Mermaid

[Ironmanfan4]

Drawn on 23x17" drawing paper, using 2B and 4B graphite pencils.

[Ironmanfan4]

Any comments/ critiques/ suggestions?

[dfbovey]

I've got two suggestions

First would be to reference some fish fins to get a more authentic and believable look to that tale fin. I thought it was some kind of cocoon or something along those lines at first.

Second, would be regarding the environment. I'd ditch the wreath and replace it with some kind of splashing wave to achieve the same purpose composition wise. Mermaids are ocean creatures and you've got nothing in your background to indicate that. Right now it looks like she's a mermaid out of place in a tree.

[Ironmanfan4]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I will go back and make the tail fin look more realistic, I see what you mean about it not looking like a fish's.

I imagined her laying in a tree directly above water, so I think I'll add some waves or water foam on the ground below, keeping the wreath. I did a few other drawings with the same compositional background circle. She does look out of place though as is.

[Ironmanfan4]

Here are the others:

[pell]

Cool stuff. I can see you spend a lot of time on textures. Yeah, the tail fins threw me off a bit when you posted the first pic. I was wondering what "that thing" was in the upper right, but I didn't want to sound rude in asking.

[Ironmanfan4]

Thanks. It's ok, it's good to know that I can improve on it!