Attos chips, dips, chains and Wips

Started this yesterday after I saw the monthly challenge. After reading about Ganymede I was a little disturbed by the fact some versions of the story depict him being raped by Zeus before becoming the cup bearer of the gods.
Put me in the mind (so to speak) of 'the floating fat man' Vladimir Harkonnen from Dune and thought it might be cool to depict poor old Gany as one of his slaves.
Seeing this one as black and white with just the blood/wine as colour, originally I was going to try a tryptich but as I laid out the first of the three images this composition came to mind.

Hey Atto, not familiar with Dune, but liking the design so far really interesting subject there.. a bit disturbing but interesting

The anatomy of the foot looks great, I know you don't have much detailed right now, but the shading is looking good so far too, look forward to see how it progresses.

I by no means want to see anyone or anything get raped

Thanks Micro,
The 1st composition I had pictured Ganymedes entire body lying prone with Vladimir floating above him but that was too close to the cuff for me too. The idea of the tryptich was to distance the viewer somewhat from a very uncomfortable subject but I think this one has all the suggestion of what is happening with out being offensive.
I like to try and use less than obvious ways to depict a scene or thought - kind of like when they first banned advertisers from picturing cigarettes in tobacco ads.

Atto- implying something is some times a stronger image than showing out right. Good start hope to see how you will finish it.

Think I may be losing control of this. All the textures are pretty much the same and I've no idea how to define them.
The sheet on the bed is supposed to be smooth - toward a silk kind of material and the legs and feet to the rear should be pasty and blotchy. I've tried various different approaches(texture maps and overlays painted by hand)
but nothing seems to work, any suggestions?

Atto it's looking good don't stop now, just have to keep working it up, from what I can see all the values are the same atm, you need more separation between them. It's still in the early stages, you shouldn't worry about heavy detail right now, just focus on adding color and making the values stronger, you could add highlights on the silk and shadows on his arm to to separate from the silk for starters, you have an interesting composition already, keep at it.

It is hard to distinguish between the sheet and the arm. I'd make the arm darker than the sheet and perhaps add a cast shadow from the arm to separate them in space. It will also read easier when the head is connected. The sheet also looks very blurry. A mixture of hard edges and soft shading will help describe the folds and also differentiate it from the arm.
It's a great idea and has good potential so keep going and don't be afraid of losing control. "Fear is the mind-killer..." etc. etc.

@ Valence"...fear is the little death that brings total obliteration" You know your Dune then eh Val?
Thanks for the thoughts, I used a softer brush on the sheets to blur them in order to draw the eye toward the hand grasping in the last moments of life for the cup. But I do get your point and will try to see how it looks. I tried the cast shadow too but the angle of light on the arm suggests to me it would only be visible on the sheet right at the top where Ganys' arm touches it. Will try again.

@Micro - Thanks for the vote of confidence, I think im gonna keep this greyscale atm but will work some more on the values as you suggest and try not to get worried about detail till I'm further in to the drawing.

I'm not sure what is happening in the scene. Is he laying on a bed and there is another person walking toward him from behind?

A bit of back story might help Yian though I was hoping people would understand it with out. In the version of Ganymedes story I read he was raped by Zeus and taken to Olympus to be the cup bearer of the gods.
Gany is lying on the bed after being raped and almost killed by Vladimir. In dune Vlad was an amoral rapist of young men who was infected by a desease that made him immensely fat, so much so that he had to have suspensors fitted into his skin to move his massive bulk.
Vlads legs at the back are supposed to be suspended above the floor - hopefully it will read better when I add his shadow on the floor.

Edit - like this: