Sketches – Bellerophon

I saw Clash of the Titans, and anything to do with Greek mythology (no matter how tangential, like the Clash) always unleashes this barely concealed mania in me to do nothing but draw, paint, and read about the gods and heroes. But there are those other things in life like, I don't know, kids, job, house renovations, that sort of thing, that just gets in the way of a 24/7 mythology-fest.

Hence the joy of the sketchbook, since you can get it all out without committing yourself to a major piece of art (while at the same time telling yourself, truthfully or un, that you're prepping for a major piece of art later). At the moment I've got my mind set on Bellerophon and the Chimera.

(There is a reason why I would opt for Bellerophon after seeing a movie about Perseus, although it's not the Pegasus connection. No, it's for a far more geeky reason which I'll explain after the main post, so only those interested – or equally geeky – need read it.)

So the lion head is for 1/3 of the Chimera, and the other is a rough sketch of Bellerophon flying on Pegasus to slay it. Darn skinny notebook - had I drawn in something a little more horizontal, I'd have had room for the monster.

As I said, my mind is never terribly far away from these sort of things, so here's an Illustrator Chimera I did several years back, as a computer sketch.

A little different take on the traditional monster, but I figure it's an insane mix of three animals (with three totally different digestive systems, among other things) so why not mix it up even more?

And now, the geek reason:

Because I wanted to re-read about the actual legend of Perseus after seeing Clash, I turned to my copy of The Library of Greek Mythology by Apollodorus. I'm a primary-source kind of guy that way (along those lines, I did try and find it in Diodorus of Sicily, but he has almost nothing about Perseus. In fact, he thought that Medusa was actually an Amazon warrior. Nothing against Amazon warriors – they're really interesting too – but for me, you just have to have snakes for hair to make it Medusa).

Anyway, in the Perseus section, for reasons beyond my knowledge, Apollodorus suddenly breaks off and goes into the story of Bellerophon, tells it all, and then picks up the Perseus story as if nothing happened. So the ideas for drawing must have snuck into my subconscious while I was really researching Perseus inspiration.

Arianna's Alphabet Book: rough sketches

Here are a few examples of the sketches I have so far for the next alphabet book. Most are pretty simple, since I have so many to do. Here's the one for G: "Got it!" she called gleefully.
Although on occasion I got totally carried away, as in S: Soon they came to a stairway.

Interlude (I)

I was doodling a bear (obviously a motif that's on my mind lately) and when it was done I was really pleased with it. Here it is, in its original notebook paper form:

Really rough, of course, and he has three hands, but I liked it. Usually, I'd slap this on a light table and do a tight tracing of it, but I liked the sketchiness of it – made it look more furry to me, somehow. So instead of re-doing it, I took it into PhotoShop, and:

Still sketchy, but at least with the right amount of hands. So then I took it to rough color:

Needs more work, but getting out the watercolors for some fun fluff is good practice for the big troll drawing I'm about to start (it's transferred to watercolor paper at this point, so ready to roll). I'll put the final of this on as well when I finish, but that'll take a bit longer than these first quick steps.

More About the Bear's Son

One reason why I was interested in the Bear's Son story (other than being a HUGE myth geek) is that I had a story in mind that would involve a really strong guy who was raised by bears. I've now written it as a chapter book (and re-written it, thanks to input from my wife and my writer's group). As it turns out, it too is nothing like the actual Bear's Son story either, but that's a good thing in it's own way. No need to do another fairy tale re-write - time to write something new.

If all goes well, I'll find a literary agent for it, but until then I'd like to keep sketching scenes from it to send along with the manuscript.

If there's any interest, I'll post the first chapter on here. But first, here are a couple sketches that were very helpful in writing the story.

This first one is the big climax of the story - the Bear's Son (here named Rob) and his brother taking on the North Star (don't worry - no actual stars were harmed in the creation of this piece).

It really helps me in writing to draw things out first. I had initially meant the North Star to be some big buff guy, but in drawing this I realized that a young boy, no matter how strong, couldn't actually wrap his arms around someone that large. So I had to make the North Star tall and skinny, which actually worked out better for the story.

This one is from the beginning of the story (no actual cows were harmed in the creation... you get the idea). I wanted to show him doing something that required a lot of strength, and cow juggling seemed to fit the bill.

Unfortunately, neither scene made it as is into the final manuscript - but it did give me a lot of inspiration while writing it. I plan to do a drawing of a scene that actually is in the book, which I'll post when it gets at least as far as sketch form.