♯Cliche title
Anyway. What I want you guys to do this week is create an image based on Ancient Greece. It can be based around historical events, such as Thermopylae or the ancient Olympics (just no nudity please, let's keep this PG), historical figures, such as Socrates or Alexander The Great (yes he was Macedonian, but he counts) or you can do Greek Mythology, classical heroes, the pantheon or the numerous creatures and monsters of Ancient Greece. Now, I love Greek history, so alongside the usual creativity criteria that I judge by, I will be looking at historical accuracy as well. So don't make the writer of the Iliad yellow skinned whatever you do.
As per usual, no limits on entries and the contest will close at midnight Saturday (blog time). Please read the contest rules before entering, have fun and good luck.
Rules for posts, contests, and challenges that I am hosting: Original characters only, no copyrighted characters, no characters based on copyrighted characters, no characters based on RPG’s or other games. The characters must be your own design and not based on any character that might be copyrighted in any way. I have the right to delete any post that I believe crosses this line without warnings. Only post characters that you have either created for this contest specifically or you know for certain have never been entered to a contest before. If you aren’t certain, don’t enter it, because I’m not going to go back through all of the contests and check.
Achilles
http://s1382.photobucket.com/user/ethanshluker/media/Achilles_zpsfu4ze1hl.png.html
Feel free to comment on my work
King Midas, after his curse of the Golden Touch was inflicted, grew to be an old and bitter man, his touch having ruined his life. He uses his touch to damn those he condemns to an eternal, golden existence. Beware the Midas touch.
http://imageshack.com/a/img537/7830/n6WIzH.jpg
A darker version of Zeus
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/358599189057849656/
Were are there eyes?
Sappho was a 5th Century (BC) poet from the island of Lesbos. She is best known in the modern world for her romantic poetry, particularly for her work on romantic relationships between women. Her writing helped me when I was coming to terms with my own feelings as a teenager, so she has a special significance in my heart.
http://i.imgur.com/29qOFtj.png
If you’re talking about mine; it’s because most of the time in HM3, my creations have “whited out” eyes, referencing comic styles using said technique. From Bruce Timm’s Batman, to Todd McFarlane’s Spawn, many comic characters don’t have defined eyes (no iris/pupil), but still emote and “look” around. I find it easier and more stylized to use this same technique. If I do opt to use iris/pupils, I try to make them as “realistic” proportionally as the program will allow.
OH! that’s kind of cool sorry
My Version Of Zeus:
http://www.heromachine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/zeus.png
Entry #1
Agathon
(c. 448 – c. 400 BC) was an Athenian tragic poet whose
works have been lost. He is best known for his appearance in Plato’s Symposium, which describes the banquet given to celebrate his obtaining a prize for his first tragedy at the Lenaia in 416.
Agathon was the lifelong companion of Pausanias, with whom he appears in both the Symposium and Plato’s
Protagoras. Together with Pausanias, he later moved to the court of Archelaus, king of Macedon, who was recruiting playwrights; it is here that he probably died around 401 BC. Agathon introduced certain innovations into the Greek theater: Aristotle tells us in the Poetics (1456a) that the characters and plot of his Anthos were original and not, following Athenian dramatic orthodoxy, borrowed from mythological subjects. Agathon was also the first playwright to write choral parts which were apparently independent from the main plot of his plays.
Agathon is portrayed by Plato as a handsome young man, well dressed, of polished manners, courted by the fashion, wealth and wisdom of Athens, and dispensing hospitality with ease and refinement. Some suggest he was effeminate. The epideictic speech in praise of love which Agathon recites in the Symposium is full of beautiful but artificial rhetorical expressions, and has led some scholars to believe he may have been a student of Gorgias.
An epigram attributed to Plato:
“Kissing Agathon, I had my soul upon my lips; for it rose, poor wretch, as though to cross over.”
http://i795.photobucket.com/albums/yy240/Cliff_HM3/Cliff_Greek_Agathon_zps9nmaw3gr.jpg
Zues
http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/n620/bluntobject1/Zues.png
Entry #2
Ganymede was a Trojan prince in Greece, known for his beauty, commonly described as the most beautiful of mortals. He was the son of the king Tros of Dardania, after whom Troy took its name, and Callirrhoe.
Zeus fell in love with the boy who was tending to the family flocks on Mount Ida and turned into an eagle and abducted Ganymede , bringing him to Mount Olympus.
To compensate his father Tros, Zeus offered him the best horses possible, and told him that his son would now be immortal and serve as a cupbearer for the gods, as well as a lover for him.
Tros was relieved that his son would have such an honorable position.
Almost all gods were content with Ganymede, except for Hera, who felt jealousy.
Ganymede’s Roman name is Catamitus.
“…the figure of Ganymede appears throughout Roman literature as the archetype of the beautiful, sexually desirable male slave as prerequisite of wealth and privilege…”
Zeus eventually turned Ganymede into the constellation Aquarius (the water-bearer) in the sky.
Ganymede was also considered as the source of the fountains of the Nile, the divinity pouring out the life-giving water supply.
Sometime afer the 1600s the abduction and ascendance of Ganymede became a Christian metaphor for Eternal Life after death and went so far as to align Jupiter’s love for Ganymede and Christ’s invitation to “Suffer little children to come unto me.” .
The planet Jupiter’s moons are named after his lovers, and Ganymede is the largest moon, not only of Jupiter, but of the solar system.
http://i795.photobucket.com/albums/yy240/Cliff_HM3/Cliff_Greek_Ganymede_zps3szyyvco.jpg
Medusa
http://imageshack.com/a/img673/7229/mNZL9a.jpg
Entry 2: Medusa
Once the most beautiful woman of her generation, Medusa was cursed by the gods and turned into a Gorgon, a hideous snake-human chimera. A unique being, both hideous and beautiful, Medusa attracts the gaze of the foolish and the brave alike, sending them to an early, stone death.
http://imageshack.com/a/img901/3696/LX19xz.jpg
Entry #3
Hestia
My wife Bre asked me to do Hestia as She is our Patron Goddess of our Home.
