Mermaids

Mermaids. They're right up there with princesses, ballerinas, fairies, and anything else little girls' dreams are made of. Of course, when I was a little girl, I was always secretly a teeeny bit disappointed if the mermaids I saw didn't look like a certain seashell-top-wearing redheaded mermaid I saw in the movies..  but that's beside the point. I don't know a whole lot about the real mythology behind mermaids, but I do know that the image they tend to conjure up is something beautiful, mysterious, and elusive. I hope to have done that image justice with this latest little project.

Like in most of my projects, to draw these mermaids, I used Corel's felt-tip pen tool in varying widths and opaquities. It's amazing how versitile one simple tool can be. I've found that using different variations of one tool helps me think more about the art, because it's easier to associate to the traditional media I'm used to.    I wanted to give each mermaid a distinct look, and personality. The first mermaid, with the red hair, was all about the motion- sorta' like a younger, playful mermaid. The rock-mermaid in the picture to the left, reminded me of a sort of other-worldly scene. Like she rises up out of the water in this secret cave, with this elaborate headdress like she's from another planet. The mermaid below, with the dark hair and skin, reminded me of the sun for some reason. These vague descriptions are about as much as I've got word-wise in my head. I try not to over-think things in words when they're meant to be said in pictures.

The thinking is more in how I ought to depict the concepts than it is in the concept itself. For example, I'd debated whether or not to depict my mermaids topless. I didn't want them to be to.. eh..  NSFW. At the same time, though, I didn't want to give them the gravity-defying seashells either. Even though the strategically-placed hair method might seem just as odd to some people, I chose topless because it made sense to me. It seemed a little bit more traditional. I tried to pull it off in a way that blended well, and was fairly innocent. Technicalities like that are the sort of thing, I think, that matter a little less than they seem like they do, in the grand scheme of things.