For those of you who know, no, this is not Atlas. Rather, its an idea of him that I wanted to express to show my gratitude, to immortalize, or something.

A bit about my process: I'm very attracted to maps, and have been trying to incorporate them into my art this past year. Earlier I attempted to do a topography project-- using the topography map style to map a persons body. When I was using traditional media, I was not satisfied with the outcome.

This project was to take a failed idea and revamp it. So! That's what I did. It only took 3 hours to ink over the stock image I got from The coloring took the better part of 5 hours, and adding the images took another few hours.

The mythological Atlas does not hold up the globe, but the heavens-- hence the star map. I used both an older star map, and a modern one.

While I was doing the actual topography (which was SO HARD let me tell you) I had to sometimes forgo complete accuracy. If I didn't, I would never finish because my perfectionism would take over. I tried to be accurate, preserve the integrity of the figure and form, and keep color balance. I'm pretty satisfied with the result.

~H