Hestia’s parents were the Titans Cronus and Rhea
Her siblings were Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, Zeus, and Chiron as such she was included in the Olympian Council.
She sat on a plain wooden throne with a white woolen cushion
Hestia is the goddess of the hearth, family, and domestic life.
Her name meant both a house and a hearth, symbolising the home and its residents.
She also represented the coalition and relationship between the colonies and the mother cities.
Hestia received the first offering at every sacrifice in the household. She was also offered the first and last libations of wine at feasts.
Her own sacrificial animal was a domestic pig
In the public domain, the hearth of the prytaneum functioned as her official sanctuary. With the establishment of a new colony, flame from Hestia’s public hearth in the mother city would be carried to the new settlement.
The accidental or negligent extinction of a domestic hearth-fire represented a failure of domestic and religious care for the family; failure to maintain Hestia’s public fire in her temple or shrine was a breach of duty to the broad community. A hearth fire might be deliberately, ritually extinguished at need, and its lighting or relighting should be accompanied by rituals of completion, purification and renewal, comparable with the rituals and connotations of an eternal flame and of sanctuary lamps.
She took a vow to remain a virgin refusing to give in to the advances of Poseidon and Apollo.
Once she was almost raped by Priapus, a lesser god of fertility, but was saved thanks to the braying of a mule.
Once Dionysus came about Hestia stepped down to allow Dionysus to take the throne, protecting the Olympian peace
The Roman equivalent is Vesta, who represented the public hearth. Her preiestess were the Vestal Virgins.
http://i795.photobucket.com/albums/yy240/Cliff_HM3/Cliff_Greek_Hestia_zpsb9mmbraf.jpg
My guy was supposed to be Odysseus but I wanted to be creative so I made him into some warrior gifted by the gods
So, my entry- the gods of war face each other down on Mt. Olympus. Ares wears standard bronze hoplite armor, and his Corinthian helmet has a transverse instead of lateral crest, as could been seen on Spartan commanders, much like the lambda painted on his shield and the scarlet cloak on his back.
Like the Athena Parthenos statue, Athena wears gold and ivory, in contrast to Ares. Out of battle, she wears her helmet pushed up on her head, in this case more resembling the Chalcidian style than the more recognizable Corinthian. She wears the head of the gorgon Medusa on her cuirass (breastplate), although she also uses it to decorate her shield.
http://orig03.deviantart.net/7846/f/2015/247/d/3/gods_of_war_by_melmo44-d98ewnl.png
Hey man, like your picture.
I just have a question on how you made Athena hold the strap on her shield?
I’ve been trying to make some of my characters hold items with the hand in that position but can’t make it look like they’re actually holding it. It’s like the item is behind their closed fist. I can add one of my images to show my exact problem if you’re not entirely sure what I’m talking about.
@ cpt.Fawkes
You place the object over the hand and then use the masking tool to connect the handle to the hand.
Here’s a guide that helped me out, I feel I’m a bit too hungry to make perfect sense right now: http://www.heromachine.com/2010/04/08/hand-holding/
It mostly works on closed fists, though.
Entry #4
Sacred Band
4th century BC.
the Sacred Band was originally formed by the boeotarch
Gorgidas, shortly after the expulsion of the Spartan garrison occupying the Theban citadel of Cadmea in 378 BC.
The 300 hand-picked men were chosen by Gorgidas purely for ability and merit, regardless of social class.
It was composed of 150 male couples, each pair consisting of an older erastês (“lover”) and a younger erômenos (“beloved”).
The origin of the “sacred” appellation of the Sacred Band was due to an exchange of sacred vows between lover and beloved at the shrine of Iolaus (one of the lovers of Hercules) at Thebes.
For more detailed info check out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_Band_of_Thebes
For my pic I showed the older erastes visciously battling to protect his less experience younger eromenos.
I chose the lion on the sheild to represent the lion statue on the Sacred Band’s tomb erected by the Thebans in memory of their dead after the battle of Chaeronea.
Their defeat at the battle was a significant victory for Philip, since until then, the Sacred Band was regarded as invincible throughout all of Ancient Greece. Plutarch records that Philip II, on encountering the corpses “heaped one upon another”, understanding who they were, wept and exclaimed,
“Perish any man who suspects that these men either did or suffered anything unseemly.”
—Plutarch, Pelopidas 18
http://i795.photobucket.com/albums/yy240/Cliff_HM3/Cliff_Greek_SacredBand_zpsa9nolen5.jpg
Entry #5
Pan & Daphnis
Daphnis was a Sicilian shepherd said to be the inventor of pastoral poetry. He was the son of Hermes and a nymph, despite which Daphnis himself was mortal. His mother was said to have exposed him under a laurel tree, where he was found by shepherds and named after the tree under which he was found.
Pan fell in love with Daphnis and taught him to play the pan pipes. Daphnis is described and shown as His eromenos.
While Daphnis looks a bit uncertain or taken aback
the eromenos was supposed to play hard to get
(Panpipe music accompaniment: Relaxing Panpipes & Nature Sound Effects – “Nature is Alive”)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEPX6vHKRdE
http://i795.photobucket.com/albums/yy240/Cliff_HM3/Cliff_Greek_Pan_Daphnis_zpsj0elp1rh.jpg
Ok class, this weeks history lesson is now over. I will now mark your homework and the best 5 shall be put on the notice board for you to go over.