Mermay 2023 - part 1

Self-Portrait

Upside Down

Twisted

Dystopia

Heartbreak

Mysterious Beasts

Mermay is coming up, and I think now is the time to push out the merboy story. A page a day for a month! Let's do it.

First though, I want to lay out all my favourite art for this project, in chronological order, and look through how my style and these characters have changed. I also want to think about how I want to depict them.

There are only a few in colour; most of my work has been in monochrome.

What tools to use? What lines? and what colours?

So far I'm leaning toward the Zebra brush pen. The details you can get are wonderful, and it achieves the most "story"-like, comic book-y effect.

More experiments coming soon!

Mermay!

It's Mermay! Springtime is a good time to turn over a new leaf.

This year instead of just doing mermaids, I wanted to use concepts that made me think of mermaids. Hair. Tails. Weightlessness. Allure.

I didn't go as deep as I do in Inktober, but I'm pleased with the results.

Various Platinum and Kuretake pens in expired Moleskine planner/diary.

merboy illustration 3

Hyacinth rescues the Prince, and Fionn finds him. I'm sure I don't need to tell you what was playing in my head while I was painting this. Just be glad there isn't a seagull listening to his foot!

Later I noticed something was missing, and painted it in but didn't scan the finished painting. Can you spot it?

noodling and doodling: blue

Once you start, it's hard to stop. Some materials are very addictive.

Maped fountain pen, Speedball dip pen with C4 nib.

Brause 361 and Hunt 101 nibs.

(Here an aside: I have always been fascinated by the fact that Sauron chose to use an Elvish alphabet to write in the Black Speech of Mordor. Tolkien used this device wonderfully to show off the beauty that cloaked Sauron's darkness, something I think none of the media based off his work has been able to do successfully.)

Joseph Gillott 404 nib.

This sketch, while nominally an illustration for my merboy story, is also a little nod to a painting by Caravaggio, one of my favourite artists: The Inspiration of Saint Matthew.

Noodler's Bad Blue Heron ink in various pens, Winsor & Newton cartridge sketchbook.

oh look, another mermaid

Are you sick of fish ladies yet?

Actually you might know this one: I drew it ages and ages ago and have only just come back to colour it.

In the meantime this physical artwork (and the sketchbook it's in) has been in three different continents since I created it. It's the John Watson of watercolour art. Think of that as you look at it. You're welcome.

hysterical romance: last look

A pervading issue I have with my work is that I often stop before I assess it properly. As a result my work frequently looks unfinished. I tried to add a little dimension here, and though I feel there could be more details added, that would only take the focus from the central figures. A raw, unpolished but finished work is different from one that just isn't done yet. And I think this is finally done.

merboy comic

 Fionn's house. He calls it the Castle, a word that comes from home. No one else where he lives uses it; they just call it the Magician's House. He doesn't get too many visitors.

My first attempt at a comics page. It's pretty hard to draw comics without guides! Luckily the Internet came to my rescue once again. I experimentally 'trimmed' my page myself, as my paper wasn't big enough to accommodate the full bleed.

I had a little trouble getting the brushwork to match the tone of the pen work at first, even though I'm using the same ink (Noodler's Eternal Luxury Blue). Also I think I should add a little land mass further back there over Fionn's right shoulder (no, his right, your left), with a glimpse of the town.

Almost done with my latest chapter of the Book Project, too! Very exciting!

page a day: hysterical romance, in colour

Prang watercolours, Quink and Waterman inks, and blue pencil.

page a day: hysterical romance

See last post.

page a day: merboy and magician

So I've been writing a Little Mermaid retelling in which the mermaid is male, the Sea Witch is also male (and in love with him) and instead of being set in pseudo-medieval England, it's set in pseudo-medieval Moorish Spain.

Anyway, have some wistful angst and pretty boys in flowy robes. Pentel brush pen and Caran D'Ache aquarelle pencils.

I like ... and I cannot lie

Has it really been two months since I posted last? The horror. I would blame work...well, actually I do blame work.

Finally finished another stamp collage illustration...

The top half is a geisha stamp I've had for ages, the bottom is Winsor & Newton Emerald ink. The chop is actually a genuine stone carved chop from Hong Kong with my last name on it. The waves are a mix of Higgins indigo and Prang turquoise, I really like the gradating effect they make against the torn-paper edge of the tea stain.

