It's the final week of Hive PH art challenge. This means choosing my best masterpiece for this grand finale. Among the artworks I did for Spice NFT, my version of Medusa is the crowd favorite. People who have seen my works like Medusa the most. Even in the first two hours of Spice launching, this artwork is one of the first two of my NFTs that got sold.
I came up with the idea to create my own version of Medusa because I love the devilish and badass look and I noticed that I haven't done such thing on a female character.
A LITTLE BACKGROUND ABOUT MEDUSA
We all know that Medusa is a mythical gorgon whose hair is made of snakes. She's a popular character from Greek mythology. She had this bad reputation as a villain but I was surprised to know the real story about her. She was once the only gorgon who is a beautiful mortal. She was forced by Poseidon to an illicit affair. Athena discovered this affair and cursed Medusa out of anger. This is how each of Medusa's hair strand turned into snakes.
We all know that she has the ability to turn a person into stone with her mere glance. She can also turn her hands into sharp claws. Another ability that I never heard of is sort of a hypnosis. It's my first time to know that she can persuade a person to open his eyes and look at her. In the end, Perseus was able to kill her by being forced to look at her reflection on his shield. Her power backfired at her then Perseus was able to cut her head.
I was thinking perhaps she turned into a villain when she got cursed. So I came up with the idea to make my version of her being reborn as a stronger woman who can never be abused again. So this is my Medusa version 2.0 with a twist. This will be my entry for three prompts: Eye, Hell, Choose your own design.
SKETCH
While I was sketching her, I imagine her in human form since she's a mortal. In my version, she turned into a powerful and elegant looking sorceress so I made her wear a long dress. This time, she has a normal long hair and she can turn them into snakes if needed. This is why I only made snakes on a few strands unlike the mythology version where each strand is made of snakes. This is one of her power upgrades. Another upgrade is the giant snake which is the strongest minion she can summon, kind of similar to summoning abilities in Naruto. Her claws can pierce through flesh while her giant snake deals a large scale damage. Her pose is inspired by a commanding pose of a powerful mage. This is how the sketch turned out of my imagination.
LINEART
For the lineart, I just did the usual process of following the sketch to make clean lines. I just used a different color for the snake because this shade of blue is the best match for its base color and shading later. This is also where I decided to give Medusa an evil grin on her facial expression for a powerful and intimidating look. Her evil grin is inspired by Yukino Azusagawa from the anime, Yakitate Japan and Daki from the anime, Demon Slayer (Kimetsu no Yaiba). Her brushed up hairstyle parted at the middle is also inspired by these anime characters combined.
BASE COLORS
Most versions of Medusa I see have brown hair or a shade of green similar to plants and she has a body of a gorgon. In my version, I made her hair darker since it suits her dark sorceress look. She also has a human body in my version. Her nails can turn into claws. I came up with the idea to make her gown look like a sorceress not only with the design but also with its colors. Instead of the typical green color, I chose pale blue, close to white for the giant snake's color for a change. This color also matches the background I'll show later.
SHADING
This part made me happy because this completed the facial expression I want for Medusa. I love that devilish look and the dark shade on the upper part of her face made that evil grin look more effective. For the giant snake, I added some chili markings on its head since Spice project requires us to incorporate chili on our drawings.
BACKGROUND
I was thinking of a cloudy background with shades of blue and green right from the start because I imagine it to make her look like an intimidating sorcerer even more plus it is definitely a good contrast to the giant snake's color. I added some lightning for a more intensified look. This is the final result of the Spice NFT I have done. A few days ago, I imagined a little enhancement for this drawing so here's what I added.
MEDUSA'S ENEMY TURNING INTO A STONE
My version of Medusa is just a fierce woman who doesn't abuse her powers. She uses her powers only on people who mess with her. So this is my concept of an enemy who faced Medusa's wrath. This is my interpretation for the #hell theme. It's not the usual physical hell but an emotional one. This shows the emotional hell a person would feel towards Medusa's power. I did the same process from sketching to coloring. I just added a texture using a rock brush and this is the final look of the petrified head.
ANIMATION
The good thing about Krita is that you can also animate your drawings there. I want to try to turn my drawing into a gif image. This is another enhancement I was thinking of. I planned to make her eyes glow while the snakes on her hair move. Unfortunately, I didn't have much time so the only thing I was able to do is to make her eyes glow. Basically, I extracted the final image then I opened it on Krita. I added a layer for the glowing eyes. I manipulated the frames below to test the animation. This is something new that I learned from this challenge. Though it seems the glowing animation got faster when I uploaded the gif here whereas the one I tested and imported as gif is slower. I will practice more on this for the future NFTs I will mint.
MEDUSA JUST POWERED UP
This is the final result of my work. Her glowing eyes will be my interpretation for the #eye theme. This is my way of emphasizing her powerful, petrifying eyes. In my version, she can turn someone into a stone with a mere glance and once her eyes glowed, the petrified person will be pulverized. This version of Medusa I made is my overall interpretation for the #ChooseYourOwnDesign theme. Thanks for reading. Thank you Hive PH for this initiative. It was a fun experience.