Aphrodite and Hephaestus - Gods of Olympus

Here's a twist in the Gods series! In this piece I decided to draw not one, but two characters: Aphrodite, the goddess of Love, and Hephaestus, the god of Blacksmiths.

Want to know something more about them? Here's some backstory.

Hephaestus was a very skillfull artisan, son of Zeus and Hera, who lived on mount Olympus. He was the one who forged Hermes' winged sandals, Helios' chariot and of course Zeus' lightningbolts.

He lived a happy life, but one day he was exiled from Olympus. There are two versions that tell how that happened: in one version of the myth Hephaestus was exiled by his mother Hera, because she considered his deformed leg (which caused his limping) revolting; while to some other versions he was thrown off mount Olympus by his father Zeus, because he had tried to rescue Hera from his avances (maybe that time Zeus had been violent towards Hera? Who knows).

In the end I decided to stick with the first version, because it was more coherent with the characterization of my Hera. So, my Hephaestus was thrown off mount Olympus because of his deformation, and it got worse because of the fall and subsequent landing.

Hephaestus appears to be a quite vengeful character, especially because he punished Hera for her betryal, similiarly to what he did to his wife Aphrodite.

Speaking of Aphrodite, you might be asking yourself: why is the most beautiful goddess on Olympus married to the ugliest one? 

The story goes pretty much like this: Aphrodite's hand was claimed by all kinds of people, and this eventually caused violent conflicts. So Zeus gave her hand to Hephaestus, making her unclaimable in some way.

But since she wasn't interested in her husband she cheated on him various times with other gods like Ares. That's also why I drew her in a provocative pose, like she's flirting with someone else while she walks with her "beloved" husband. She's the goddes of love after all, you can't tame her and force her not to love everyone! XD

I had fun drawing these two. Hephaestus is always described as deformed, so I gave him an unpleasant look. Though his dark skin was a little of a pain to color entirely, like with Poseidon. I like the final result, but it was hard to layer the pink and the brown in a good way.

I love how Aphrodite came out here, she's exactly how I wanted her to appear. I decided to give her brown hair because we've seen oh so many versions of her with long and blooooonde hair.

Sorry for the super long description, but this time the characters to describe were two! Hope you like them both.

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