TITLE - Megara
OBJECTIVE - Create personal rendition of Megara and the Underworld.
SOFTWARE USED - Zbrush, Cinema 4D, World Machine, Daz Studio, Octane Render, Photoshop, After Effects.
PRODUCTION TECHNIQUES - Base human model posed and UV'd in Daz Studio. Horns modeled and textured in zbrush. UV's painted in photoshop. All shaders, lighting, and rendering done with Octane for Cinema 4D.
CONCEPT - There is a soul which resides in the Underworld, cursed to burn eternally on the desolate bank of the River Styx. She watches those other souls damned to the shadowy realm, while behind her burns the ghostly ruins of a life stolen from her. According to myth, she was the prize for Hercules’s honor, the reward from her father, the king of Thebes. Megara. Together, they bore two beautiful children, but the ever burning vengeance of Hades cursed their fates. He struck the two sons with a deathly illness. Megara reached out to Olympus, pleading for a cure. She was met only with silence except for a small whisper from below. It was Hades who offered her false hope. The fate of her sons was sealed with a villainous deal; should either of them die before Megara, her soul shall be damned to the Underworld. Though disheartened by his love’s rash decision, Hercules was overjoyed that his sons would survive. But the fickle Gods had another plan. Hades told Hera of the deal knowing she would seize the opportunity. She incited a barbarous rage within Hercules, igniting a murderous confusion which resulted in the killing of his two sons. Wrought with harrowing guilt, Hercules leaves Thebes, leaving Megara safe from his actions but ultimately alone. She jumped from the walls of the cursed city only to descend into the maw of the Underworld, where she now burns alive for eternity, a decaying phantom of what she once was.