So we're a few days into Mermay and I have not drawn a single mermaid... So today we're going to rectify that and try to play a little bit of "ketchup". Mmm. Yeah, I like ketchup. [Taps nails on desk] So let's jump into my sketchbook and draw some mermaids! ♪ I never seem to care for mermaid prompts. I don't know what it is. They never tickle my fancy. They don't inspire the old noggin, but I came across... Sea Lemon, another youtuber, check out her channel. She made the cutest prompt list of my life. Look at this. You know how much I like making food into people. So fruit into mermaids just seems like another logical choice. 30 different fruits. So I thought why not 30 different fruit themed mermaids. I'll link to this, you can do it too if you'd like or just draw the fruit or however you want to do it, but I thought this would be a lot of fun so, that's what I'm gonna do. Day one which is watermelon. I'm gonna try to get through a couple of these and try catch up but not rush myself. We'll see what happens. In an ideal world and situation, I would spend at least a day on each of these and really trying to come up with a cool character design based off each fruit but alas, we do not live in a perfect world. So, I'm just going to do what we can. It's always best to start even if you're not ready and just see what happens. I thought I'd use a col-erase pencil today as I was kind of hoping to maybe use some watercolors, 'Cause I don't know, mermaids, watercolors. It seems natural, but if that doesn't work out, I've got a laundry list of Plan Bs, we'll be fine. I love that this is first because watermelon is one of those fruits that just has so much going on, so many things to steal from and put into your design. Let's put the arms up why not? Let's make them squishy. The cool thing about mermay is just how squiggly you can draw a character. I think it's two years ago now, I actually did mermay each and every day and I was drawing like multiple mermaids a day [Mumbles] Not to brag, but like it did so - [Laughs] It did so much for just loosening up my art. So I definitely recommend drawing a couple mermaids if that's something that you struggle with, too. The color's definitely gonna be a big, big thing for this. I just realized, you can see this face. I hope that's not distracting. Now when I think of a watermelon, I do think of a lot more rounded shapes. I know when you slice it you kind of have that hard edge, so
that might be an interesting shape to include in her bra. I want
to take as much inspiration from the fruit as possible because that's the point, right? Thinking like a high waist. So that we include a lot of maybe like the green stripey outer side of the watermelon and just from this - Just from these shapes, it's kind of giving me a more vintage vibe. So I might lay that up a bit more with the hairstyle. We could include like the seeds as like polka dots on this thing. Or we could even give her pink skin and green hair or something crazy like that. This is where I'm gonna need some uh, [Laughs] Some color to really see how this is gonna work. See like this is a super exaggerated shape. [Laughs] That's really important to do when you're sketching and then you can kind of tone it down a bit but include that and it's gonna capture the fluidity a bit better as you tone it down a smidge. Keep her arms out of the way, just so I can see her design. Light swish at the end of the ponytail. Thinking I'm gonna keep that shape I mentioned. Like the watermelon slices, but I'm gonna like add a rim on the bottom. I think that'll add to the vintage vibe. We could also poke out the bra a little. Give it more that bullet bra shape. Like everything's gonna be round and soft except for this and I think that kind of gives it that... watermelon slice vibe Maybe this will be green and stripy, too and I think she needs something like tying up her hair. Ooh, that gives me some time for some lemons slices. [Laughs] Lemon slices. Watermelon slices. Seed dots on there, too. I mean, maybe what all she's missing is the color, you know 'cause that's going to definitely send it even further in the watermelon direction, you know, if you use the right colors. Shoot, this is filthy. [Laughs] This is my favorite watercolors here. Personal favorite. It's just this guy. dirty, too. Well that ain't a character reference of me, I don't know what is. Love how pretty it is just having just rainbows in frame Heck yeah! Ideally, I'd probably use a little bit of both, but I'm trying to limit myself here. So we'll just - I guess we'll start with the green. Darker green, lighter green. I just mixed it with more water and then the pinky red. Oh and I didn't decide if I wanted to like give her a natural skin tone or a little bit more watermelony. I think
