#Ares later acquires serpentine/draconic features like a scaled neck and noxious breath when he settles

[gingermintpepper]

U mention in 1 of ur tags that Poseidon has vitiligo? Could u tell us more about that pls?

Okay so, I saw this ask and went "oh man this is a wonderful opportunity to ramble about some of my design decisions for the Olympians" then I also, simultaneously went "This is also a perfect opportunity to doodle Poseidon" so I spent like, way too much time doing a dinky little doodle to show both what Poseidon's vitiligo looks like + what I generally envision his design to be like when he's on Olympus!

Of course, in true Ginger fashion, it's very messy but I think it gets the point across well enough! The big reason Poseidon has vitiligo (or why I've interpreted his skin as being speckled) is because well, as a horse/hippocampus (which is his actual preferred form) he has a piebald/pinto coat and the only way really to translate that onto a human-presenting form is some form of pigmentation disorder like vitiligo or leukoderma.

Poseidon, like almost every other Olympian (save for Apollo who has the most human-like appearance of them all) has multiple animal/mythical creature elements incorporated into his design/interpretation, many of these I've chosen to allude to what their 'truest' forms are like, for example Zeus' big bull horns because he was born a horned god or Aphrodite's feathered hair and talons because she is directly descended from Ouranos. Because gods are always changing and evolving as the world changes and evolves, these features of theirs can change to better match their current 'truest' self, but most deities, especially the older ones, tend to settle after a period of time and don't experience much drastic change. For my purposes, Poseidon was born with horse like features which he inherited from his mother including his striking piebald coat and his horse's ears, but he later acquired sea serpent traits such as his tail, sharp teeth and water-like hair after acquiring the domain of the Ocean and being forced to adapt very rapidly to his new environment.

Due to geneology and generational inheritance being such a major theme in my work, I chose to let that stand for the descendents of the gods as well! Humans naturally aren't born with coats and such, but many of Poseidon's children do end up having some form of leucism from minor things like Ancaeus' double coloured hair or Bellerophon's 'peeled' hands and feet (they were a lighter colour than the rest of his body) to much more intense expressions of the trait like Theseus' albinism or Triton's very unique speckling. It's rare for his human children to get an extreme expression of this trait due to humans just kind of having less melanin to work with compared to nymphs, spirits or animals, but it does happen from time to time.