Description
Here's another one that's not on the preview image linked below.
In considering a storyline in heroic and classical Greece, I was initially drawn in by the description of these guys, the Hecatonchires. Giants with fifty heads and a hundred hands and multiple legs and wielding swords and shields and boulders? Really? It was an artistic challenge that I considered for a while before coming up with my own rationale for the creatures’ form and function. It may or may not be an “original” take on them, and even for me it drew heavily from the Borg of the Star Trek universe, but it felt new and cool so I went with it. Also, it went back to my creative roots in John Carpenter’s The Thing, which is always a good…uh…thing for me to do.
Essentially, these three giant monstrosities were what tipped the scales of the Titanomachy in favor of the Olympians, and this means that Zeus will forever be in their debt for his rise to power. My impression of the King of Olympus is that he really doesn’t deal well with potential threats to his ego and prominence, and Kottus, Briarios, and Gyges (as the three Hecatonchires were named) would certainly have remained that. Some of the research I did suggested that Zeus stationed them before Tartarus as jailers for the defeated Titans, but that hardly seems like a reward for someone who sided with you against the same Titans because you released them from that same prison. Unless the former inmates had a real bone to pick with the new inmates, which could make some sense, since the Titans were having a grand old time for years while the Hecatonchires stewed away in Tartarus.
Instead, I chose to put each Hecatonchires into the Fifth Century BCE Mediterranean world as fifty giant clones/drones who could merge their bodies into one large figure when necessary but who always acted with perfect coordination no matter how coalescent or distinct they were. I also added a decree that the egotistical Zeus handed them, wary of Gaea’s power in their creation, that as long as they separated and took no offense against Olympus, they were free to enjoy the bounties of the world of the living. The three Hecatonchires therefore occupied small, “out of the way” locales and took up more mundane professions, taking up arms and merging into their great forms only to defend themselves. One became a metalworker in the Levant (helping to develop forging of steel), one became a shipwright in Ischia (a famed builder of warships), and one became a seafarer in Hippone (a trainer of ship’s crews).
A prophecy that guided part of our storyline held that when all three of the Fifty Who Are One again joined forces, the world would be broken.
Enjoy!
For more of an explanation about why I'm drawing this, go to this deviation.
Also, mostly to feel like I'm really getting back into the swing of things, I'm including a modified version of my normal disclaimer below.
Note: This is a work of fantasy and fiction. The artist/creator in no way condones real mistreatment toward any woman or man, by living person, gremlin, plant, assassin, ratman, viscous fluid, programmed device, animated home furnishings, or otherworldly spiritual beings. Furthermore, the artist opposes the marginalizing and restriction of women in general by any institution, political and/or religious, including those which have individual women amongst their membership touting/promoting their own happiness within that institution as evidence that ALL women should feel the same way. This includes the religion I was raised in and which I have utterly discarded from my life over this and other issues.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0la5DB…