PRODUCTION

I started off by making a mind map of significant or memorable Greek mythology figures and researching small factoids about each of them, such as their associated colour palettes, their roles as gods or as people, their family status, and what stories they're most known for. I used MS Paint to make this with the curved line and circle tool before applying text.

I use the first brush to add textured shading and lighting.

The second one is for blocking in poses and bodies as well as basic environments to give myself an idea.

I use the third and fourth one mainly, with the third one being for softer line art and more bolder lines whilst the dip pen is used for cross-hatching and sketches.

I also use the lasso fill tool to fill in base colours and base shapes. I use ibisPaint X for everything from this point forward.

HERMES CONCEPTS

I designed Hermes with a spry, youthful adventurer in mind. I wanted him to have symmetrical wings on his head and feet, as well as a balanced cape in the middle that looks like wings. His main shape is triangles.

ARES CONCEPTS

I wanted him to be faceless with a blacked out head to accentuate the sense of mystery and the unknown. In my mind, he would be bulky and imposing, to further amplify his intimidating presence as a war lord.

His attire consists of gorey elements, such as eyes, veins, and the hide of animals, to embody the sense of death and battle.

I gave him some alternate outfits, with the first one being more regal and imposing, and the second one being for colder climates.

I drew several poses with him in mind- rectangular, diamond shapes make up his entire body.

APHRODITE CONCEPTS

Initially, I wanted her to have a mermaid-like appearance with the allure and heart of a siren. Ethereal and gorgeous on the exterior, whilst being cruel and selfish within. She would look like a beautiful woman with earthly beauty standards.

However, I decided to make her look more otherworldly and alien-like as to encapsulate a more surreal and strange beauty rather than a standard one.

I originally was going to make representatives for each planet and the actual deities had died long ago, so this was the representative for Aphrodite, but her design was unfortunately scrapped when I decided to make the characters the gods themselves.

You can think of her as the 'beta Aphrodite', as her design with the shells, pearls, and the palette of pink, blue, yellow, and off-white kickstarted Aphrodite's colours and theme.

ZEUS CONCEPTS

The idea to make him a centaur was when I looked at his symbolic plants and animals and saw the bull- I thought to myself, huh, usually people just associate him with an eagle, and I wanted to do something different.

As I decided to make him represent the seven deadly sins (due to his less than reputable actions in Greek mythology), I wanted gluttony and pride to be visible in his design- a large, plump stature with extravagant golden armour and expensive embroidery.

GAIA CONCEPTS

I wanted Gaia to represent all essentials of Earth- the sea, trees, fruit, the sun, and the moon. Instead of just being the personification, I decided she'd instead take the role of protecting Earth and sharing its life force (which is why the Earth shrivels when Ouroboros swallows her). She'd have an ethereal, strong design that encapsulates the very thing she cares for, considering she's a primordial goddess.

I then made very rough concepts of three of the planets, with a small close-up that delves into what they look like in day-to-day life.

Mars is dark and in ruins due to its collapse time and time again from wars, Mercury is balanced yet vivid in values due to its busyness and liveliness, and Venus is quite light in values to give off a dreamy paradise.

To present a key scene of the story, I depicted Gaia being swallowed by Ouroboros, with the symbolism of her connection with the Earth snapping by their once everlasting thread.

Another key scene where Zeus confronts Ares about the intensity of his civil war. Phobos and Deimos cower behind Ares' throne, whilst Hermes grows nervous of their escalating argument. I shifted the values from left to right to depict Ares in the darkness, whilst Zeus and Hermes are in the light.

Both of these are products of primary research. I took a picture of my friend's ornament, as it was a sculpture of Venus, and drew my rendition of Aphrodite in the same pose and essence. For the tiger, which I later named Polemo, I went to a zoo with Max and took pictures of a tiger with the idea of Ares owning a tiger companion popping to mind. I wanted it to look like it was made of magma and lava rock.

I wanted Ares to have an ominous pose that looked confident and bulky, so I drew his torso twisting slightly to the camera to show his side and a full view of his headpiece and cape. I used the dip pen and lasso fill tool for all of these designs.

