Day 2 - Gel Pens (and A Brush Pen)

Day 2 - gel pens (and a brush pen)

More creatures than Louise and her foster parents call her house their home.

Remember when I said I only had 90 minutes a day to do these? I don’t know what made me think I could do this in an hour and half. It took that long to do just the lineart and the spot blacks, I’ve been crosshatching for hours! I’m really pleased with this though, so it was worth it.

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!

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.

Day 15 is a freshwater pearl mussel! This mermaid is rooted to one spot. She can produce a pearl of rare size, but getting it from her will be tricky. I fell behind a bit on day 14 (I used my comic-drawing time to go and see Detective Pikachu, so I had to use my mermaid-drawing time to do my comic, and ended up with no time for a mermaid), so this one was lagging about a day behind.

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 10′s mermaid is a jellyfish, she can’t really see and just drifts in the current with the others. I am learning a lot with these mermaids. Today I learned that masking fluid lifts off pencil! The scan on the left is the original drawing, the one on the right had to be re-coloured with a different pencil because when I peeled off the mask all the blue came with it! TT_TT (Also the original blue didn’t scan properly, but that was just me not thinking ahead.) I’m complaining a lot but all these mistakes are actually really useful, it’s much better to learn these things on a random art challenge than a client piece!