I Forgot To Post My Mermaids! NOOO!For Day 14 I Asked Sammy What I Should Draw, And She Said Gumball

I forgot to post my mermaids! NOOO! For day 14 I asked Sammy what I should draw, and she said Gumball to match Darwin from the day before. I didn’t have any better ideas so here he is! He’s a catfish, of course. I think I’m getting somewhere with the water-and-felt-tips combination, but I haven’t worked out how to get muted colours yet.

Day 19, we’re all caught up! This one was inspired by DrawingWiffWaffles, specifically a video where she re-drew art from her followers. At first glance I thought the thumbnail was a pond mermaid with lilypads on her head. It was actually an ocean mermaid with a seashell crown, but I thought I’d try drawing what I thought I saw at first. I’m really testing the limits of those novelty pencils! I think the biggest issue with them is that they’re so low-pigment they don’t scan or photograph well.

Merm no. 30 is a pyrosome! Pyrosomes are actually made up of thousands of tiny organisms, so her head and arms are not real body parts. Who knows why this colony decided to take the shape of a mermaid? It’s a mystery. I’m quite glad I’m doing these late, because this one took longer than I thought and I would have been sad to rush it!

It’s not May any more but I’m still drawing these last three mermaids! No. 29 is a raymaid (not a specific ray, some sort of weird mashup of every ray I know how to draw). I have a terrible late-night version of this one from the 31st as well, since messing it up was what forced me to admit I wasn’t going to get them done in May. I plan to print these in a little book, so I’ll put the first attempt as an inset on the page with this one. Only two more to catch up on!

Day 21 is a friendly little vampire squidmaid! She’s appeared in a portfolio piece in the past. Be careful as you approach, she may try to hug you without considering all her teeth. I was messing around with masking fluid again (I learned it’s not as good with ink because the mistakes are harder to fix) and I tore the paper, so I decided to go in with the rubbish novelty pencils again and see where their limits really are! I still think they hold up surprisingly well? Don’t let cheap materials hold you back kids.

Day 20 is a merman! One of the prompt lists had ‘merman’ for today, so I turned one of my male characters into a merm. (I haven’t been using prompts in general, but I look at the lists if I’m stuck for ideas.) I wasn’t sure about the spot colour so I scanned it before colouring as well. I’m still not sure which one looks better.