I began with a simple sketch that I drew with the dip pen. I drew a furry cape atop his shoulders lined with teeth to intensify that gorey effect, alongside the vulture hanging limply (I also snatched this from his symbolisms!)

His skin would be calloused and his build meaty, which is why I covered him in scars and gave him a top-heavy body type.

I finished the full-body and then applied the colour palette I made earlier with his moodboard. His outfit is pretty scarce to give him more freedom when it comes to moving, and he's not exactly interested in fashion. Most things on him are either to cover up or to show off his strength- every vein intertwined into his helmet, feathers from the vulture hanging from his cape, teeth and eyeballs coating his design, and a snake used as a belt (which is also foreshadowing to Ouroboros' defeat).

I then polished up the design by adding bold line art and cleaned up the thin, streaky line art.

I made the veins from the eyeballs more visible, and cleaned up the veins from his helmet. I also changed the design on his helmet to harbor more detail.

People in the Google Form didn't have any major issues with his design, so I didn't change much.

I had a negative colour palette in mind, with darker values consisting of their skin and accessories whilst the line art was light. I thought it added more to their impish appearance and made their designs unique. Originally, I was going to make them identical twins, but I decided to make Phobos more bulky and tankier to match with his shield, whilst Deimos is more lithe and agile.

I didn't make any concept art for these two as they were created on a whim. They're both rather nervous (of course, as they are the personification of fear and panic), and usually avoid confrontation or interacting with anyone else other than Ares or Martians.

I trial-and-errored their colours- initially, I was going to use some of Ares' palette for them, but it didn't really give off 'imp'. So, I messed with some colour filters, and eventually used a Divide (basically Negative) filter that looked nice for my vision. The negative palette is refreshing and unique to look at.

I didn't ask about these two in the survey as I made them afterwards, but I was happy with their designs anyways and they're not too significant to the story. I cleaned and polished up their designs with little to no changes, only the helmet on Phobos, and I kept the designs rather simple since they're not main characters.

Hermes' palette is warm and vibrant with a dynamic pose to present a friendly, lively demeanour. I made the general shape of the pose itself quite circular to make it look like he's in motion to highlight the busyness of Mercury and messengers.

Hermes' shapes are made up of triangles, which help with the motion I'm trying to portray, especially with his shoes and arms.

I applied his colour palette and wanted his scarf to be blue as a central contrasting piece against the warmer tones. The dark brown of his goggles' leather, mid browns for his skin tone and bag, and the cream and gold of his accessories to keep his values and design balanced.

I cleaned up his design and took some advice from the survey, one prominent critique being the lack of detail on his shoes, considering it's his symbolism. So, I defined the shoes with some bound rope and bold lines to make them more eye-catching. I also cleaned up around his belt and simplified the colours of his hair to make it easier to look at.

Aphrodite was intended to look ethereal and regal with heavy relations to her symbols, such as swans, sparrows, roses, myrtle, and seashells. As her planet consists of an archipelago paradise, I wanted her design to present that- sandy colours with the waves and froth of the sea, with a double-meaning of her symbolisms.

With Aphrodite, I actually had the reference on screen, and used several for different aspects of her design (which are pointed out in my Midpoint Evaluation). I wanted her to look as if she were in a bathhouse or beach, which is what most of Venus is based off of.

Designs from Hoyoverse that use the same principle with reference photos.

I used a real shell as reference for her head piece and used the reds in her palette for smaller accessories, such as the roses and her spear. The spear's design came to mind when I wanted something resembling a love heart in her design, before deciding to use a real heart as reference instead to make it unique. The off-white on the doves, face, dress, and spear are all highlights, and the darker browns and greens on her dress and the shell is to balance said highlights.

I cleaned up the sketch with colourful bold line art, with varied vibrancy for each seashell and her spear. I gave her a necklace as this was a suggestion on my survey, and I agreed as her neck looked quite bare.

Gaia is meant to encapsulate the entire Earth. The sea, land, tree branches, fruit, sun, and moon are all essential to humanity's survival. In my version of her, she's an higher-dimensional being, resulting in her being invisible to the human eye as she guards their globe.

