I'm going to create an idea for a Greek mythology-inspired piece revolving around my interests. While there are many instances of queerness in Greek mythology, I am going to be focusing mainly on trans-related things as this is where my interests mainly lie and I also believe that the myths surrounding this are fairly interesting.

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Most LGBTQIA+ themes in mythology, especially Greek, are attributed to the actions of the gods. Hermes in particular is known to have taken many male lovers and this sets the tone as lesbianism is very rarely found in Greek mythology compared to gay and bi men.

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When it comes to transness, there are both examples of those who were assigned male at birth being transformed into women and vice versa, though both are much more rare than gay pairings.

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To go further into this and to accurately depict a transition, I have looked into the culture surrounding the ancient Greeks and their beauty standards.

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For men, a chiseled face and body were preferred, with a strong jawline and plump lips. However, as noted with many statues from the time, it was considered better to have a small penis; large penises at the time were considered vulgar and a sign of a lack of intellect. To be considered of having good morals, a flaccid penis was best as it showerd a man could keep his body within his own control.

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For women it was a little more difficult to pin down. as for a long period of time in ancient Greece, beauty standards were very often directed at men and women were largely ignored, though I found several sources stating women may have been shamed at times for not looking like men and thus not being 'beautiful' enough. It is possible that during this time, women would potentially try to emulate the way men looked, though I have yet to find any sources stating this.

However, it was eventually come to be seen that Aphrodite was becoming the beauty standard for women; large breasts, a round face, a pear-shaped figure with soft skin and a round buttocks was eventually seen to be the ideal body type. This was seen as so because being wealthy enough to eat and gain these curves was a sign that they could make a good mate. In addition to this, red hair was seen as the most beautiful colour for both men and women as it was considered to represent courage and honour, with multiple characters from these myths having it. Some of these include Menelaus and Achilles from the Homer's Iliad and Helen of Troy, who was often described as the most beautiful woman in the world back then. In addition to this, red-headed slaves at the time were considered to bring good luck.

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Nudity was not seen as obscene in ancient Greece, and so I shall be doing this project with my character naked as I believe that it would be the most natural and accurate way for the location and time period for this to be done.

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Taking all of this into account, I shall be putting the rest of my effort from here on into the art itself, beginning with a basic design now that I have all the information I believe that I need.

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