"Set Dwells Here"

"Set Dwells Here"
April 18, 2009

©JAL

I'd been thinking about an Egyptian hieroglyph, meaning literally "House of Set", and wondering how it would make up into a simple design. I didn't want to stray too far from the original hieroglyph, so the improbable occurrence of a time travelling ancient would recognize its meaning. I noted in the glyph made on the ivory wand, just Set's head is used. For his face, I drew from an earlier artwork, changing the ears to look more furry.

The initial drawing was a bit clumsy:

I worked with it in Photoshop, and then took it to Illustrator and vectorized it. I brought the resultant .pdf up and enlarged it, examining for spots I didn't like. I then went back to the Photoshop version, tweaked it a bit in those spots, saved, called it up into Illustrator again and vectorized. I repeated those steps a few steps until I was content. Maybe the hair strands could be smoother, but basically I'm content:

It's a good design to say anywhere you please (providing Set is pleased! :), "Set dwells here!"

Of course, I could not leave it a simple design. I made an animated gif:

First, though, I made this colored version:

I should see if my old Cafe Press shop is still open, and go make a tile with this design...

Meanwhile, I've made a version suitable to fit a 5x7 frame:

Border hieroglyphs say "Son of Nuit, Great of Magic"
There's also a dark version of this