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mchoi14 — Mer-May Day 21
#mermaid #mermaychallenge #mermay2018 #mermaychallenge2018
Published: 2018-05-22 05:52:59 +0000 UTC; Views: 1393; Favourites: 49; Downloads: 0
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Day 21. Her Coral CrownRelated content
Comments: 8
I love just the way you made her hair float just so. I also like how you made her long enough that I would thus find her from
Mer May
which is what caused me to find this picture again
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Heya! I'm from Project Comment!
Okay, first off, I love her design. Second off, I love your art style. She's so pretty! The picture itself is well made, too. Unfortunately, even the most well crafted of projects often have something to improve upon. Excuse the length, I'm very verbose and am in love with details. Remember: everything I say is for your benefit, it's not the law. Heh
ANATOMY
I see two things at first glance: 1. Her human portion is beautifully proportionate. 2. Her tail is really long... extraordinarily long.
-Normally, mermaids have shorter, thicker tails like dolphins or whales to propel their larger bodies, which are more robust like a marine mammal more than a slippery fish. Her tail here looks more like a cross between a cheetah and a raptor, whose tails are roughly the length of their bodies to act as a counter-balance. Marine creatures, even high-speed ones, don't need a counter-balance since they have no fear of "falling" in the water. Although it looks pretty in a picture, it has little function in the water--especially since the muscles used to propel a marine creature are thick and large. For tails, especially mermaid tails since mermaids are part human (mammal) and fish, I would study dolphins, seals, eels, and sharks--pretty much any agile marine mammal. Dolphins, orcas, and seals have thick tails (seen [here] , [here] , [here] , [here] , [here] ) while sharks have shorter tails that taper and eels have stubby tails with long bodies ([here] , [here] , [here] , [here] ) This is because marine mammals have tails that flap up and down while sharks and eels move side-to-side. Depending on how you are modeling the mermaid, mermaids that swim with an up-and-down motion would benefit greatly from a dolphin or seal design while a mermaid that swims with a side-to-side motion would benefit more from a shark or eel design.
-For the very end of the tail, you are mimicking standard fish with thin, opaque fins that look quite frail. They look more decorative than useful. Pretty, but unfair in the water. Although the wavy design is pretty, it looks more like she's using paper to swim. For a larger body, the tail fin should be thicker and more stable. Dolphin fins and orca fins are fundamentally the same, being wide and short with thick skin and cartilage. (probably because they're in the same family) This makes them tougher and makes it easier to propel their thick bodies through the water. Seals are smaller and plumper. So they can have wide, short fins like a dolphin, or split, feet-fins that they use both in the water and on land. On the other hand, eels (which live primarily in the plants and ground) have fins that are wide and go up their body , making their entire body one big tail fin. Sharks have thing, long, and pointed tails that face the side. Most live in more open waters rather than the shallows. Great Whites don't need to worry about seaweed or crooks and crevices, so their tails mimic that.
-But honestly, for the human portion of her body, I have little to say. She's beautiful and you've got humans down pat! Her neck is a bit too long. If she leans more towards mammals, I'd see her having either a bigger mouth/nose to bring in more oxygen while she's at the surface. If she's more deep-sea/rarely if ever goes to the surface, she'd benefit from having gills.
CLOTHES/WEAPON
Oooh, she has really pretty clothes (armor?) and a cool trident! Funny how mermaids are depicted mostly with tridents or spears.
-Her armor is scant. On a human, I'd be pretty disappointed. But since she's a mermaid, and marine creatures use their entire bodies to swim, she'll need as much flexibility as she can get. Since armor is heavy and cumbersome, the more she has the less mobility she has. Add that to the fact that putting metal on your body makes you sink faster. However, the crown on her head is pretty crooked. It looks like it's about to fall off any moment. To remedy this, I'd look to your sketches. You know how most sketches start out like this ? Round with a square and lines through the middle and where the eyes/nose/mouth will be. Well, to fit her crown on the center of her head, you could take the line that you would make going through the center and extend it upwards to form the crown. That would straighten it out nicely and make it look like it fits!
-Like I said a few sentences ago, mermaids are normally depicted as wielding spears or tridents. It is really cool and, if you think about it, plausible. After all, sea-side settlements had people who used spears and tridents. However, for all their grandeur, tridents are cumbersome--especially long ones. Though you see them in movies, using them in real like is impractical. Try going into the water and bring with you a giant stick, especially one with three prongs that are wide at the tips. It doesn't normally work out all too well. The pole is harder to move through the water than your own flexible body and the flat ends of the prongs act as sails. Even flexible poles create a lot of drag and aren't as effective as harder, straight-pole weapons. Shorter weapons like knives (or pronged knives) would be more practical, even if they don't look as pretty. Then again, who said that they needed to be ugly? This spring-loaded, three-pronged dagger would be suited for short-ranged fighting or mobility. If your mermaid doesn't want to get too close, a pole strapped to her arm might, in theory, work better in travel. Since it's flush with her hard-and-straight arm with a three-pronged extension, it could work... as long as it's not too long.
Overall, really good! She's beautiful and you're pretty good at drawing. I look forward to any more of your pieces that find themselves here!
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Thank you for the comment. I think in terms of the tail anatomy, I was more focused on spacing and filling out the piece rather than making a more realistic tail. I'll try to see if I can do both at the same time.
As for the outfit and trident, I was focusing more on the fantasy element but I can see how it'd clash with being a mermaid. A queen mermaid with a knife doesn't really make a good image, but I'll try to research and see if there's another more viable option if I draw something similar.
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Ah, I gotcha. Yeah, few things worse than large amounts of negative space! You filled it quite well, too.
I thought that was the case. As an artist, you have creative liberty. As the consumer, we have suspension of disbelief. Hey, it was fun looking up trident replacements. I didn't know they had those kinda daggers way back when! Research in even the smallest details can lead you to fun things you wouldn't have discovered otherwise.
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Hello! I'm from ProjectComment , and I absolutely love this picture!!
The first thing I'll mention is the expression. The mermaid has such a personality conveyed through it, and I really like that!! She looks very powerful and determined. It's always great to see personality and expression in a character's face. As well, the line work for the face, and really the whole picture, are really smooth and nice.
The anatomy is wonderful as well. I think that's what I was most initially impressed with on this image. The human parts of the figure, even on a mermaid, are really well done, and it shows that you have a good understanding of how anatomy works, even when mermaid features are added. If there's one thing I could suggest, it mihgt be making the neck a little shorter, but if you feel you like it the way it is, don't mind me at all! ^-^ (I'm certainly no expert on anatomy, so my recommendations can be taken with a grain of salt) Overall, the anatomy in this piece is fantastic!
Additionally, the colours are great too! The shading on the body is amazing, providing a good sense of where the light does and doesn't fall, and there's some variation of colours while having a great blend of them. You did a wonderful job on this piece, and I really love it!!!
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Excellent! Wish you every success and have a nice day!
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