For an art trade with  fafnirmccloud
He requested a seasonal theme- so I decided to do something wintery. Which is ironic, considering over here we’re experiencing the biggest heatwave in 100 years. However, I was having trouble thinking up something- all my concepts were kinda lame and cliché, the face-melting heat probably wasn’t helping…. Then I was looking through my copy of “World Mythology in Colour” , doing some reference sketches for another project when I came to the Greek section and got my inspiration.
For those who aren’t familiar with the story, Persephone was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, the goddess of vegetation and fertility. One day she’s dancing about the fields, enjoying life when Hades, god of the underworld, kidnaps her to be his bride. Anyways, by the time Hermes (The guy with shades playing the piano in Hercules if you’re of the Disney persuasion.) finds her, she’s already eaten a pomegranate and can’t return (There’s no coming back from pomegranates, man). So they make a dealy-o - Persephone can return to the world for 8 months of the year, but must spend winter with Hades in the underworld as his queen. I like the story, although it’s quite sad.
So, my original concept was Persephone surrounded by winter winds, looking sorrowful. She was originally going to be an arctic fox too. But my stuff never turns out the way I visualise it. The snowy mountain backdrop just wasn’t going to have enough contrast to the glowing figure of Persephone, so I painted in some clouds.
So, my final product is considerably less winter-themed and considerably more… sparkly. Also, I tried my hand at cell-shading. It worked better than I though it would.

Brushes from the standard Photoshop package and the sparkly brush is from Obsidian Dawn http://www.obsidiandawn.com


If anyone has any critique, it would be extremely helpful to me. I don’t bite and if I don’t learn from my mistakes, I’m not going to improve.