Joe Baron aka Joebarondesign from the United States is a self-proclaimed creative evil genius with a soul of an artist and an investment attitude of a capitalist. He is a graphic designer who has divulged time in screen printing and working on bringing his brand, Branded Baron, to the forefront with its design services and stunningly fresh apparel. We are featuring a recent post by him explaining his steps of making the the design 'Wrath of Zeus' for our March Artists Challenge. Check out Bardon's art in his DBH store, Joebarondesign.
Making of 'The Wrath of Zeus' by Joe Baron
Design challenges can be fun and I enjoyed partaking in last month's "Myths & Legends" challenge on DesignByHumans. Since it is no longer a daily design contest, they want to continue to keep the community alive by having these challenges and featuring the best ones. You can see all of the designs for this challenge by clicking here.
I knew I wanted to participate in this design as mythology has so much room for creativity with their elaborate stories, but which one should I choose? Should I head on over to Ancient Egypt and create something with Anubis? Maybe I should head over to Norse mythology and have my own take on Odin, Thor, and the Ice Giants? No, I decided to go with the super popular Ancient Greek mythology and create my own version of Zeus. There's so many stories that I decided to focus on a figure and it ended up being the head honcho of the gods.
Since I'm going to take on this character how can I portray him that is different? I sketched out a couple concepts and settled on the current one, but originally he wasn't holding the globe. I wanted the lightning bolt in his hand, but holding it like a javelin seemed overused and decided that I could have him hold it like a sword over his head.
While I was working on the computer I wanted to show contrast, so instead of starting off with black and white I went with purple and yellow. I really wanted to create him more a logo, but it was being too complicated with the different shades. I even toyed with the idea of making the character Poseidon, which is why I decided to change the color to shades of blue greens. Zeus was really what I wanted to showcase. I was suggested to have him hold the globe in his and decided it was a good suggestion. I know Atlas is the one that holds the world on his shoulders, but I decided to take some creative license and show off the most powerful god who will punish those who do not show respect to his command. I placed him on a cloud, because thunder and lightning come during stormy clouds.
I always thought it would be a cool idea to create this design with the look like an Ancient Greek vase, but with my interpretation of course. I wanted to create a well done border that read Greek and Zeus when you saw it. To finish this off I felt that I needed some stars in the background to add some life and texture to the black background. I think the monochromatic color scheme works well and stands out off the black background.
The Wrath of Zeus is available on apparel, phone cases, and prints only on DesignByHumans and you can go directly here if you're interested in purchasing an item.