I'm gonna go ahead and add the darker green right now while it's still wet so it can like kind of blend outwards. Not be too harsh of a line. Now, keep in mind, this is not a watercolor sketchbook by any means I just don't care. Art to me is not about creating some kind of perfect end result, it's just about do what I want! I guess some would call that expressing themselves. I don't have a poetic knowledge of the English language. So I don't. Hey! That looks watermelony to me. I like the way it's mixing with the purple and creating a bit of a muddy kind of naturalness. [Taps pencil on desk] I don't know but it looks kinda cool. We want dark red lips. This should be dark red. Well, actually wait, let me keep that still kinda light. I'm gonna try and build up towards the center or the top half of it 'cause
you know how watermelon has a bit of a texture to it it's kind of got those like lighter sections... Near the... The rhine, is that the Rhine? Then as it gets to the center its and darker. So a little variety I think will really help it look watermelony While that's drawing I'll go get an actual cup of water so I can clean my brushes properly. The Hulk is dirty water and Mike is the clean water. I'm hoping if I say it all out loud, you know, it'll help me remember. I feel like I skimped out on including the tail. ♪ What does this look like? That's not what I'm looking for. I think I'm gonna make the hair green though. I mean it is up to me. I think I'd like at the dark green or I can try to make it the stripes. That would be fun. Let me try and do the stripes. so I do a light layer of this. Make sure I don't get too close to the pink. In the future, I'm definitely gonna have to try doing some more unnatural skin tones. Like I don't know like a blueberry could have blue skin sort of situation. But for the first one, this seems fine. What would happen if I use like this for the seeds? No, I don't think pink works. I haven't really put thought into the angle of these. Yeah, those are not dark enough. I might have to go black. you know what also might be a good idea is using like in an Ohuhu marker or something. Should I try and use chocolate or burnt sienna? Let's try burnt sienna. As much as I love chocolate. ♪ Look at the difference that makes because this is a brush pen, I can get some really good... Control over the shape of these things. Thinkin' I'm gonna draw a line here. Head to that vintage... Shape. Like contrast seam things. Then maybe here, too. It definitely needs some kind of line work. Definitely doesn't have enough pink. It's like a watermelon I think is more like my guess would be - [Laughs] 60% pink, 40% green and I kind of went the opposite of that ♪ A little uh, little silhouette. ♪ Just something kind of small and swishy ♪ Try using this marker more. I like how stiff that brush is, you can get a lot of control out of it, even with my heavy hands Ooh, I like this so much better already. It's the more simplified version of it, not taking it quite as seriously. I think I was drawing a little bit too much with my brain in that one if that makes any sense. not being very expressive. Which can happen when you haven't drawn in a while. I might come back to that because watermelon again is just such a fun fruit. See what the next one is on the list. Alright, the next fruit is actually a blueberry! [Laughs] So none of these colors are going to come in handy at all. I think I wanted to do it kind of reverse. This time I like ended with a little tiny guy, I want to start with the little tiny guy and then add more details as I go. So I think this silhouette is important. Obviously. I guess, very much so. Let's start there with number 2. What are blueberries? Short and round. They have those little pokey edges and they're blue. Just start with.... a silhouette. Very round face, I think. Almost circular would be a good idea for this fruit. It has the little like pokies, you know at the top, so maybe some hair that does this? ♪ Shoot, she doesn't have legs. How am I gonna do this? This pose I was like thinking one knees kind of up and the other legs pointed down, that's not gonna work. Oh, that's cute! Kind of use the fins as feet and flare them. Okay, now for the design. I guess I should stick with a lot of circles. Blueberries are kind of like round and... Pokey. We could probably keep it kind of simple, since so much of its gonna be blue. There's our circle. [Laughs] Quite a lot of circles, circles, circles. Um. If I did circles down here, that'd look like grapes and that's not what we're looking for. Maybe
