RED SWEET JAM

she/her · 20s

I’m an artist who mainly creates OC and multifandom artwork! I don’t focus on just one fandom, so please keep that in mind before following.

I’m Asian and deeply interested in a wide range of cultures. Of course, I can be inexperienced and make mistakes, so this does not mean that I’m unwilling to receive feedback.

However, do not approach me aggressively or mock me. Some people deliberately impose malicious narratives on my work and attack me because they see me as an easy target—an Asian woman. That behavior is far more disrespectful and constitutes bullying.

If you insist on acting this way, I will direct you to major commercial art companies whose portrayals are even more reductive and ask you to provide proof that you sent them the same complaints. If you cannot do that, then you are simply choosing to punch down. Please stop bullying Asian creators whom you consider easy targets.

If you would like to give me feedback, please approach me sincerely and respectfully. Both my DMs and ask box are open.

You may ask me anything through my ask box or submit an art request, as long as you remain respectful! Please feel free to reach out.

I just realized that I became so focused on discussing each character individually that I forgot to mention one of the most important ideas behind these designs!

For mortal characters associated with the mythic Heroic Age, I generally use clothing inspired by the Aegean Bronze Age. Cretan figures such as Ariadne draw more heavily from Minoan culture, while many of the mainland heroes have more Mycenaean-inspired designs. For the gods, however, I deliberately use clothing and iconography from later periods—especially Archaic and Classical Greece.

This is an intentional visual convention rather than an attempt to place every character in exactly the same historical period. The mortal characters are anchored in the Bronze Age world underlying many heroic myths, whereas the gods follow the more timeless and immediately recognizable visual tradition established by later Greek art.

When I was younger, I often saw gods and heroes depicted in the clothing of later periods of ancient Greece that I naturally assumed those portrayals were historically accurate for the world in which the myths were set. It was only after studying the Aegean Bronze Age and the development of ancient Greek art that I realized these familiar images were not intended as literal reconstructions of the earlier heroic world. Instead, they arose from a long-standing artistic convention: ancient Greek artists portrayed mythological figures through the clothing and visual language of their own time, and Roman and later European artists continued to reshape that tradition.

There is also one small correction I should make. I once drew the young Dionysus while he was being fostered by his maternal aunt Ino. Under the visual rules I have since established, Dionysus should therefore have been wearing Aegean Bronze Age–inspired clothing in that scene: he was living in disguise among mortals rather than appearing openly in his divine form. So that earlier design does not quite follow my current concept.

I thought it might be nice to share some background on my Greek mythological character designs and the references behind them, so I’ve put together a few brief notes alongside these character sheets—though the sketches are still very rough...

You may notice that these designs look slightly different from the artwork I previously posted and later deleted. I’ve continued developing and refining them since then, so please don’t be surprised if you happen to come across the older versions, as they may still be circulating through Tumblr despite having been removed from my blog.

After gathering a wider range of visual references and receiving helpful feedback from other artists, I reworked the designs and refined their overall color palettes and details. The updated versions feel much closer to the visual direction I originally had in mind.

I also consulted books on historical clothing while developing these designs. However, I took some creative liberties for fantasy and design purposes, so please keep that in mind! These are simply my personal interpretations, not definitive portrayals, and I have great admiration for the many other wonderful interpretations out there!!!

Below are some rough sketches and brief notes about the ideas and references behind each design!

This is Dionysus from the time when he was raised as a girl to keep him hidden from Queen Hera. I tried so hard to use fewer lines that I consider this piece a failure... (I’ll pay more attention to the line art next time...) Still, it felt like too much of a waste not to post it.

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Ariadne: (He’s so, so, so adorable! Could I try talking to him?)

Ariadne: Um?

Ariadne: (He’s... kind of huge, isn’t he?)

That’s right. In my universe, all the gods are large—even the goddesses...

(That little boy later grew into a massive, muscular man... just like the other Greek gods...)

(This image shows Ari cuddling a soft, fluffy plushie of Dion.)

Surprisingly, I’m not someone who focuses exclusively on Greek mythology—I generally love mythology of all kinds. Even so, I’m especially fond of these two because I love romances between otherworldly beings and human women, and because both characters are exactly my type.

I also love that, depending on the version of the myth, theirs can be interpreted as one of the more mutually respectful relationships between a male god and a mortal woman in Greek mythology. (Of course, there are also more violent versions of their story, and I absolutely do not mean to dismiss anyone who gives those versions greater importance!)

Below are the illustrations of Dionysus and Ariadne that I’ve drawn so far. If you like these two as well, I’d really appreciate you taking a look!

This is the Hermes piece I’m currently working on. His design motifs are roosters, gold coins, wanderers, and baseball catchers.

cw: blood!!

This is my own design of Dionysus. His motif is white grapes, so his design is unusual in that it doesn’t feature any purple.

While developing his color palette, I looked at a range of photographic references featuring Greek actors and used them as a general guide for comparing colors. Thank you to the friends who helped me with the coloring and gave me feedback.