OLYMPIANS POSTER! A complete walkthrough

The upcoming Olympians poster is as finished as it's gonna get. I thought you might like to see this step-by-step process of how it was made, from the finish all the way back to the sketch.

finished color

finished inks

pencils

sketch

Fan Art: Aphrodite, Hera and Eros

Some fun fan art I received (from Clio, daughter of First Second editorial director Mark Siegel). Her dad's a super-talented artist, and at six years old I'd say she's well on track to surpassing her father (and me, for that matter), wouldn't you say?

The Two-and-a-half Covers of APHRODITE: GODDESS OF LOVE

A lot of eagle-eyed readers have noticed that the cover of Aphrodite: Goddess of Love that appears on the back cover of Poseidon is different than the the cover that appears on the actual book. I wrote a piece on the :01 blog that details the reason why. It's an interesting glimpse behind the scenes of the creative and editorial processes.

Arise Aphrodite!

My editor Neal Porter shares this cool piece about the new book and the birth of Olympians over on the First Second blog this morning.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everybody!

Volume 6 of Olympians, Aphrodite: Goddess of Love dropped yesterday on the last day of 2013 and I'm blushing at all the great emails I've received from people who already read it.

One of my new years resolutions is to be more attentive about updating this blog, and to that effect, I'm sharing here this early alternate design for the cover of Aphrodite. I'm sure you will all agree with me when I say I'm happy I didn't go this route ;)

I also wanted to plug my official Facebook page and my official Twitter. I hope to see you guys there!

APHRODITE: GODDESS OF LOVE is out! Today!

What more can I say?

Check your spines...

Just got my first hardcover bound copy of Aphrodite: Goddess of Love. Something interesting is beginning to appear...

As promised, more lil Olympians

Dug up some sketches to share...

Aphrodite warm up

So I'm at about the halfway point with the artwork on Aphrodite, and, I'm not sure if I got some bad nibs, or the quality of the paper I use changed or what,  but all of a sudden the last few days my pens have become gloppy and my pages keep getting torn up (you can see a great big glop from one of those nibs on my warm up drawing today). I changed out all my nibs this morning after that glop, and did some doodling to break them in a bit. Here's what I drew, an Ares, a Hephaistos, and a couple of Aphrodites.

A-Sketch-a-Day-Until-Hera #25

Olympians Book 3, Hera: The Goddess and Her Glory is finally coming out July 19th. To commemorate this momentous occasion I will be posting a drawing from my enormous cache of sketchbooks each weekday until Hera hits the shelves. I'll be going through them chronologically, with today's piece coming from a sketchbook from sometime in latish 2006.

Today's sketch is a near-complete assemblage of the gods. Unfortunately, as you can tell, I drew this across the spread of my sketchbook, so we have a big ol' crease running down the middle. From left to right we have Poseidon, Dionysos, Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaistos, Hera, Demeter, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes and Athena. At this point in time I was toying with the idea of Hestia not having a human form at all, but just being personified by a hearth (that's her in the middle). Eventually, I compromised and made her a humanoid figure composed of flame. Conspicuously absent is Big Daddy Zeus himself-- that's because this drawing is done from a Zeus eye view. We're viewing this family get-together from his seat at the table.

A-Sketch-a-Day-Until-Hera #24

Olympians Book 3, Hera: The Goddess and Her Glory is finally coming out July 19th. To commemorate this momentous occasion I will be posting a drawing from my enormous cache of sketchbooks each weekday until Hera hits the shelves. I'll be going through them chronologically, with today's piece coming from a sketchbook from sometime in latish 2006.

Two drawings in one! On the left, an early design of Aphrodite, dressed as she often appears in ancient sculpture (but not how she'll ever appear in Olympians-- too skimpy); on the right, another shot of my so-far unused design for the half-snake mother of monsters, Echidna (you can see another example of her design here). Note that Echidna's curled her long snake neck around itself like a scarf-- she looks like a scaly Cruella deVille. I have to use this design somewhere.