it'll just gradient into the darker blue as it goes down. Could also kind of round out the fins. To keep to that blueberry theme. Now she looks a little bit more like an orca. Orca! Oh, we can include like those fins that come around here. I should look up some fish anatomy, so that I don't sound so stupid. I'm thinking it'll be darker down here. Then maybe a little bit lighter near the belly. With the ever so slight gradient. That is what I'm picturing. I actually really like that pose, too. [Laughs] Again, it's simple but sometimes, going overboard is not the best idea either. ♪ Little round nose. Round face. Round eyes. [Laughs] I don't want to miss out on the fins again. Let's try and curl it in. Hmm, I don't know when the last thing I said was but I'm working on the body. Included the - I really rounded it off so I can include those fins. I got to include some bubbles cuz they're round, just like blueberries! Oh, I'm really liking the way this one's turning out! See, this is just the warmup. I may or may not have drawn in two weeks. It's fine. Stick a blubfish in here, too. ♪ This one is fun. I am enjoying drawing this. See if her legs were here and I was drawing a leg, I'd probably have one foot coming down like this. The other foot coming down like that. I wanted a little bit lighter in the center most section. Getting darker as it gets towards the fin. Do I wanna include straps? Hmmmm. now it looks like underwear. [Laughs] Actually, you know what it could do, I could make the... The cups look a little bit more like a blueberry. Right now, they're just circles. I'm thinking if I just add a little like... Pokey bits to the top. They kinda look like Tomatoes, um. Ooh, ooh, wait, what if it's just like a sort of design element, not exactly like a blueberry, but like if these come like this. ♪ Then just have some like kind of pokey bit. ♪ Kind of mimicking that, without straight up looking like a blueberry. It's
following the theme without being too matchy-matchy. Then I think I'll skip the straps. Give her a dimple because I accidentally drew one. I definitely want this all to be the darkest of blues and this to be the darkest of blues. We can also mix a little purple in because blueberries happen to be quite purple. Now I'm thinking I want this edge to be a bit more sharp, since we are including some sharp elements of the blueberry Alright, I think it's time we had some color! I actually had purple paint in last so, that works! Let me see, I'm gonna first - I actually don't want to ruin that. I really like it. Um... Think we're gonna use a mixture of these two blues. We'll just call it blue and purple for my sake. Add a little bit of water. We'll
start with a light wash of this all over the whole thing Actually I think I want to mix these two colors. Okay, perfect and I have that purple sketch Oh, I never drew the hands! I think it's too late. Now with watercolors, you want to start with the lightest tone first, right? I don't know you can always go darker, but we can't really lift it too well, especially on this paper. I'm just gonna go in and see what happens. Mmm. I'm having so much fun with this one! [Sings in orca] I'm singing in orca. That's how much I like it. I can smidge closer to the purple when we get down here and it's gonna blend so nicely with that purple pencil! Purple pencil didn't even do that poorly with these colors, even though I thought it would might be a mistake, but holy moly, it's really really working well on this one. Then we want straight purple probably for the hair. Meh, a little bit of blue in there. Alright that's feeling dry. So I'm gonna go in with our purple, darker purple blue. I might need it darker than that. Whoa! A little overboard! A little overboard! Mix it with this, that might be the color. I think it needs to go darker down here, too. To go with that peacock blue color. I'm kind of dilute it as they go. I feel like it's not blue enough. I don't know if that's on camera, in person, it looks very blue, but I'm looking at my viewfinder and it's a little too purple and this looks white. So maybe I should try another layer of that. ♪ Add another wash on there. Oh yeah, that's wait bluer. Okay, perfect. Weird thing with watercolors is you think you got up against the line, but then when it dries you see all the places you miss. Definitely need some more experience. I like this one a lot! [Tap, tap, tap, tap.] Yes! I don't even want to like putting a line art on it. I think it speaks for itself, you know? Might put a little bit of blue on the eyeballs. Maybe some lips. Oo, this was a mistake, this was a mistake. Just add a little line-art to the eyes, just to make them pop a little but nowhere