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I was tired of greek gods looking like decrepit old men! I mean, seriously, if you were a god and could make yourself take on any form you wanted, you'd make yourself as sexy as possible, wouldn't you?

That's was sort of the inspiration behind this one. First of all, my favorite greek myth was the one about the changing of the seasons- where Hades' the Dark Lord of the Underworld, kidnaps Persephone, the Maiden of the Spring, and takes her as his queen. He succeeded for 6 months - until Demeter, Persephone's mother, found out and pleaded to Zeus to make him return her daughter to her. However, Zeus had given Hades permission in the first place to take Persephone. To compromise, Persephone would stay with Hades for 6 months of the year, and with Demeter the other 6 months. Since Demeter is the goddess of growing things, she would mourn the 6 months her daughter was away, permitting nothing on earth to grow (the Fall and Winter).

So anyway, this is a depiction of Hades' arrival as he comes to kidnap Persephone. I wanted to make him look like an angsty, emo or punk rocker since the reason Hades took a wife was because he was lonely in the Underworld and that's what a lot of emo bands sing about - lonliness and relationships. The wings were taken from the "Angel of Death" type of idea (although I'm not sure how well you can see them from the way the pic scanned). I'm not sure if the greeks had an "angel of death" or an entity who would take them from their mortal coils and escort them to the afterlife, so I imagine they might have seen Hades in this role in some context. The ribbon on Hades' left arm is supposed to be his life string. It was believed by the greeks that the Fates had a string that represented every mortal's life on earth, and that they would cut the string when they bid it time for that mortal to die. Since Hades is a god and immortal, his string is wide, like a ribbon, not flimsy like a string, and I tried to convey the idea of it moving around by it's own accord as if it had a life of it's own. Anther idea I tried to get across was the stopping of time, that's why I put all the birds and butterflies in the picture - not just to create the feeling of something coming that would bring about chaos. I tried to make it look as though Hades had frozen time so that he could easily kidnap Persephone - and being a god, he probably had that power anyway. Why not?

Um. . . I think that's it. That's certainly enough anyway.

Description
I was tired of greek gods looking like decrepit old men! I mean, seriously, if you were a god and could make yourself take on any form you wanted, you'd make yourself as sexy as possible, wouldn't you?

That's was sort of the inspiration behind this one. First of all, my favorite greek myth was the one about the changing of the seasons- where Hades' the Dark Lord of the Underworld, kidnaps Persephone, the Maiden of the Spring, and takes her as his queen. He succeeded for 6 months - until Demeter, Persephone's mother, found out and pleaded to Zeus to make him return her daughter to her. However, Zeus had given Hades permission in the first place to take Persephone. To compromise, Persephone would stay with Hades for 6 months of the year, and with Demeter the other 6 months. Since Demeter is the goddess of growing things, she would mourn the 6 months her daughter was away, permitting nothing on earth to grow (the Fall and Winter).

So anyway, this is a depiction of Hades' arrival as he comes to kidnap Persephone. I wanted to make him look like an angsty, emo or punk rocker since the reason Hades took a wife was because he was lonely in the Underworld and that's what a lot of emo bands sing about - lonliness and relationships. The wings were taken from the "Angel of Death" type of idea (although I'm not sure how well you can see them from the way the pic scanned). I'm not sure if the greeks had an "angel of death" or an entity who would take them from their mortal coils and escort them to the afterlife, so I imagine they might have seen Hades in this role in some context. The ribbon on Hades' left arm is supposed to be his life string. It was believed by the greeks that the Fates had a string that represented every mortal's life on earth, and that they would cut the string when they bid it time for that mortal to die. Since Hades is a god and immortal, his string is wide, like a ribbon, not flimsy like a string, and I tried to convey the idea of it moving around by it's own accord as if it had a life of it's own. Anther idea I tried to get across was the stopping of time, that's why I put all the birds and butterflies in the picture - not just to create the feeling of something coming that would bring about chaos. I tried to make it look as though Hades had frozen time so that he could easily kidnap Persephone - and being a god, he probably had that power anyway. Why not?

Um. . . I think that's it. That's certainly enough anyway.