(click for bigger DA version)

Excerpt from starship log:

While the original aliens were long extinct, their machines remained, maintaining their colossal, but empty, ships for eternity. Advanced androids had been made in their creators' image - perfect, according to the beauty standards of their species. Which would have been cute, had those androids not made damn sure we were made aware of this fact whenever they got the chance. Most vain robots I've ever met.

Their species has a name but because of how they looked everyone just called them "Medusas". I gave them a hand mirror as a parting gift but I think the joke was lost on them.
----

Painted for the RAP "a sleek, futuristic humanoid robot". Took about 8 hours, using Krita. I pictured an alien race making an android in their image (but RAP still says 'humanoid' so it couldn't be completely alien. This one developed into a story along the way:


Started by pretty random sketching using the Shapes-Fill tool (this is similar to Alchemy program if someone remembers that one).


I wanted something alien and cyclopean for the background. I picture this to be the interior of some vast alien spaceship.


The concept of the Medusa was not at all obvious to me at first. I even pictured her holding some sort of clipboard (a mundane thing in a super sci-fi setting!). But when those head-tentacles clicked a hand mirror was the obvious choice.

After this greyscale, I went to coloring, using a mixture of multiply mode and regular brushwork. If someone wants to try their hand at an alternative coloring of this, feel free!
.
Griatch

I like sify, so the story for me is awesome and your draw as well! I mean you know how to draw, we can clearly see it, it's well made, it's beautiful.
Thanks for sharing all of that.

Cool. Wonderful medusa. I am into sci fi as well. Bring on the stories!

A fascinating take on an interesting legend and perfectly executed. Nice work Griatch.

Awesome painting... and good story : )

Cool combo of Greek mythology and Sci-Fi, big fan of both worlds.
I like the shape of the body, nice to see the draft versions too.

My English vocabulary is minimal, so I would just repeat what everyone has already said.
Poetically speaking this image 'is a balm for the eyes'.

Just for curiosity:
Was Medusa immune to her petrifying gaze or was she committing suicide by looking in the mirror?

Thanks! Yeah, Sci-fi is fun.

I find it's a lot more interesting to have a story going with an image. Some of my images would indeed be a bit hard to grasp without some explanations, I think

Glad you like it. The Medusa legend is indeed interesting. Lots of aspects to it.

Thanks!

Having the drafts is often useful for me too, down the line when I've completely forgotten what workflow I used for a given image

Thanks!
As for if she was immune, I think there are different takes on this, but at least the version of the story I've read, Perseus could look at Medusa's reflection in his shiny shield, and that's how he could see to behead her. So mirrors would not have been a problem.

Furthermore, there where actually three gorgons - and they could supposedly look at each other, so they were probably all immune to the effect.

I also imagine that since Medusa was cursed by the gods (for being vain and supposedly prettier than Athena) to become a gorgon, it would also have made sense that she should be able to see herself in mirrors to remind her of what she had become, as a sort of punishment.

In my variation here, I picture the Medusa-android is just focusing heavily on its own image, being super vain and all

Fascinating!
I got carried away by an old version of a cartoon in which Perseus would have killed Medusa by making her look at her reflection in the shield that had been given to him by Athena, turning her to stone.

But after posting the question here yesterday, I out of curiosity decided to do some research and get a better understanding of this mythological story. In fact Perseus cut off the gorgon's head.

I liked the reasoning about the other gorgons being able to look at Medusa, and about the fact that looking in the mirror would be a form of additional punishment.

In fact, Medusa was a beautiful damsel, priestess of the temple of Athens. But for having bedded Poseidon she would have been cursed by Athena to become the then feared Medusa.

I was left with another question; being Medusa's other sister gorgons, possibly they too must have been cursed by Athena. But that's beyond the scope of this post :-)

Congratulations again for the excellent art, and grateful for the clarifications!

I think there are a few variations of this again, but reading up a little more on it, it seems Medusa and her sisters were always gorgons, it's just that her sisters were monsters (and immortal) and she happened to be human/mortal (faery tale logic!).

These days (like in roleplaying games and movies), 'gorgons' are usually women with snake bodies and snake hair, but originally it doesn't seem like Medusa had any snake body at all - she only had her hideous face. And since she got that from a curse, it's not clear (to me) that her sisters looked even remotely the same in the original mythos, nor had the same power of turning people to stone ... but they were monsters and immortal, so maybe that's why it didn't work on them.

Anyway, thanks for the interesting comments, glad you like the image and that it could spur some further discussion!
.
Griatch