else! You hear that? Nowhere else. Oh now that I added line-art, I kind of want to do it to the whole thing, but no! I'm not gonna do it, not going to do it. You know what you do when you like your art, you sign it. [Laughs] Alright, what's the next one? Pineapple! Hmm. Elements of a pineapple, you got your round pokey bit, lots of triangles. You got your long spikey bit. You got your greens and your yellows and your browns. So this is gonna be a much more spiky mermaid. Should I make it a merman? Nah, still feeling the mermaid. Right, so what worked really well here was starting small. So I'm gonna do that again. Now, it's a very tall fruit. Like if you look at each individual section, it's kind of more short, but like all together it's a very vertical fruit. Maybe a tall character would work for this. Keep it very pokey with the fins. Um, pokey with the hair seems like a good idea, too. It's also a fruit that grows in Hawaii. Does it grow anywhere else? Hey, Google, where do pineapples grow? Well, they grow all over the place! I still kind of want to give it a Hawaiian theme though. Oh, that explains it. Well my ignorant butt thought they were only grown in Hawaii, but it turns out in the 1960s, 80% of the world's pineapple production was in Hawaii, but now it's only like 2% just because it cost so much, you know, 'cause it's an island, but I think I'm gonna try and follow like a Hawaiian theme and maybe a very touristy Hawaii vibe, because I'm not Hawaiian so I couldn't even begin... To do that properly. Would it be weird to give her like multiple fins? Three fins. Or, I mean I guess I could do these guys. I'll keep them really long and then some kinda lei. Lots of those little finny bits. [Laughs] For hair... I'd really
love to just give one of these characters really big hair. Why not? Why not this one? You know, 'cause a pineapple has a big round shape and then the pokey bits. So maybe the body is like the long skinny shape and the hair could be a more rounded large shape. it's not necessarily gonna be colored or textured like the body of a pineapple, but it's just kind of there to reference it. ♪ Should always draw small, it always just turns out better. [Laughs] This could be the pineapple texture. Okay. I like it. I like it again. I think small is a lot easier to just focus on your shapes and your silhouette. I'm thinking, for the larger one, I really like the personality of this, she seems very proud and elegant. I wanna make sure I can fit that beautiful tail in here, too. I don't want it to twist though. I might just have to draw her smaller. She has her big hair and her body. It has a cockroach vibe to it that I'm not diggin', gross. I can use a lot more sharp edges because pineapples are pretty sharp. Not digging it. I like that one better. Here, that kids are that kind of proud stance that I was looking for. Puffing out her chest a bit. Add this so I can figure out the texture. Give her a bando that feels summery and tropical to me. Heh, looks like Trelawney hair. And I completely forgot arms. This is the side. This is where these weird little guys would come out. I literally found a dead fish in our front yard last week and it had these thingies. It's a shame something had to die to give you this inspiration but that's what happened. That's the truth. Man! But yeah, about the fish, I'm trying to figure out how it got there, I assume a bird picked it up, but it was like a massive pike, like its skull was this big. I don't know what bird - Look, look at the size of the skull! Uh, eurgh, uh, eurgh, uh, oh, eurgh. I was like that - Eurgh. Oh, and I should probably mention, it wasn't a whole fish, it was only like a half the fish. So it was like - Still huge but eurgh! [noises of disgust] I'll just say I don't go out looking for dead fish. So that was a surprise. [Humming] But now I get to draw these funny things. Little extra finnies. Alright, now, we got lots of little things down there. These things make it look more like leaves. Alright, and then... I was thinking it would be made out of pineapple rings. [Laughs] Or something that looks like pineapple rings. Think I will throw in an arm there. The other arm... ♪ Okay,
