Evolution: Hades

I kind of promised to do this, so here it is - the evolution of Hades. Ohoboy, has this man given me a hard time...

Hades from 1993 was very short-lived, since he actually was a bit of a bad guy back then (yes, I too did the mistake to see him as bad because of his connection with death. But I was just a kid!) When I did a little more reading on Greek mythology I realised that I had to come up with a completely new design for this character.

Next time he appeared, which was when I tried to place the myths in our time, he was this weird guy in a long, black tunic (very rarely did he wear trousers. Dress-like clothes simply suited him best), constantly wearing his helmet of invisibility. He became invisible when he turned on the light. ^^
He preferred his own company and once he did talk to his family on Olympus, he used a very dry, archaic language (since he had gained his language by reading old books, not by interacting with others. There actually is one scene where Hades wants to tell Zeus about something and Zeus goes to get a dictionary so he he can look up all the complicated words he knows that Hades will be saying). Since it was quite easy to interpret Hades as someone who was rather asocial, awkward and a bit of an outsider, he very soon became one of my favourite characters.

The one from 2001 is from my crappy comic adaption of a chapter from the children's novel The God Beneath the Sea. There he appears as a fearsome figure, but is certainly not evil. I was never pleased with this design, though.

In 2007 I did the first drawing of Hades that felt pretty ok. Far from how I wanted him, but at least acceptable. Something to work with. And how I worked! Seriously, it was as if he didn't WANT to be drawn! Sometimes I thought I got him just right, but then when I tried to draw him a second time or from an another angle, it suddenly didn't work. I don't know how many hours of frustration he has given me...

I guess what I was aiming for was a mix of lifelessness and something eccentric, someone who wasn't ugly but not conventionally good-looking either. And now I FINALLY got him exactly as I want to. He is still not easy to draw, but easier than before. YES! I WON!

Here are evolution pics for my versions of
Persephone [link]
Hermes [link]
Pallas Athena [link]