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Talos The Bronze
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Various designs of the title hero for an upcoming project I'm doing dubbed "The Life and Death of Talos the Bronze"; a short story about that particular chapter from the "Jason and the Argonauts" saga, but told from the bronze giant's perspective, with comedic results. Various other characters of Greek legend pop up in the story, such as Hades, Medea, the Dioskouroi brothers Castor and Pollux, and of course Jason. And unlike more recent interpretations, I went with any ancient or less-the-contemporary art work based on these figures to do the designs upon, though some, like Medea, I had to do by scratch, while ones like the Dioskouroi Brothers and Cerberus are loose adaptations for sure. This method has so far been met with criticism by family and friends, though I'll discuss the respective backlash with each design from this project in future updates.
As for Talos himself, he was originally envisioned in ancient Greek culture as an extremely handsome young man made from bronze, but of course I had to change some things, like give our leading man armor, as the original art featured one very NUDE Talos, and it's supposed to be a family friendly project. And although Talos was said to have angelic wings to go with his overall good looks, I needed to drop them because of personal preference, especially since he would have looked way too much like a robotic Cupid...or Mecha-Near ("Death Note" reference).
But even the more gruff and manly Talos over the 'Emo Kid' look has been met with confusion from people who are only familiar with the character from Ray Harryhausen's classic 1963 film version. "Where's his beard?" being the main complaint. Still, I like my Talos, and mythology in never constant, so I can play around with these designs. Personality-wise, Talos has a lot more of it then legend states; although "The Life and Death of Talos the Bronze" originated with me, I decided that someone else should handle the writing, which would guarantee it as a SHORT story. But me and the writer both agreed that Talos should be less a murderous bronze monster, and more of a somewhat likable, though rather dimwitted security guard who loves his job a little too much, which may lead to murder if left unchecked. The kind of character you don't know wither you should sympathize with, or call him a big galoot without hating him for it.
Despite this characterization, he's still a heroic mythical giant in my twisted book...written and published by giants, titans, and ogres alike! And yes, as you can see in the picture's word balloons and my own notes, our Talos has a thing for Medea, which is what truly leads to his downfall. For more information on Talos of Greek storytelling, check out Wikipedia's page on the big bronzed galoot.
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