Plague Doctor 3D Model

Inspired by the current Coronavirus crisis and due to having more time than usual, I decided to model a stylized medieval plague doctor and this is the result. Sure, SARS-CoV-2 isn't as deadly as the plague used to be, but still nothing to be joking about, and the daily reports about this pandemic reminded me of the dark times I used to read about in history books. Some Plague Doctor Memes did the rest so I came up with this 3D Model. The dirt effects and the blood splashes on this one might be a bit over the top, but I like the result, especially after playing the new Doom Eternal.

This Plague Doctor 3D Model consists of 97150 faces, it's fully textured but not rigged yet. Modeling was done in Blender. But what was a Plague Doctor historically?

The historic Plague Doctor was a medical physician who treated victims of the bubonic plague. When an epidemic took place, these guys were specifically hired by towns where the plague was raging. The good thing: Since the cities were paying their salary, they treated everyone: no matter if poor or wealthy. The bad: The Plague Doctors typically weren't experienced physicians or surgeons at all. Most of them were either young physicians that wanted to establish themselves in the industry, or second-rate doctors who failed to run a successful medical practice. Because of this fact, they rarely cured their patients and, on top of this, used medical practices that weren't effective at all.

The known costumes weren't common by the way. The garments were invented by Charles de L'Orme in 1630 and were first used in Naples and historically documented only in Italy and France. Although the suite guaranteed a level of protection, it wasn't as effective as it might look like. It consisted of a light, waxed fabric overcoat, a leathermask with eye openings made of glass and the typical beak shaped nose. It was stuffed with different herbs, spieces and straws. This scented materials included roses, mint leaves, juniper berry and ambergris, camphor, myrrh, storax and cloves. It was believed this would protect the doctor from the so-called miasma (bad air), which was assumed as the reason for diseases in that times. They also used to carry a stick or something alike to examine patients without the need to make direct contact with them.

So this is my take on the Plague Doctor, you can click on the images to see the rendered 3D Model in 1440p:

Front:

Right side:

Back:

Left side:

Some details:

360° animation of my Plague Doctor 3D Model:



Wireframe: