Hades and Persephone

As seen on pottery!

This is a Modern Day Cupid-friendly update of the above, a segment from a red-figure vase (I believe the original would have been on the inside of a large drinking cup, as you can see here.) I've drawn this style before, but this one is better just thanks to improvements in my art. It's probably closer to actual Greek pottery anyway, since they had a fairly strong sense of proportion, and a keen eye for drapery -- at least by this period. The earlier, black figure artworks they did (as you can see) were much more stiff and more template-like than the later red-figures. I don't know if that's simply because the art styles changed, or if the nature of red-figure art made it easier to depict things than the black-figure.

I can't quite tell what the original is supposed to be (I think Hades is offering Persephone a cup of wine?), but in terms of the poses, I changed very little -- Hades no longer had his horn of plenty, just because with MDC-Hades' toga, it'd have been harder to work in; Persephone's legs changed position slightly, but that's about it. I wanted to stay as close to the original as possible, while changing the designs to be closer to ~erin-hime's versions.

I did alter some things, though -- part of Persephone's gown, and Hades' tunic are both depicted with many fine pleats. They don't have those pleats in their actual designs, but that's very common in Greek pottery art, for men and women alike, so I just did it here too. I'm sure there was a reason they did that - maybe actual tunics were finely pleated, and since they were gods, it would make sense they'd wear expensive stuff like that, but they have it here. It was a little hard to make Persephone's tunic work with that style because of the way it's knotted on one shoulder rather than being held up with clasps, but I managed. The lower half of her tunic is bare mostly because I thought there'd be too many lines otherwise, and it'd just get confusing.

It's funny seeing the designs reduced down to simply lines and blocks of black (for hair, since their hair is both dark) -- not to say that they weren't nice designs before, but there's something striking about that. Persephone, in Particular, looks rather pretty. Maybe it's the way I drew her face -- but then again, if you look at the original I linked, both of their faces look like that. It's funny -- Hades looks like he's rolling his eyes at something, and Persephone looks exasperated, so I like to imagine baby brother Zeus is somewhere out of frame, being a jerk. Hades and Persephone are either secretly plotting a way to sneak out of there without anyone noticing, or plotting to slip something in Zeus' wine. Who knows with these two?

And though most of the work was in the inking, I have to admit I like how it turned out. Sure, some of the textures I used are off (that red background is sediment rock, not pottery), but the idea's there, and that's the important thing. I might have to try my hand at more, but we'll see how it goes. >.> I hope you like this, ~erin-hime

Hades/Orpheus Kalonimos and Persephone/Stephanie Hayden © ~erin-hime
Modern Day Cupid © ~erin-hime