The Reality of Myth

I have always been a believer that, whether in art, religion, myth or modern culture, even the most abstract and otherworldly ideas stem from reality in some distant way. One being that has survived the centuries through myth and famous stories like "The Odyssey" is the Cyclops. I didn't want to portray the thing as the crazy beast it it often described as, but much more humanistically...The 3/4 portrait, I think, brings the creature to a much more human level, while the expressive and childlike marks keep its "primal" qualities  alive, but subdued.