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Jakegothicsnake — Guide to properly drawing mermaids Pg.4
Published: 2011-11-25 21:40:13 +0000 UTC; Views: 6081; Favourites: 51; Downloads: 35
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Page # 4 of my mermaid guide.This one deals with how a mermaid's hair colour and hairstyle should go.
For hair colours, there's pretty much no wrong way to go. It doesn't matter if it's a natural color like blonde, red, black, or brown, or an unnatural color like blue, green, pink, or purple. Any color can work.
However, if you're going to have your mermaids have multicolored hair, remember that time factor in your setting. If it's a primitive setting, just let multi-colored hair be a natural thing. If the setting is medieval/renaissance, magic will make sense. If it's modern/futuristic, well that's pretty much up to you.For hairstyles, it can be short, long, sheared, bald, trimmed, tied, or wraped. As long as the hair style can be done with just a comb, scissors/razor, or anything that can keep hair tied or wrapped, and can work. Also your mermaid's hair can be curly, straight, or wavy as long as it is naturally that way. And don't ever go with hairstyles that require gels, glues, or hairspray. Mermaids are in water most of the time and hair with product doesn't look good after being in water all the time. That means no bouffants, no spikes(as you can see, two types of mohawks are shown, one as just a natural mohican, and one that is spiked with gel), no beehives, and no teased out/backcombed 80's goth/new wave/punk do's either.
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Comments: 17
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... lol I agree with these. Those cuts are frightening.
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One exception I'd make to the no hairstyles that require gels, glue, or hairspray is if for some reason waterproof gels, glues, or hairsprays exist in your universe.
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My advice with hair is that you can put it in braids etc but think about if your character has a setting or story that has certain rules or technological limitations. Remember that if she is a warrior or has to swim fast she will most likely not have long flowing well... mermaidy hair. Also remember that her hair should float a little but not too much and follow appropriate physics for the scene where they are. If they're sitting on a rock their hair will probably be very wet and plastered to their bodies. A couple other things that sometimes people (and me- last time I checked I was a human) forget are: what sort of items will they have that work well underwater? It's not just that they have to work but for instance, a bow would unlikely work well because of the water slowing the arrow down. Will the technology you've given them allow them to have this clothing or item? If they have to use seaweed to braid their hair, will they have spears or metal bracelets and piercings? I mean obviously hair elastics aren't going to be an option in most cases, but still we have to think about technology and what is available when we draw a mermaid.
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dreadlocks or braids would also be a reasonable way to go I think, especially dreadlocks actually, since the natural motions of and in the water would probably encourage the hair to constantly knot and tangle. In fact, unless frequently combed out and managed most braids would probably begin to develop dreadlock surfaces to some degree or another. And don't forget that nappy afro-hair in general. It never seems to be used in mermaid art, but it could be really interesting. Depending on the curl of the hair it can maintain its shape underwater, although it would probably sag quite a bit once the mermaid was above water until it dried again. The curl can also be so tight it could probably retain air bubbles for a bit which would make some nifty imagery.
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You're right! I never thought of that! That's a really interesting idea.
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Just go for long hair. A short-haired mermaid looks wrong to me.
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XD lol
same for me
when I had a pixie cut and swam in my mermaid tail my neck felt so bare
I had cut it for competitive swimming
but actually short hair could be useful for a mermaid
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Sorry to break the illusion, but short hair is far more practical for any being that spends most of it's life in the water. 
If anything, a short haired mermaid is far more believable. Either that, or a mer with horribly tangled hair.
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One thing against your point. Mermaids would never have to dry their hair, they spend most of their life underwater.
About the tangle thing, yes, you have a point there.
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Have you ever heard of the aquatic ape theory? Some people have suggested that a reason why humans have an extra layer of fat and hair that grows long, unlike apes, is that they are descended from an ape that adapted itself to life in the sea.
The idea goes that long hair would actually be an advantage to an aquatic ape, as its young would be able to cling onto the hair and not be lost underwater before they could learn to swim.
Some advocates of the theory have suggested that some of the aquatic apes did not return to land and evolved on similar lines to Dolphins, thus explaining stories about mermaids.
Not that I buy this theory (or evolution in general) but it would give mermaids a reason to have long hair.
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That's fascinating, true or not.
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Well you see, the reason why I think a short haired mermaid can make sense to me is because in the Hans Christian Andersen tale of The Little Mermaid, it tells that the mermaid's five older sisters cut their hair short to find a way to save their sister.
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