NaNo 12: Callisto, Artemis, Hera, Zeus

Download for full view, because this thing's a whopping 1854 px by 868 px, so there's going to be a lot of side-scrolling no matter what.

I blame ~erin-hime and ~anijel for this. I was originally planning on doing Minute to Midnight as my story for this year's NaNo, but those two persuaded me to try my hand at this. >.>

'This' is a sort of weird, not-quite retelling of the myth of Callisto and Artemis, which ends rather poorly for Callisto. I say not quite, because the Callisto-analogue (seen on the far left there) isn't the Callisto of myth...just her latest reincarnation.

Yeah, this whole story idea originally started off as a major revamp of my old fan sense Sailor Callisto, except taking out the weeaboo Mary Sue elements and sticking more closely to Greek myth (ie: Callisto's senshi design having much more bear influence and more bear influence overall). And considering I was sticking to myth, it was pretty easy to cut out the SM stuff and just stick more closely to the characters.
So, from left to right, we have: Modern Callisto (Calista, and that one letter makes all the difference!); Artemis (civilian and goddess); Hera (civilian and goddess), and Zeus (just civilian because I wasn't in the mood to design a divine form >.O)

Modern Callisto (tentative name: Calista Orsini) Very young, perhaps 16 or 17 at the most, and very athletic. I see her a sort of a tomboy but not completely -- she's not super girly-girl feminine, but she's not at the level of wearing boys' clothing either -- sort of a "rough" femininity, preferring comfortable athletic gear to anything frilly and fancy (despite her mother's objections). Grows up fairly privileged, with her father owning a fairly successful company, though on a small scale -- kind of the bigshot in their particular area, but not a major player on a worldwide scale.

Has grown up feeling generally out of place, especially in the city itself, something her parents have chalked up to "a phase", but it still concerns them. Doesn't make many friends despite her sister's best efforts. Prefers outdoors and nature, and practices archery (seems to be a natural at it despite not practicing much at all). Was scouted by an agent not that long ago and beginning to train for the Olympics in archery (?? - not sure if I'll keep this part, but I love the idea of tying in the Olympic games somehow). As the story progresses and she comes into contact with the gods again, she starts to slowly piece together her previous lives, which explains so much about why she is the way she is, and why they still hate her (gods hold grudges for a long time!) Strives to eventually regain Artemis' trust and approval. This is so heavily abbreviated I can't even begin to describe it. >.O But that's the general sketch of her I have so far.

Artemis: (tentative civilian name: Artemisia Diana Floros) As a civilian, an athlete that has competed in several Olympic games (for Greece Italy), in archery. (Big surprise there!) Eventually assigned to Callista as her coach, but I'm not sure if there's divine influence there or just coincidence. Very athletic, and very fit, more muscle than curves (as you can see by me trying to make her fairly flat-chested) -- I know Artemis is more the goddess of the hunt than anything else, but fitness just seems to go really well with that. To me, anyway.

There's a whole idea I had, that sort of cribs from American Gods, about how the gods are lsoing power the less people worship them. And the Greek gods, on the whole, don't have the sway they used to -- things were great when they were being worshiped everywhere, under different names, but now... So in an effort to regain some of their old power and glory, all of the gods who choose to enter civilian life take on fairly high-profile personas -- Artemis is an athlete because it suits her, and all the attention she gets from the media is a sort of worship. (Some gods have it better than others -- for example, Ares and Aphrodite have it good because people aren't going to stop going to war or falling in love any time soon, so they can still subsist on that, whereas others...need to get more creative.)

Beside her is her goddess form, where she's decorated in the traditional colours of Artemis: green and silver. I was hoping I could have incorporated more of an earthy brown into her design, but then I read somewhere that Artemis was known for her silver sandals in antiquity so I figured I'd include those. I like the wild look she has, and the soft earthy greens are pretty.

Hera: (tentative civilian name: Isidora Kalonimos) As a civilian, the high-profile wife of a high-profile Greek-American businessman. Grudgingly chose to become Greek-American thanks to supposed power and influence America has now (she's all about the power). A regal, proud woman, she's a homemaker extraordinaire, making Martha Stewart look incompetent. (Hera is the goddess of marriage and domesticity, so it seemed fitting that she was a housewife -- but I wanted her to be a regal housewife, so she gets very feminine, 1950s sort of dresses and pearls. It made sense in my head.) Unlike Artemis, very curvy. I see her as blonde, for some reason, and paler than the average (though she's surrounded by deities who are more tanned the average so that doesn't help) thanks to the Greeks liking pale complexions for women -- anything to give that high-born, domestic 'look'.

Beside her is her goddess form, and I drew more heavily on Mucha than Greek clothing for the design. Which is unusual for me, but I thought it was pretty. I especially loved the pattern I found for the shawl/skirt -- peacocks are a traditional animal of Hera's, and she's associated with a royal blue/purple color, so it was perfect! I needed to pump up the saturation, mostly. It would have been better if the design didn't have those dark spots; the whole thing looks splotchy, though. >.O

She's, if anyone, the major villain of the story, but I'm going to try and not portray her as downright evil. Yeah, all the stories portray her as a massive bitch who plots the downfall of all of Zeus' affairs, there's no question about that. But she's a proud woman humiliated by his constant womanizing, and rather than humiliate herself further by chewing out her husband in public, she puts on a happy face and just quietly curses the 'other women' in the hopes that the problem will just go away -- sure, she's still mean, but I'm hoping for an almost sympathetic kind of mean, if I do it right. And she can be very warm and hospitable if she doesn't have anything against you, which happens more often than you'd think.

Zeus: (tentative civilian name: Diomedes Kalonimos) Oh man, what is there to even say here? He's Zeus, king of the gods and a massive force in the business world in the modern day, who sleeps around like it's going out of style (but he actually seems to give a damn about the children he fathers so...it's okay? No, not really )

I'm not sure if Zeus is associated with a color, but associating him with greys and blue-greys seems to make sense to me. Perhaps influenced a touch by ~erin-hime and her goddesses, I loved the idea of super-tan skin contrasting with super-white hair and pale grey eyes. It's certainly very striking, which I think is appropriate for Zeus. And he gets sharp business suits because hey, he's Zeus. Of course he's a sharp dresser. >.> Very personable, charismatic, and -- at times -- even charitable. If you're on his good side, he's a super friend; if you're on his bad side...well, you're not around. And God help you if you're a woman and you catch his eye. He can be very charismatic then. Heaven help Callista over there. >.O

I could say so much more, but I've written a small novel as it is, so I won't. >.<

EDIT 08/20/12: Fixed up the pattern on Hera's shawl to a better extent than I did before; I like this better. Also touched up a few details about the characters themselves.

Characters © ~callisto-chan