Chocolate Aphrodite

I don't remember what twisted strain of conversation lead to "chocolate Aphrodite" being today's warm-up topic, but I do know that the best way to a goddess's heart is to give her a milk-chocolate replica of herself. Better than flowers anyday.

I might color this whole thing when I get home. Then again, I might not.

and I did decide to color it. Now it's prettier.

Warm-up drawing: The Apple of Discord

Todays' warm-up topic was "apple" so I drew the Golden Apple of Eris.

 

As you all of course know, Eris was the goddess of Discord, who, miffed at not being invited to a wedding, showed up anyway and threw her golden apple to the ground, shouting "To the fairest". Now this was a pretty fancy wedding, so many of the Olympians were present. I chose to depict the exact awkward moment when Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, each believing themselves to be the fairest of them all, all simultaneously reached for the Golden Apple of Discord. One thing leads to another, and this little incident eventually lead to the Trojan War and the more-or-less complete destruction of the race of Heroes.

Guest Artist Gallery: Simon Fraser

Introducing the first installment of a new feature where some of today's most exciting artists lend us their own vision of a favorite god, monster or hero from Greek mythology. Leading the way in this inaugural edition is Mr. Simon Fraser, bringing us his beautiful depiction of Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and love.



Of his colored pencil drawing of Aphrodite above, he has this to say: "I based her on Anna Nicole Smith and a girl I knew at High School, both worked out that love was the way to get what they wanted."

Born in Scotland, Simon Fraser has lived in France, Italy, Africa, and even a strange and foreign land known as "Brooklyn". He's well known for co-creating the swashbuckling Nikolai Dante, a sci-fi anti-hero from a 27th century interstellar Imperial Russia, in the pages of the famous British comics weekly magazine 2000AD. Perhaps the second tallest member of the web comic collective known as Act-i-Vate, he launched the creator-owned sci-fi adventure strip Lilly MacKenzie there. Lilly's first adventure, Lilly MacKenzie and the Mines of Charybdis is currently in the process of being prepared for publication in Judge Dredd Megazine. In addition to his many comics related skills, Mr. Fraser knows the full name name of every dinosaur to ever exist,including ones not yet discovered by science, and knows instinctively where to find a decent bar no matter where in the world you may drop him off. He has an impressive collection of hats.


Can you draw, paint, operate a camera, sculpt, etc.? Have a desire to capture the essence of your favorite figure from Greek myth and see it pictured here on this site? Send me a scan of your work, a few words about yourself and the piece, and I'll put it up!

Myth Manners- On Mocking the Gods

Plagued by jealous gods? Bedeviled by man-eating monsters? In love with a centaur but you're allergic to fur? Maybe Myth Manners can help you!



Dear Myth Manners,

Whenever I’m at the local taverna and I’ve had a skinful of wine, I have an irresistible urge to make fun of the gods. I can’t help it! I just think some of the things they do are so ridiculous! For example, why in the world would Zeus choose to go courting in the form of a swan, a bull, or a shower of golden rain, no matter how attractive a shower of rain he was? Why would Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite waste one of Atlas’ golden apples on Paris, whose only redeeming quality was his hotness? Sometimes, the gods just make me want to giggle! But I feel like if the gods find out I’m laughing at them, they’re not going to be happy. But they shouldn’t be that mad, right? Honestly, what’s the worst that can happen?

Sincerely, Giggling at the Gods

Dear Giggling,

Unfortunately for you, the gods have a serious problem with people who point out their negative qualities. Think of them as teenagers, super-sensitive to any slight or insult, but with the powers of shape-changing, thunder and lightning, super-strength, weather-changing, etc. You don’t want to make them mad!

I had a friend recently who wove a tapestry to illustrate how ridiculous the gods were. Athena came and changed her into a spider! Granted, tapestries are a lot more permanent than taverna gossip, but I wouldn’t chance it if I were you!