#182 Seven Wonders Sketches Part One

Back around 2009, Nick Francel and I conceived of a series

of prints - probably silk screened, though we considered etchings -

of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World coming to life and

duking it out in a giant monster battle of ancient and epic proportions.

Back then, we did some sketches and divided up the wonders,

but we never got to the actual making stuff together part.

When we met up again in 2011 in Boston, we did a few more 

sketches, and tweaked the ideas a little, but again, no further.

Unfortunately, the original sketches for most of the wonders were 

lost to time and - most likely - the back of a flat-file in St. Louis.

However, I do have one of Nick's sketches from our time in Boston:

(Here we were toying with the idea of making them worm's-eye-views.

But I am bad at foreshortening so we abandoned that.)

We divided up responsibilities, each doing one Wonder per battle:

Nick:                           Jun:

- Hanging Gardens   VS.   Pyramids -

- Temple of Artemis   VS.   Statue of Zeus -

- Colossus of Rhodes   VS.   Lighthouse of Alexandria -

- Collaborative Mausoleum of Halicarnassus Zombie Apocalypse -

In any case, I loved this idea, and think about it often.

With that in mind, I started working on all of them again last month.

And now I have sketches done for everything except for Zeus and Artemis.

I have also rearranged the battles, so that it is as follows: 

Mausoleum VS. Pyramids

Colossus VS. Lighthouse

Zeus + Artemis VS. Gardens

I am posting some of the sketches now here, but I plan on making them 

into etchings eventually. Unfortunately the Cité does not have etching 

facilities, otherwise I would be making the prints as we speak.

Here are some mock ups made with sketches:

This will also have both sides producing giant waves and boats.

The Colossus's boats will have Greek Fire and he might also be blowing fire 

from his torch. The Lighthouse will also have some arrows stuck in him.

I forgot that in my sketches back in 2009, I also had the Sphinx

helping the Pyramids. I will probably add that for the etching.

The Mausoleum was drawn on a much smaller scale, so in the final

there would be a lot more details of statues and such, and many 

more lions and zombie skeletons.