And finally, the third and last installment to my Cupid and Psyche Roman Wall Paintings Chipping Off In Strategic Places papercraft series. What’s been going on since the previous installments…

After Cupid left her in the lurch, Psyche tricked her mean sisters into jumping off a cliff and then wandered around moping. The other goddesses all tell her to go and talk to Venus, see if she can’t smooth this whole disagreement out. Venus is more interested in making Psyche do nonsensical, impossible, or deadly chores like sorting out grains of rice or getting fleece from homicidal sheep. Every time some kind animal or somesuch comes to Psyche’s aid, and what should have been impossible is done in no time. Venus finally is tired of Psyche always mysteriously triumphing, and tells her to go down to the underworld to gather some of Proserpina’s beauty in a box. Psyche is about to jump off a tower to kill herself and get the one-way ticket down when THE TOWER tells her “DON’T JUMP YOU HAVE SO MUCH TO LIVE FOR also I know the secret non-deadly way to the underworld and also here are all the handy tips you’ll need, bring double fare for the ferryman, double treats for Cerberus, and don’t eat anything ok you go you crazy lovebird.” What a knowledgeable pile of stones. Anyway Psyche does everything perfectly and is on her way back with the box when she gets CURIOUS. She peeks into the box but OH NO it isn’t beauty at all, it’s an instant sleeping spell and Psyche is out like a light. Cupid has meanwhile gotten over himself and swoops down to wake her up, gently chastise her for her insatiable curiosity, and whisk her off to Olympus. He demands that Psyche be made a goddess and Jupiter is like “well she’s certainly been through a lot, hey sure okay why not.” So Venus finally has to get off her high-horse, Psyche grows oddly-drawn butterfly wings, and she gets to be Goddess of the Mind/Soul. THE END.

This one only took eight hours as opposed to the first two, which took ten hours each! Woooo my neck hurts… I based the landscape off a wall painting I saw in one of my reference books.

And here’s the second one. Lots of story went on between the first and second images, it’s actually quite a long myth, oops! Short version is that Psyche is now living at a magical palace as Cupid’s wife but he doesn’t want her to know it’s him so he only comes at night and forbids lamps to be lit. Psyche’s sisters visit and get really jealous, convincing Psyche that her husband is an EVIL MONSTER OH NO! Worried about this, she lights a lamp that night and finally finds out who her husband is, wow I guess that knife won’t be needed, huh Psyche? Unfortunately as she sat there staring at him a drop of oil fell from her lamp and woke Cupid up, and he flew away all angry at her, saying things like “THERE CANNOT BE SUSPICION IN A MARRIAGE” and ignoring the fact that he was acting really suspiciously.. (I think Bad Logic is something he got from his mom.)

This was the first time I did a papercraft piece with a strong light source, I was so nervous! I think it turned out well, though! I do wish the edges of the red background papers weren’t so obvious, they’re paint samples from the hardware store and flake really easily. Can’t do much about it.

There’s a third illustration to round out the set in the works, but I just didn’t have time to finish it. The sketch stage for this project took far longer than it should have, and this piece alone took 10 hours to make! I finished it at 5AM the morning of the 9AM duedate, there was no way I could throw together another one. If time permits I’ll do the third one over the weekend.

First of my Cupid and Psyche illustrations! This illustrates the scene in which Cupid (who has been sent by Venus to punish Psyche for everyone thinking she’s prettier than the goddess of love herself) first sees Psyche, and accidentally pricks himself with his own arrow. He falls deeply in love with her (And really, he already was thinking she was rather pretty anyway) and decides to disobey his mother, removing any enchantment he had put on her.

I did a lot of research for this, I hope it shows! Instead of Greek art I’m branching out to the next peninsula over and emulating Roman wall painting, since this is really more of a Roman story than Greek. It’s as if a wall painting from Pompeii or something has been found and restored, with pieces chipped off and missing which just happen to highlight key details. His barely-there bit of cloth is rather dramatically ballooning behind him, but I assure you it’s completely realistic for ancient roman art! They used very over-dramatically billowing fabric to indicate movement on their often very stiff figures.

The paper I used for Cupid’s wings was really flimsy, and it actually fluttered slightly whenever I worked on Cupid. Very distracting but really cute! I’m almost disappointed I had to glue them down so they’d stick to the crack they were on…