I'm gonna try to remember to draw the hands this time. I'm thinking about adding like that Lilo and Stitch sort of pattern to this and this but I don't know if that's a little too much. A lil' something on the wrists so that they're not naked. Hey, I like this. Okay. Hey, hey. Hey. This is a little crowded. But there's nothing I can do about that. Not sure how you're supposed to grab the most color. Let's do all the green stuff. Let me see what it looks like with green hair. Is that just too much green? 'Cause these are gonna be green, This is green. This is green, this is green. No we need a yellow. Pineapple color and then we'll have brown. Maybe her hair should be brown. Um. [Laughs] [Deep, nervous inhale] As that dries it'll lighten up a little, too. I forgot how much I like these watercolors. They're kind of chalkier. Maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but, uh, there we go. Hey that works perfectly. That's like right smack the color I want. Not sure about the hair but I know this needs to be kind of brown. Clean the brush and grab that - What color is that? It's called natural brown, that's exactly - Lighten it a smidge. ♪ Go in with that, then I'll add darker bits to the edges of those, I don't know, squares? I dunno. Eh, texture. The more you dilute the colors, the more wobbly the paper is gonna get because (Like I said earlier, it's not watercolor paper.) I'm gonna need a reference for this. Create that pineapple texture. I've actually painted a pineapple before, so I'm using a little bit of that knowledge. That I've retained. I think this is gonna be a lot about building this color up. Building the texture up, I mean. I added it when it was still kind of wet so that it would blend out a little bit and then when that dries, I'm probably gonna go over it again. With a little bit of a darker - [Coughs] Actually, you know what? This bando could be green, straight green. Oh, yeah. I love the green next to the yellow! Then we need this green for these doohickeys. How do I wanna do this? I'm gonna have to go over those again. Not quite as vibrant as I want them to be and a lot of that probably is the purple pencil. Ma bad. Just looking at what we've got so far, I think brown hair is probably gonna make the most sense. Or like this sort of color, once I've layered it a bit more. Hmm, I wonder have enough to go to a marker to get the right brown color. I mean, I'm sure if I just kinda layer this directly. I'm just worried it's gonna be too dark. Yeah, it's a little too dark, eek! ♪ That green hand's growing on me. I mean brown's more natural. A little bit gold as like a blush. I think we're gonna have to go brown for the hair. As
much as I kind of really like that vibrant sap green color. Alright, so I'm gonna take that natural brown, might dilute it a smidge. Let's just throw it in there. Was this a good decision? It does kind of make it more overwhelmingly brown. I could add a little gold to it. Eh, No. Did I just ruin it? Come on! I think the problem I'm having is there's like no contrast. Everything's kind of the same pastel blob. Maybe... We just go super dark with the hair. This is why I don't do it. I'm so scared. Oh, see it's like kind of just floating there, the pigment. Ooph. It definitely adds the contrast I'm looking for. Is there a way to add like a darker green down here? Kind of pushed some of the contrast lower. Hey, I think it pulled - I think it pulled itself together at the last minute. I think the eyes definitely probably need to be brought out somehow, maybe with this guy. ♪ Blueberry might still be my favorite but I like this one, too. It definitely speaks pineapple to me and that was the goal, so. No complaints there. If this gel pen was working better, I'd like to make these pineapples a little juicier, but that just might not be in the cards. Definitely needs like some kind of line-art though. That's what I would really like to see. Should I do one more? Hmm? Alright, what's the final one? Let's do one more, one more! Maybe I'll rush it. We'll see. Alright, the forth fruit is [Claps] Lemon! Oh, I don't want to rush that. [Laughs] (I don't wanna rush lemon!) It seems like the fruits that are like one solid color, it makes sense to do that one solid color theme. Whereas like - Although the skin tone was part of the fruit. This is the only one that kind of fit theme here. So let's stick with that Now lemons are like that really weird shape. Lemon. I think it'd be a smart idea to kind of follow that shape for our character. So we got a head and the lemon shape. Use it as a kind of inspiration, maybe like little fins down here. And a little head up here and what about hair? What about like a little bun? [Gasps then laughs] That's kinda cute. Little lemon dimples and then I definitely want to take some inspiration from like the inside. What with all that like beautiful intricate pattern. Is that weird? It's kind of what I did with the watermelon, though. Oh and then we can use a little round shapes kind of like the end of the watermelon. Lemon. Oh my gosh. She looks like she would wear pearls. One of those arms up. A little apron. This straight up and down was not working