Gandalf the Grey
as portrayed by Sir Ian McKellen
body and belt, with staff (lower right)
body and belt, without staff (left, sitting)
body with all props except staff
body with all props (top right)
head and beard, version 1*
head and beard, version 2*
*see notes below
While the skins for this version of Gandalf (as portrayed once again by Sir Ian McKellen in The Fellowship of the Ring) were fairly easy to design, the meshes presented several unique problems of their own. The staff, this time, was actually quite simple, especially compared to the more intricate version for Gandalf the White; it was the beard and hair that caused the problems. Simpler meshes could not properly convey the image we saw in the movie, that of a somewhat weather-tossed Grey Pilgrim, and both hair and beard were considerably longer and fuller than that of The Two Towers' Gandalf the White. And this is what caused the problem.
*In making the meshes work properly for the motion of the Sim in the game, different parts of both head and beard had to be assigned to different joints, so that the beard and hair would lay properly against the chest and back without poking into the torso of the body whenever the Sim nods or turns or moves his head. A matter simply achieved -- except for the fact that in order to allow that appropriate motion and appearance in the Sim itself, the thumbnail images of his head become distorted. Hence, when you see the facial thumbnail or the image that appears in the action selection menu, the reassignment of parts will cause those images to appear fairly seriously distorted.
*This is a problem I have noticed with the thumbnails of heads made by other mesh artists who have designed Sims with very long hair and have used joint reassignment to prevent the "poke through" effect as the Sim goes about his or her life. I believe there is a way to prevent this from happening, as I have seen a few long-haired meshes that remained properly in place without producting distorted thumbnails, but as I'm still quite new to the mesh-making biz, I have yet to puzzle out the solution to this problem. Give me time, and I will.
*Until then, I am offering two versions of the head. If you don't mind the poke-through effect and would prefer to have non-distorted thumbnails, choose version 1. If the distortion of the thumbnails doesn't bother you and you'd rather not have Gandalf's hair and beard constantly impaling his torso (and it does, quite badly because of the length), choose version 2.
And about the "new" Gandalf with the hat and staff and satchel -- no, no cloak or Glamdring. The cloak finally proved to be too much. If I was going to do it, it covered up so much else, it looked pretty much like a gray bag -- very unappealing. And while I may yet get around to Glamdring, for now, I decided I preferred to have my Sims go about the neighborhood unarmed. So, barring the sword, I went for the "Moria" look, pretty much the way we saw the character during the trek through the mines of Moria. In other words, without the cloak.
