It's a Wet, Wet, World!

I finished the mermaid that I started yesterday. I took a few more pictures along the way, so the process can be seen. It's a little weird to look back at it and see where I was going with it:

So I started here with the cool frame I found, and drew a mermaid for it specifically:

Popped in the background:

Started in on the underpainting (scary purple alien fish!):

Worked on the tail:

Blocked in the body:

Finished highlighting the skin, and added some scales and a face:

And then finished her up!

And popped her into the frame, and voila!

I decided to list her, which I decided to call Ruby, on Etsy instead of my main site. Mostly because I'm selling her with the frame, which is sort of a new experience for me. The frame is very heavy, owing to the solid resin (although at first I thought it was metal, because it's THAT solid.) I really like the idea of these neat frames with the panels, but we'll see if anyone likes that or not. Since I cover shipping, I'll probably take a major hit on the shipping.

Anyway, I enjoyed creating something for the frame instead of finding a frame for what I created. It was a nice little switch-up! And, I think I've burned myself out on mermaids for a little bit (I know, two is hardly a burn-out, but still...) Time to get some of the commission work out of the way, and see if I can't clear out some of the holiday backlog in my studio too.

So much to do! I appreciate all the suggestions on gesso and sanding. I'm definitely going to look into it. I need a smoother surface for my details than these medium tooth panels provide!