Intro
I knew that I wanted to be a high detail figurine sculptor and the first step was to decide on a theme. I decided on Greek mythology because when researching it they give you a whole list of the creatures and Gods and their descriptions, however it also allows for a lot of your own creative leeway. For example my first figurine sculpture, Medusa.
In Greek mythology Medusa is described as a woman with a head full of snakes. Most describe her as a monster however I decided to capture her as a dangerous beauty in my sculpture.
I took the idea of her having a head of snakes and interpreted it in a different way to most versions of Medusa by making the snakes long and large that reach all the way down to her feet, rather than the traditional many small snakes that just hover around her head. This is where Greek mythology allows for creative leeway, they tell you that she has a head of snakes however they don’t specify the size or breed of the snakes. Therefore I chose to make my snakes Cobras.
I also decided that I wanted the snakes to look as if they are growing out of her hair rather than straight out of the head. I did this because I didn’t like the way the snakes straight from her head looked kind of like sausages. It takes away from her beauty. I also considered when I paint it how the blending would look if it just went straight from skin to snakes and this didn’t work for me. This is why I decided to give her hair that turns into snakes. I thought that this would also add an interesting texture in the sculpting as the flowing hair starts to become scales.
Research for Medusa
Oreus (or Oreios) is one of my favourite creatures from Greek mythology purely because of his background story.
Both brothers were powerful, ferocious, half man, half bear giants who killed anything that crossed their path. This upset Zeus and so he ordered a curse to be placed upon them. The curse turned them into birds. Agrius became a vulture and Oreus became the Eagle Owl.