I took inspiration from one of the poses in her concept art and built upon it. I wanted her to look peaceful and her hair flowy and light.

I used her colour palette and loosely followed her concept art with a warm upper-half and a cold lower-half to represent the sea, sand, summer and winter. The leaves represent autumn and trees, whilst the fruits and her hair represent spring. I also used the concept idea of her skin being tree bark and the fruits on her head, with the addition of grape earrings and blueberries.

This design had the most feedback and critique-- I followed a few by adding a blue braid to balance the abundance of green, added blue + purple to her face to make it more eye-catching, and lined the blueberries and grapes with their complementary colours to draw attention to her face rather than her skirt.

I wanted Zeus to encapsule the seven deadly sins, with greed, pride, and gluttony being the most prominent ones. I gave him a flashy and opulent outfit as a result of his snobby and prideful demeanour. His larger frame represents his gluttony, and the golden armor represents his greed.

I made a pose of his side and front to map out his body type and how it would work with a man's upper-half and a bull's lower-half. To make the front, I drew guidelines from the side model from the top of his head to the bottom of his hooves to get the proportions right.

I settled with the side profile as it'll showcase the extravagance of his clothing and armour more visibly than the front profile. I used gold, blue, and silver as mid-tones, the off-white as a highlight, and the browns as the darker tones. I made his roles prevalent through the cloud and lightning embroidery on his clothing.

One major critique I got was that the gold blended in with his skin tone, which I agreed with and used a darker blue to outline the gold and separate it from his skin tone, as well as a bold brown. I used thick, dark colours to make the lighter ones pop, and thought it was a good stylistic choice to keep his beard and hair lineless.

I made several, quick renditions of covers that may be the final product and passed it around to see what people liked.

Most people liked the top right one, and a few picked top left or the ones at the bottom right. I talked to one of my friends about it and he said it'd be rewarding to try my hand at the tunnel one- which I thought was a fulfilling challenge.

I think it would help show the essence of the narrative too with the contrast between the bright sun and the deep dark reds, as well as Ouroboro's bony corpse swivelling past the mountains. This also looks as if it was a comic cover, such as the Daredevil comics.

I then began adding detail to Ares' pose and Ouroboros' skeleton. The second image is a quick basis for the values I wish to follow along for the rest of the drawing, with the middle and very bottom being darkest, and the sun at the top being the brightest. I used the dip pen for the sketch and the lasso fill tool for blocking in the values.

I cleaned up and added more detail to the drawing and added a Greek-like pattern in opposing colours of the top and bottom. However, it looked quite rigid, and the top one covered the sun, so I removed it entirely.

I then finally applied colour, with softer, lighter colours up above, with a simmering, saturated palette near the middle and bottom to draw in focus. I looked up a snake skeleton and changed the spine to be more accurate to a real one, as well as defining the mountains more.

I also decided to add his tiger to add more detail and life to the drawing. I used a symmetry tool to centre the skeleton and Ares and make it look more cohesive. I used harsh yellowish lighting to contrast with the dark red and to reflect the sun. I blurred edges of said lighting to look natural and more blended against the base colouring.

More depth to the process...

I used Hard Light to give a base, monochrome colour to start me off.

I then used Divide with a dark blue to grant me a bright yellow.

With another layer I added to the clipping layers, I used a cream to brighten the sky even further, whilst adding shading and line art to the mountains to make them pop.

I used a brighter red as a secondary light before the harsher light to give a balanced middle ground- this is called a half-tone.

I applied a more saturated red to the bottom half to make it less diluted and more menacing.

I began adding bright gold to contrast with the deeper red.

I did the same with the skeleton, where the half-tones helped making the lighting pop.

I added some bounce light to the skeleton's skull.

I darkened some colours on the skull, tiger, and Ares to make it more saturated and varying in value.

I made the skeleton head and Ares bigger to draw more attention to him as I thought it was difficult to see him properly and wanted to add more detail that was visible.

The full speed paint of my process.

Page updated

Report abuse