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?

As promised, more lil Olympians

Dug up some sketches to share...

Awesome fan art! Lil Hera! Lil Athena!

Awhile back, I drew up a comic for the ReadKiddoRead awards (Olympians was nominated for best series, and is probably losing as I type). It starred lil Olympians versions of Zeus and Hades. I drew up lil Olympian versions of the whole pantheon, wanting to do something with them in the future, but so far as I recall I never posted any other designs. Imagine my surprise then when I received these awesome drawings of lil Athena and lil Hera via twitter today from twitter user @britters1516. She figured out the underlying design principles behind my Zeus and Hades and perfectly extrapolated Hera and Athena. Amazing!

I'll have to dig up my own designs and post them, to see how they compare.

Interview on Diamond Bookshelf

Head on over to Diamond's website (y'know, the people who supply everything you find in your local neighborhood comic shop) to check out this interview with yours truly, where I discuss the character of Hera, the upcoming Hades: Lord of the Dead, and how I hope my art can be considered "real good".

A-Sketch-a-Day-Until-Hera #54

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 February of 2007.

 More of me playing around with sharpies and pencil sketches, this time drawing the fall of Hera to earth after her regurgitation by Kronos. The reason why she's saying "room # 1402/03" as she falls has been lost to the rigors of time. I actually will do this a lot, write down some temporarily important piece of info in a word bubble coming from a  doodle's mouth (especially in this particular sketchbook, for some reason) and it often makes for a confusing/amusing read later.

A-Sketch-a-Day-Until-Hera #44

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 January of 2007.

Continuing from yesterday, here's a bunch more Hera cover ideas. I do love to draw me some Hera.

A-Sketch-a-Day-Until-Hera #43

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 January of 2007.

Continuing my theme from the past few days of self-rejected portrait covers from Olympians, here's a batch of Hera portraits. Looking at them now, I wish I had included those few loose curls in her final design.

Hera in her Space Suit visits the Milky Way.

longtime readers of this blog will know that my studiomates and I often do warm-up drawings on a certain topic every morning and post them online. Occasionally, my drawings will feature a mythological element and I will post them here as well. Well, lately I've been participating less than I used to and so, in an obvious bid to get me posting again, the topic was "Hera in a Spacesuit"

Did you know that the ancient Greeks credited Hera with creating the Milky Way from an errant stream of breast milk? True, uh, myth. Not sure why the nigh-omnipotent Queen on the Gods would need a spacesuit; maybe, since she is also the goddess of the air she wanted to bring a little of her native atmosphere with her while she visited her old handiwork.

You can read the actual story in my new graphic novel Hera: The Goddess and Her Glory, coming out July 19th everywhere! Subtle plug!

A-Sketch-a-Day-Until-Hera #29

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.

29 days in a row! If this was February in a leap year, this'd be a full month of Olympians sketch-tanza! Today's piece is a shot of a glowering Hera, looking across the table, presumably at her hubby Zeus. It seems this is a companion piece to this table-centric group shot I posted last week. You can even see what appears to be part of Demeter's cornucopia in the right foreground.

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 #23

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 yet another doodle of the Queen of Gods. I must really like drawing her or something. There's something about the expression on Hera's face here, coupled with the slab of beefcake in the background (Is that Zeus?) that says "yum" to me. Anyway, though it was a funny drawing, and worth sharing. Enjoy!

A-Sketch-a-Day-Until-Hera #18

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.

This sketch is up a bit later in the day than is usual due to the fact that blogger was down until after I left the house. If you're one of the, like, 3 people who follow me on Twitter (despite my constant begging for you to do so) you might've seen this already as a twitpic, the only option open to me this AM. Anyway, its' Hera, and it has a bit of writing with it for an idea that went nowhere. Enjoy!

A-Sketch-a-Day-Until-Hera #15

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 drawing is a couple of shots of Hera herself, from a point in time when I was playing with a more cartoony style of illustration for Olympians. Looking through my sketchbooks as I've been doing, and I can see that my whole... what's the word I'm looking for here? My whole career(?) has been a bouncing back and forth between my more cartoony and more 'realistic'styles. I quite like these doodles, if I do say so myself.

A-Sketch-a-Day-Until-Hera #12

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, oh. let's say September of 2006. I honestly don't remember right now.

Today's piece is a kinda groovy group shot of a bunch of the Olympians. It's kinda loose, but I think I can make out, from left to right: Demeter, Poseidon, Hera, Athena, Hephaistos, and I think that's Artemis and Apollo on the end. The figures up front would seem to be maybe the Muses. Kind of a neat little drawing, if I do say so myself, somewhat reminiscent of the illustration in the header of this very blog.

A-Sketch-a-Day-Until-Hera #8

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 September of 2006.

Today's piece is another drawing of the Queen of the Gods herself. I'm still playing around with that peacock collar idea at this point. I quite like the expression on her face here. I may have mentioned this elsewhere, but Hera's my favorite goddess.

A-Sketch-a-Day-Until-Hera #6

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 2006.

  Nothing much to add here, as you've seen both of these early designs for Zeus and Hera. I just like this shot of Zeus literally sweeping his queen off of her feet.

A-Sketch-a-Day-Until-Hera #2

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, and today's piece is from a sketchbook dated August 2006.

Today's drawing is an early sketch of Hera herself, as well as her sister Demeter, goddess of the harvest (one of the stars of Hades: Lord of the Dead, coming in January!). As I've mentioned before, at this stage of the project I still hadn't even decided on the style I would be drawing Olympians in. These two are a bit more elongated and cartoony than the way they would eventually appear in print, but otherwise they're both pretty recognizable. One difference is Hera's peacock themed collar, which would have been rendered in color only, with no black lines. Ultimately, it looked too confusing as to what it was, exactly, so I dropped it. Also, that would have been a nightmare to color throughout a whole book, let alone a series.

Happy Lupercalia!

So how did a Roman Catholic Saint, of all people, come to be associated with the holiday intended for the expression of intense physical love? Good question.

Like many modern holidays (I'm looking at you, Xmas), what we celebrate today is just a patch early christians threw on over pre-existing pagan rituals (Saturnalia, anyone?). That explains why, say, we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus with eggs and bunnies-- the christian element was overlaid on a pre-existing springtime fertility ritual.

St. Valentine's day is a similar case. Nobody is sure which St Valentine we're celebrating exactly (there were at least three) but his day is an overlay of the ancient Greco-Roman festival of Lupercalia, in which was celebrated both the holy marriage of Zeus (Jove) and Hera (Juno), as well as in Rome the founding of their city (Romulus, Remus, wolves, "Lupe"-- it's all connected). There was all sorts of courting between young folks of both sexes, and it was generally very frolicky. Lupercalia was a very, very  ancient festival, and it had replaced (more absorbed, really) an even more ancient one, Februa, which, you may guess, is where we get  the name for the month of February. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

My drawing is of the sacred couple themselves, Zeus and Hera, in embrace, behind a water lilly, one of Hera's sacred flowers.

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.