"Plastic is everywhere now in the ocean floors. It used to be rather rare. We could barely find them, so it was fashionable for us to put forks in our hair and bottles on our arms. Now everyone's doing it. Posers...all of them....They forget that it was mermaids like us that began this trend"
I'm finally participating once more in @opheliafu's Doodle Doodledayeo Challenge! I missed a few before this due to uni stuff. So excited because her contest was one of first few I participated here in SteemIt. I absolutely love participating because you get to see so many different styles, talents, techniques and interpretations in one setting. (I always go through the comments to find new people to follow haha).
Anyways, the three words for this round were tangled, plastic, and mermaid. I was really adamant of participating so I made sure I had to make something! So let's get into it and...
Doodle Doodledayeo!
Doodle Doodledayeo!
Doodle Doodledayeo!
Okay, so my idea was to do an ignorant mermaid in love with the plastics from the world above as she turns a blind eye to the impact of plastics in the world. I wanted to draw the mermaid using the plastics on her body like the clothes and accessories from a fashion model.
So I picked this pose from a photo I found of Jennifer Lawrence when she debuted as Miss Dior. I liked where the hand was and thought I could manipulate it in a way to really fit what I want to tell in my drawing.
So the first thing I did was take the image and manipulate it a little in Photoshop to get the pose how I envisioned it in my head. There was a Youtuber that said one of the main vices that happens where artists use references is that they don't make it their own, so I'd thought I implement his advice.
I moved the head and the right shoulder mostly as well as flipping the image. I kept in mind this was just my reference and I don't have to follow it 100%. It just served as a general base of the finished drawing later.
And then I murdered my right hand doing this lineart. I'm joking but it was rather tedious lining this drawing. I was a little bit extra when it came to doing the scales on the tail. Is it narcissism if I really, really like the lineart for this drawing? I almost don't want to colour it.
This time around, it's mostly a very flat kind of colouring and playing with textures. Reminds me of my principals and elements of design, I kept forgoing texture quite a bit in my works. Thought I try doing that a bit here.
Tried to make this mermaid's colour palette based off the green chromis. It's a small green-blue florescent fish. I was pretty mesmerized by how neon it looked so I thought I'd try to mimic how its scales were coloured here.
Final Drawing!
Yey! I managed to finish! Glad I seem to make it on time. I'm a little anxious though since @sireh and @orenisme are participating too (those two so pro, high skill and I'm a nyeh). What's done is done, am just happy and relieved. This was a good stress leaver and helped take my mind off animation work for a while.
Before this post ends, here's the process gif for this!