So this one had a major flip. It originally started out as a really ethereal idea of this earth goddess, where her hair was a waterfall and her body was the mountain, and she was bringing water and life, blah blah. I started sketching it and it was just really meh. Which kind of shocked me because I was so sure this was exactly what I wanted to draw.
I think it was one of those ideas that sounds perfect in your head but doesn’t quite translate once you actually start putting it down visually.
So I went back to trusty Wikipedia for a bit of research on what the whole water bearer thing is actually about. (And I always feel bad because it asks me to donate and I don’t.)
But anyway, according to Greek mythology, the water bearer was this mega babe lad called Ganymede, and Zeus basically kidnapped him to serve as his cupbearer.
That info gave me a proper lightbulb moment and completely changed the direction of the design for me. It stopped being about nature and became more about character and attitude.
I think I’ve said before in this series I’m always really into tattoo flash art and old Sailor Jerry-style illustration, so at some point I went from cup to cocktails, and I kind of like to think the water bearer has gone, “fuck you,” and just decided to rebel and have a mad time with her own drink. (I also booked to see Moulin Rouge! around the time I was drawing this, so I gave her nipple tassels, obvs.)
Her body actually wasn’t too tricky to draw, but I really wanted her head to be thrown back laughing, and my god, I just couldn’t get it right. I redrew her face so many times and used so much Tippex she was giving major Ed Gein vibes by the end, and I couldn’t even look at it.
So I retraced the whole thing, leaving her headless, and then redid it many more times until I finally got something I was happy with before we went all Ed Gein again.
I also feel like I really went back to my GCSE science lessons here as well, the little edges of the liquid even turn up slightly. I feel like I’ve given so much here: Greek mythology, science, horror - all the genres have gone into the making of this.
It ended up being way more chaotic than the original idea, but in a way that actually felt more alive and more fun than the “perfect” version I started with.
The circle of stars around the main design are 11 in total, due to Aquarius being the 11th sign of the zodiac. And the Aquarius glyph and Air element symbol are hidden in the glass stem.
No idea what this cocktail is! Writing this I'm actually starting to think I need to give all these women / creatures in the collection names too! Will defintely be doing this at some point.
Hope you love it, you can buy it here.
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