HOME | DD
M0AI β Hecatonchire
Published: 2009-11-12 07:18:21 +0000 UTC; Views: 9248; Favourites: 193; Downloads: 1468
Redirect to original
Description
Gyges, the Big-Limbed, was among the first and most crudely shaped of Gaia's children.Related content
Comments: 67
I admire how amidst the surreality, you maintain organic themes.
π: 0 β©: 1
Hahaha, late indeed but no worries.
π: 0 β©: 0
wow I thought for sure that uneven illumination was intentionally done with a gradient.
π: 0 β©: 1
Thank you!
(Super-late reply)
π: 0 β©: 0
thomastapir says pretty much everything I would have not been able to articulate.
Cool pic!
π: 0 β©: 1
These are underused mythical creatures. Your interpretation of them is certainly unique.
π: 0 β©: 1
An incredibly belated thanks to you!
π: 0 β©: 0
Oooh the shading and such is awesome in this picture.
π: 0 β©: 1
I love all the little anatomical features hidden in the mass of the thing.
π: 0 β©: 1
That's what I was doing, just playing with anatomy! Thanks, pal.
π: 0 β©: 1
That's some damned good play. I can see it animated in my mind, like something out of Svankmajer.
π: 0 β©: 1
I'd never heard of Svankmajer. That's some scary stuff!
π: 0 β©: 1
You ought to look up his work some time, I think you'd enjoy it. There's quite a bit on youtube.
π: 0 β©: 1
I saw some images of his on Google, which is where I got the "scary."
π: 0 β©: 1
It's worth checking out the films, he's one of the true originals (and has been much imitated).
π: 0 β©: 1
Oh man, this just sends me off in a million different associative directions...First of all, I've been fascinated with the idea of the Hecatonchires ever since reading Shirow's Appleseed as a teenager, and I've always struggled to conceive of such beings in a literal way. The novel solution you've hit on here, of having the muscle bands bifurcate (polyfurcate?!) and terminate in multiple hands, is a far more novel and inventive solution than anything I've ever imagined.
Secondly, I have to admit to hating you a little bit when I first saw this, because for a long time now i've entertained a concept for alternate biological morphology based on principles of tensile integrity rather than the load-bearing skeletal structures of life on Earth. My image of "tensegrity life" is of organisms appearing as living kinetic sculptures, strongly based on the meshing and interlocking muscles, tendons, and ligaments of the human/mammalian arms and torso--fenestrated body masses strung on ingenuously self-supporting elastic ropes and cables of connective tissue. You have somehow managed to express my mental image perfectly in this drawing...Whether or not you had a similar idea in mind, I'd love to see you expand upon it!
Thirdly, I appreciated this drawing because it appeals to my own predilection for surreal and abstract interpretations of mythological beings. It's not just the eyeless, cipher-like head suspended in space above the primary truncated body mass, recalling a Barlowe-esque demon; it's the overall asymmetric, polymorphic quality of the figure's organic form, giving the impression of something fluid and ephemeral, like molten wax. This rendering perfectly meshes with my own concept of mythological entities as a sort of living, quasi-physical embodiment of our own constantly shifting superconscious archetypes--as much psychological as mythical, fluttering at the boundaries of our consensual "reality."
Seeing this piece rekindled my interest in mythological beings and reminded me of a few on my list I've been meaning to tackle for a while now--specifically Scylla, Charybdis, and Echidna. Much as I'd groan if you beat me to them, I would love to see your take on these monsters as well!
π: 0 β©: 1
tl;dr
Just kidding! You know I love your lengthy and thoughtful comments. They nearly always give me new ideas to think about and new creative directions to go.
"Secondly, I have to admit to hating you a little bit when I first saw this, because for a long time now i've entertained a concept for alternate biological morphology based on principles of tensile integrity rather than the load-bearing skeletal structures of life on Earth."
Oddly, you're the second person to facetiously hate me for this drawing. One of the guys over at Creature Spot also mentioned that he'd been thinking of a similar form, but I beat him to it! It seems that this sort of idea has been floating around the "meme-stream" lately, and I was the first to pounce on it.
