the onlookers and to any other abuse the executioners might devise. On a "T" cross, the victim could at least try to press her legs together to protect herself, but on an "X" cross this wouldn't be nearly as easy or effective. For example, in these pictures Sabina presses her thighs together and turns her knees away from the executioner to protect her sex.


There's nothing at all she can do to evade the whip on her breasts, and eventually the continued agony drives her to spread her legs and offer her cunt to the whip in exchange for her welted and bleeding breasts.


My version of the "X" cross has the crossarms mounted on top of a low stipes, which, in addition to raising the victim higher and further exposing her, also provides a place for mounting a cornu or sedile of some type. In the following pictures, Lucilla is roped to such a cross. In the last one, she considers the best way to ease herself down onto the sedile mounted between her legs on the stipes below her.


Now being an engineer and somewhat of a woodworker, I also look at the complexity of cutting the three-way joint needed to mount those crossarms onto the stipes. I could do that, and Roman carpenters were masters of joinery like that, but it isn't a quick and dirty task like attaching a patibulum to the top of a stipes. But then like the bloodstained and weathered cross I show in Lucilla's crucifixion, it could be re-used for years.

It would be very nice if those onlooking bitches are also crucified, or at least stripped and raped in all their holes....

 

[Eulalia]

in german a rhyme:
Ein Plan steht niemals fest, weil er sich ja ändern lässt.
A plan is certain never because he can change, yes.

as my country's bard put it, 'The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley'

 

[Deleted member jedakk]

as my country's bard put it, 'The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley'

He was right about that, they certainly do! :-o I really like your bard's "Tam O'Shanter" - I've told that story quite a number of times in talking about how the sailing ship Cutty Sark got her name and why the figurehead is a scantily clad young lady reaching out with a horse's tail in her hand. She was the fastest witch!

 

[Deleted member jedakk]

Ok, once again at the risk of being repetitive, here are the unused renders from Scene 18, where the executioner's hammer comes down on the nail in Sabina's right foot, fixing it permanently to the cross. Sabina describes it in The Serpent's Eye:

I felt my clitoris hardening, throbbing, growing more sensitive. My body had a mind of its own. I closed my eyes and tried to will my arousal away.

Two more nails…

When I opened my eyes, the executioner was kneeling beside my cross, preparing to drive iron spikes through each of my bound feet.

I wanted to pull my feet away from the danger, but all I could do was stand on my trembling legs and watch in fascination. He probed my right foot with a finger, found the spot he wanted, and placed the point of a spike against it. I moaned in horror and anticipation, helpless. He picked up the heavy iron hammer, touched it to the head of the spike to measure his swing. I sucked in a deep breath and held it, blinking away tears to watch as he brought his hammer back and swung it forward with force. There was a muffled thump as the spike tore through flesh and wedged itself between the bones of my foot, biting into the timber beneath.

I threw my head back, screaming in pain, as my right leg collapsed. I felt the point of the cornu dig into my crotch as I desperately shifted my weight onto my left leg and pushed myself upward again. As I had when my wrists were nailed, I felt the shank of the spike grating between the bones of my foot, forcing them apart. The cross trembled with each blow as the executioner continued to hammer the spike deeper into the timber. The shock traveled through the wood and nails, vibrating the iron between the bones inside my wrists, creating a horrible new agony.​

It took me two tries to get the expressiveness of her body and face to match my vision of a crucifixion victim's agony as her feet were being nailed to the cross. I have quite a number of test renders that just didn't have the depth of feeling that I needed to see.

 

[ranger1]

Some pretty good renders that were not used in the story; these are from the nailing scenes.

Hello Jedakk,

Thank you for these captivating further scenes from your superb masterpiece "The Serpent's Eye". Some of these pics seem to be several frames away (allowing for a frame speed of 24 fps) from those stunning images of Sabina's ordeal and crucifixion you masterfully created, all that time ago. Are these images to expand your earlier work featuring Sabina et al or a separate graphic work, please?

Gratefully, Ranger.