A dump of everything I've been doing while at school
Most of what I've been doing while at school has been school work (like literal papers and the like since I am no longer an animation student and I am now a history major), I have had little time between that and watching the US burn to the ground, to actually do anything enjoyable with my time. That being said, I do have a few smaller things.
I've been spending a lot of my time working on my designs of the Greek pantheon, namely adding a few to the mix. Recently I've been working on Poseidon, Zeus, Hera, and a little bit on Persephone. This post is also going to highlight my own process with designing characters, because I don't think I've ever really talked about it.
A little bit of a preface on these designs, I am not designing them in a modern lens. I am designing them with my background in examining Greek and Roman art (namely how each deity was depicted in statues), their presence in myths and how they come across to me personally, and any things symbolically connected to them. I also assigned each realm a color pallet of sorts. The Underworld is greyer, more diluted, and using mostly colder earth tones (think my Hades design). The Sea and the Earth are both using more saturated earthy tones, with a focus on greens and blues, a mix of the Underworld and Mount Olympus because they act as a middle area. And Mount Olympus has vibrant saturated colors with white and gold, as you would imagine a ruling class typically having. (Note: I haven't actually given every character a set color pallet because I haven't finalized any of the new ones yet)
The first and oldest design I'm going to talk about is the redesign of Hecate.
This is her original design which in my opinion makes her look like an NPC. During her ideation, which was done for a project in an animation class, I had done some ideas where she had more than one face as she is depicted as being one phase of the triple moon goddesses. This ended up developing into...
These concepts where she has a mask that looks like there is more than one face. I definitely could have depicted it better but I really liked the unsettling aspect of her having more than one face. I wanted the mask to either look like wax or marble, but I liked the idea of wax, because of the waxing and waning phases of the moon along with her associations of being the goddess of magic and the involvement of candles in many religious ceremonies and practices and a direct reference to her torches which she carries through the night guiding Demeter in her search for Persephone.
These are older concepts of Hecate.
Moving on to Zeus and Hera who have significantly less actual drawings (I've been developing them more recently), so I haven't drawn as much as I have been writing things down about them. A lot of my process is writing before drawing, I think about how I perceive them and then try to translate that into different designs.
The first thing I decided on regarding Zeus, is that I wanted his silhouette to reflect the fact he is a storm god. I wanted him to have cloudy like hair, this isn't like a special or unique take on Zeus. I just really wanted that cloudy stormy look. I also wanted to maintain the similar appearance between the siblings (the original 6 Olympians: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus specifically). So he has darker hair and more prominent cheek bones like Hades. I was planning to make Zeus the shortest of the siblings because he is often described as being the least Titan-like. So he's like short and heavy set in terms of muscle. I thought to use primarily square shapes for his head, and sharper angles. And I wanted to give each of the original Olympian's a crown of some kind, Zeus's is of course made of lightning.
Zeus Concepts
After I started thinking about Zeus my mind shifted to thinking and planning out how I would depict Hera. And truth be told, because I generally think of Zeus as a nepo-baby CEO peaked in high school type. I was imagining Hera as his high school sweetheart turned scornful and narcissistic influencer trad-wife. So like I wanted to play into those kinds of ideas as to how I imagine their relationship.
Hera Concepts
Incidentally I ended up giving Hera a Byzantine-like appearance, though it wasn't entirely intentional. I wanted her to look elegant but aged, with a divine royalty type of feel. Because she is the goddess of marriage, an Earth mother type, with a lot of connections to family and childbirth, I wanted her to appear mostly modestly dressed with a bit of flashiness. Not to the same degree as Zeus per say but enough to indicate who she is.
Final Thoughts: None of these are finished designs even remotely and I will be working on furthering Hera and Zeus more by making more concepts but here's some of the extra drawings and notes I have that I don't have much to say anything about.