Anyway, I was not thinking along the lines of tensile integrity when I drew this. Frankly, I do not have an engineer's mind at all, so I doubt that that sort of idea would ever even occur to me. The idea does have a uniquely Tapirian flavor to it, so I likewise encourage you to expand on it! Your words did, however, give me more ideas on how to approach the remaining two Hecatonchire bros.
I'm also pleased that you associate this being with Barlowe's demons and flowing, molten-wax-like forms, because that matches my original intentions for this piece. When I first began drawing him, I intended for him to be a Titan, warped and deformed by his imprisonment in Tartarus.
"Seeing this piece rekindled my interest in mythological beings and reminded me of a few on my list I've been meaning to tackle for a while now--specifically Scylla, Charybdis, and Echidna. Much as I'd groan if you beat me to them, I would love to see your take on these monsters as well! 
Those are actually three of my favorite Greek monsters as well! I'll probably tackle the rest of the Hecatonchires and the Cyclopes before taking those on, so you have plenty of time to beat me to them.
π: 0 β©: 0
Wow! It is so beautiful and its structure!
The "scanner shading" helps give it mass and dimension in my opinion, one of those happy accidents.
π: 0 β©: 1
Stringy muscles...
π: 0 β©: 0
Whee! I'll admit, I'm a big fan of the "primeval pre-Titans" as well. Of course, depicting them right would be difficult (Hecatoncheires had 100 heads and 100 arms). Will we be seeing Briareus and Cottus and the Cyclopes as well?
This depiction is unique, never seen them done this way before. It's rather like one of Dali's "exploding" figures.
π: 0 β©: 1
Thanks, Emile!
You may be seeing Briareus and Cottus as well, and the Cyclopes. I may go in this direction: the Hecatonchires have multiplied features, while the Cyclopes have reduced features. That would be an interesting contrast.
Part of the reason this is so unorthodox is that I wasn't originally planning on it being a Hecatonchire!
π: 0 β©: 1
Will each have design cues echoing their names? Also (and unrelated) was Gyges meant to mirror flayed muscle tissue?
Ah yes, the joys of retcon-titlage. Frankly, you never know what it was you were doing until it's finished.
π: 0 β©: 1
Ah yes! Briareus the Vigorous and Cottus the Furious! Or, to use Briareus' alternate name, Aigaion the Sea Goat! That last one would be...odd.
I wasn't exactly thinking flayed muscle tissue. I was more just playing with pectoral limb anatomy.
π: 0 β©: 1
Ah, okay. He brings to mind Vesalius's drawings (you know, with the guy cheerfully standing around dangling his muscles off his bones)
π: 0 β©: 1
Yeah, you find out the darnedest things on Wikipedia. I'm going to go with the standard interpretation, rather than the Sea Goat thing.
Ah yes, the drawings where the animate corpse poses before backdrops of pleasure gardens and rhinos. I love those drawings.
π: 0 β©: 1
Vesalius may well be the first guy to draw zombies.
Side note - I'd love to see your versions of Typhon, Cerberus (the original, who has snakes for hair and a serpent tail) and Scylla (who apparently has six dragon heads on her shoulders, possibly a human head, a ring of dog heads around her waist, and twelve legs, if all the accounts are right).
π: 0 β©: 1
Tom and I already talked about those very same beasts. I'm going to finish off the Hecotonchires and Cyclopes first, though.
I've always loved that version of Scylla. Some descriptions try to reduce her to just a multi-headed dog or monster, but I love this "complete" version.
π: 0 β©: 1
Oh goodie.
Hesiod says Cerberus has upwards of a hundred heads, but that's just crazy.
π: 0 β©: 1
This is great! I love how the muscle fibers separate out into little hands.
the lighting is nice too
π: 0 β©: 1
Nice work, I love all those sinewy/ tendon bits on the limbs and the disconnected head...brilliant
π: 0 β©: 1
Awesome! Great use of Β΄scanner shadingΒ΄, lol
π: 0 β©: 1
thats the stuff that makes my subconsciousness wrap apround my brain in electricity. niiiicee.
π: 0 β©: 1
Electrified subconsciouses are a good thing.
Thanks!
π: 0 β©: 0
ok, be totally honest, is this shading due to the scan? 
π: 0 β©: 2
| Next =>