Greek Mythology From A To Z:

“Death of Hyacinthus”

Out of jealousy, the west wind Zephyrus causes Apollo’s discus to strike Hyacinthus and kill him. Apollo creates hyacinths from the prince’s blood so that his soul lives on through the flowers.

For composition & characters, I took inspiration from Tiepolo’s “Death of Hyacinthus” and Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus.”

Follow-up piece from the Apollo/Hyacinthus I painted last year. Notes, process & closeups can be found below the cut

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Greek mythology from A to Z:

[M] - Medusa (Μέδουσα) was one of the three Gorgons, daughters of Phorcys and Ceto. A beautiful mortal, Medusa was the exception in the family, until she incurred the wrath of Athena, either due to her boastfulness or because of an ill-fated love affair with Poseidon. Transformed into a vicious monster with snakes for hair, she was killed by Perseus, who afterward used her still potent head as a weapon, before gifting it to Athena.

It’s  weird for me that Ulysses was a trickster and a liar during the siege and that was ok. But Antilochus won a chariot racing by using simple physics tricks and that wasn’t fair play.

Those guys would be horrified by high performance athlete nowadays.

Eos ✨ Goddess of the Dawn

Eos was the Greek goddess of the dawn, who rose each day from the east to disperse the mists of night with her light rays. She signaled the coming of Helios, her brother, to gods and mortals alike, and accompanied him on his path across the sky.

Mythology frequently represents her as abducting attractive youths - stealing them away to ravish in a distant land. Some say this is because Aphrodite cursed her with an unquenchable desire after learning that the goddess had slept with Ares.

source

her facial markings are indeed inspired by miss thing here.

Hermes finding a lost soul 🦋

I wanted to draw Hermes in his role as psychopompos and I remember reading somewhere that butterflies represented souls in greek mythology. I'm not really sure on that but I liked the idea :)

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Greek mythology from A to Z:

[E] - Eros (Ἔρως) was god of sexual attraction, a constant companion of Aphrodite.

Greek mythology from A to Z:

[H] - Hestia (Ἑστία) is the goddess of the hearth, the family and the home. Cronus’ and Rhea’s first-born child, she was pure and peaceful.

Greek mythology from A to Z:

[A] -  Asclepius (Ἀσκληπιός) was the god of medicine, son of the god Apollo. Asclepius was given to the Centaur Chiron, who raised him and taught him medicine and the healing arts. At some point, Asclepius healed a snake, which in return taught him secret knowledge - snakes were considered divine beings that were wise and could heal.

“No one can weave as well as I—not even the Goddess Athena!” Arachne boasted, unaware of who else might be listening in. 

Revisiting one of the most memorable greek myths from my childhood, the weaving contest of Arachne and Athena.