I am less pleased with the teapot stamp--it looks incongruous. That's an ill effect of doing everything on one page instead of Photoshopping in separate elements: no backsies!

Speaking of backsies, I have noticed a trend in my figures:

All my ladies lately have skinny arms and relatively big bottoms (well, big for fashion illustration). It's funny to note that as my body changes, my drawings do too.

I did call this one Tangerine Dreams, and then I changed it to Tangerine Dress. You're welcome. Prang watercolours, black tea, and Winsor & Newton Burnt Sienna ink, which has always been a mystery to me--why is this so-called 'burnt sienna' so dang orange??

Jónsi Project Production Diary, part 6

So since starting this painting I have ruined it, done a second version, ruined that, moved house, put the unfinished third version into storage and...forgotten about it, for a while.

Finally dug it out of storage again and got to work on the figure.

tiny stories

Happy May Day!

HitRECord is putting together work for another Tiny Book of Tiny Stories, so I'm hastily scrobbling things together in the hope that I can get into this little indie art book.

This is a standalone illustration for a writer to build a tiny story around. Oh look, mermaids again. Speaking of which, if you like mermaids and you haven't seen the blog The Wide-Eyed Legless, you are missing out on a lot.

This is an illustration for ubespidermonkey's tiny story 'Jealous Stars':

Stars are jealous of city lights.
So once in a while, they cut the power.  

more on the theme of mermaids

Did more work on the Nile guardian from this post. I cannot believe how long it takes me to do detailed watercolours. One of my art heroes is PJ Lynch and I wonder how much time he spends layering his illustrations. Also I should think through my light sources more carefully before I start to fill in everything.

Here's something I did ages ago but re-scanned. I lost all the data on my other computer when it crashed, including the files for my yakuza mermaids. Still one of my favourite ideas.

This is also an old one, but I don't think I ever posted this anywhere.

mermaids

A project I'm working on with my aunt. I need to adjust the scanner settings; am working with 2 different 3-in-1 scanners, and I kind of hate them. They don't work with Photoshop, for one.

Pretty pleased with the art so far, though. :)

New Year's Resolution: share. :)

Life is better when you share it with someone--friend, family, or lover. Just share. Happy New Year, all.

Dancin'...

This was supposed to be a serious picture about either the joys of sensuality or the sadness of wanting something we can't have, but all I can think about when I see it now is:

It's such a fine and natural sight

Everybody's dancing in the moonlight...

ALMOST DONE

Submersibles first, as I really think I did a better job with the dirigibles.

The last one may have been subconsciously inspired by Pushing Daisies' Darling Mermaid Darlings.

low blood pressure beasts and tattooed sea monsters

It is now lunch break, so I can brave the Beast that is La Salle WiFi and do the art post I wanted to do last night but didn't have the energy for.

My blood pressure for the past few days has been at 90/60. Found myself stumbling with humiliating clumsiness through a maculele session yesterday, and I felt groggy for several hours during the day. I know how to alleviate high blood pressure, but what about low? 

On the other hand, this is the first month in two years I am totally cramp-free. Not a twinge! *dances...slowly...and...sleepily*

In other news, I have had mermaids on the brain. I had a spare bit of canvas board, so I decided to reacquaint myself with the painting habit.

'Face Less'. Oil paint on unprimed canvas...not a great idea. I also got a little lost doing the shadows on the face, as I had no live model or reference.

'This One Looks Kind Of Like My Friend Lyra'. No seriously, I can't stop thinking of that as the title. This is when I switched to acrylic. I like the hair, but was very clumsy with the rest of it, especially the blue shadow.

'Fish Face'. Acrylic. Pretty much gave up on realism for this one, which I think actually helped. I could relax and have fun with her skin and mask.

'Jellyfish'. Acrylic. Fun with light and dark! I don't say 'chiaroscuro', though it's one of my favourite words, because...this isn't it.

You'll notice that none of these have anything that identifies the subjects as mermaids. They're only mermaids because I say they are. I think this is one of the things I most like about art.

And some work in marker, which I like even more, just because I feel much more comfortable and confident in this medium and so I can go to some pretty fun places in terms of technique.

'Yakuza Mermaids'. Faber Castell brush pen markers on Moleskine paper.