My friend and studiomate George O’Connor has an ongoing series of books based on the Greek gods. He recently came out with Hades, the fourth book of 12. Way back when the second book, Athena, was being released, George put out a call for guest artists to do their own interpretation of a character from Greek mythology.
I fairly quickly decided on drawing Erebus. The idea that he was the personification of darkness opened the doors to lots of different illustration possibilities and at the time he had yet to be drawn by a guest artist.
I started with a pencil drawings using the “heroic” proportions classically defined as nine heads tall. My Erebus was going to control the lighting around him and have a decidedly Rutger Hauer physique.
I attempted to do a version of just the shadows in ink wash, but a lot of the character was lost. I also tried various combinations of the two but it never looked quite right.
Michel Fiffe actually beat me to the punch with his own excellent interpretation of the “master of shadows” and I never finished my drawing.
Until last month when I came across my initial attempts and decided to give it another go as an exercise in oil pastels. I thought to myself, why not illustrate the master of darkness by using colors. I’m not sure I like it any better than the ink wash version, but it feels finished, so I’m going with it!
