Mermaid WIP

[CybrGfx]

Anatomy.

Pretend she's a human, and put legs with knee joints on her...Then "fish flesh" over that.
Her tail looks flat as paper, with a hard fold to bring it up. Even a fish would have trouble pulling that stunt off.

Only you can figure out what you want from the background. Calm sea? Wave crashing on the rock? Spray flying up behind her? Flying fish forming an arc over her head? Ship in the distance?
Octopus arm rising in a waving motion? Only you know. Try brainstorming on paper to decide what YOU want this to convey.
Then do some google image searching for reference photos to inspire you as you draw.

She has a beautiful face.
Glad you're enjoying Painter. It's a fun application!

~C

[nelesy]

Decided to lose the scales, might add them later. In the meantime a little work on the waves in the back, changing the fill of the tail, hair darker and some sparklies in the water. Open for any suggestions (I might be redoing the bottom part of the tail, extend it or something like that).

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f313/nelesy/New/mermaid.png

[CybrGfx]

Anatomy.

Anatomy.

Perhaps you're missing the point, here.
ANATOMY!!!

You have a woman with a beautiful face and forearms, cut and pasted onto an image with a strange plastic-looking tail with grooves in the fin, folded like a piece of paper, jammed onto the woman's body just beneath where her breasts would be, IF she had breasts, but jammed on askew, favoring the right side of her body, with the tail tilted to favor the left...

Now, part of the bad anatomy can be tied to the bad perspective. You have the face and upper body at eye level, but the rock and origami tail are tilted up to face the viewer...
http://www.reedphotographic.com/photography-gallery/portraits/pic15.jpg
http://www.ifimages.com/photos/qIxUbCK7CIM75TWA4upekD3JzE/author-762/Woman-lying-stomach-eating-strawberries.jpg
http://dailywd.womansday.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/04/17/image003.jpg
The waves are a nice effect, but you really, truly, should address the anatomy. It does not fit the face and arms. At all. Not even close. Seriously.

That's as plain as it can be pointed out to you, so if you ignore it past this point, we can all know you are aware of it, but choose to paint it this way.

~C

[nelesy]

Thanks for the reference pics! :) I was looking at some myself and I think part of the reason why I didn't get the tail right at first was cause I lost my original reference photo (with a girl with legs, not a fish tail). I'll redo the tail, just need to get the whole legs anatomy right(just as you said CybrGfx :)). Would this be right like this?

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f313/nelesy/New/mermaid-1.png

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