“Dianthe” Gorean Art
An ancient Greek princess (Dianthe), is captured by the Persians during their invasion of Greece in 480 BC. She stands distraught in front of the burning Parthenon with bound hands ready to be taken away to slavery.
The Persians really did sack Athens in 480BC and they levelled the Acropolis and destroyed the Parthenon. But this was the Older Parthenon which was still under construction at the time. Eventually the Greeks triumphed in the Persian wars, but the Parthenon was left in ruins for 33 years. The Greeks had sworn never to rebuild any holy buildings destroyed by the Persians. Eventually they relented and built the modern parthenon we see today.
I defiantly do not agree with the ideas of the author John Norman or the internet Gorean subculture . Nevertheless, in common with the 125 million people who bought E.L James’s “Fifty Shades of Grey”, I find Dominant/ Submissive and gorean art interesting. The art of Boris Valejo is also extremely popular. I’m not a psychologist so I don’t know why, but since it’s so common I guess it’s something deep within the human psyche.
Almost everywhere on earth the air contains dust which alters the qualities of light passing through. In this scene, which is set next to a burning building, the air is full of smoke. I’ve used Blenders “Volumetric scattering” tool to simulate the smoke and haze. I think this adds a beautiful quality to the final image and I plan to use the effect in my future work.