#11 The Hesperides Garden - 12 Labours of Hercules

We're almost at the end of this series guys! I really wanted to end this before the end of the year, but oh well, I couldn't. So, here's the eleventh labour.

Since Eurystheus didn't consider two of Hercules' previous labours valid (because he killed the Hydra, but he was helped to do so; and because he cleaned the Augean stables, but getting then paid), he decided to assign him two more labours.

So the king sent Hercules to steal the Golden Apples (which gave immortality once eaten) from the Hesperides' garden.

In some versions the hero tricked Atlas (father of the nymphs) to get to the Hesperides' garden, but I decided to skip that part and simply drew a scene involving Hercules and the three nymphs.

This labour has taken me quite some time to get drawn, since there are plenty of characters and many different colors and shades to use.

The Nymphs are the personification of the colors you see during the sunset, so I colored their hair with red, orange and yellow. Their names are Aigle, Erytheia and Hesperethusa.

I also decided to draw Ladon, a snake-like dragon sent by Hera to guard the apples of the garden, wrapped around the tree.