for me. Gonna have to look up a reference for what the inside of the lemon looks like. it's very classy lookin'. Reminds me of The Flintstones. [Laughs] I think the only color she could probably use is yellow, white and maybe green if you include like leaves [Laughs] ♪ Now lemons are sour, do I want to include that - [Chuckles] that personality trait because she doesn't look sour to me. So try drawing it larger. ♪ No, no, no, no, no, no. no. ♪ Just kind of use big flowy shapes. Oh, so much for a sour face. That's like pleasant like Mickey Mouse! I really like the idea of the small hands. I think that's cute. That looks like Cinderella actually. I dunno why this speaks lemon to me. This haircut. I'll actually draw hands this time. [Laughs] I keep promising to do that. Some hands. Little tie in the back It actually would be cute is if the... Apron thing was green, but the point was to include... the shape of the inside of the lemon. Can make that green. Kind of like sketch without any color on it and I'm worried about ruining it. I think I'm gonna leave this white, yellow, yellow, white, yellow, potentially green. I don't hate it. That might be green, yellow, white, yellow and this part is gonna be green. So let's grab some of that yellow that I really like I really like the way it turns the purple into this gold color when it sits on it long enough. That's all the yellow. Trying to go over as much of the purple as possible because it turns to that gold color I mentioned as it dries. And the less purple showing probably the better. And here. ♪ Okay, now I need to color in these little guys, check a reference of a lemon to see if the inside's a bit of a different color. If anything, it's maybe a little lighter. I might add some kind of texture to that besides the pencil, you'll see when it dries. That's something you gotta wait to do. Probably can go in and add the green. Layer that over the yellow. Might need a couple layers. I think I'm gonna go with the green hair! 'Cause I kind of missed the green hair over here. That's not the only reason, it's one of them. ♪ I might want to layer - I'm gonna try and layer green over that again, see if I can get it more green. I like it faded up here on the face. Then maybe I'll take some of this brown leftover from the pineapple. Color in the dimples. I think I want the green more vibrant. I might want that green, but I got wait for it to dry. I'm so impatient! I think I might bring the lemon slices up here. Just too much white. Although I'm already regretting it so, there's that. Yeah, this is definitely the green I need. Seems more lemony. Lemony Snicket. I'm just gonna cover over all that lime, sap green color. As pretty as it is., it doesn't fit my needs. so I'm cutting it out of my life! Sn camera, it looks almost black. I hope it looks better in editing. Add some texture to these. Hopefully when they dry this still show up. Shading under these pearls would be really nice. Kinda looks a little bit too banana-y. Maybe too much Brown. I'm now gonna forever call those lemon chins. I should have given her hair this kind of similar shape to be more like leaves instead of the top of a lemon. I think that would have been smarter but other than that, it's just kind of like little mistakes that happened along the way. That are kinda hard to avoid until, you know, you get the experience. Wish the white popped a little more and maybe adding a line-art would fix it but I kind of going with a line-artless theme here. He already looks like a lemon Teehee. Definitely need a practice drawing my citrusy shapes, but I'm guessing there's going to be more, so there'll be time for that. I'm trying to figure out whether I like the lemon or blueberry better or pineapple. I mean, I know she's not my fave. [Laughs] I think these are all pretty good starts. I'd love to explore them a little bit more and actually like bring a piece together, but obviously I'm behind. [Laughs] I want to get caught up, to day six, but I think I need a little break. [Laughs] I'm not sure how much mermaid content y'all are looking for but maybe for the future, I'll try to like sit down and work on one a day and maybe record a little bit and then compile it, so that I spend more time on each individual design. Think that would be the best way to approach it, maybe next time I'll use markers, which I have a little bit more experience with. So yeah. Thank you guys for watching. Let me know if you're working on your own mermay. I know not everybody can but it's fun to like jump in there, here and there when you can. Thank you guys for watching I'll see you guys all next week and I hope you have a delicious evening full of waffles. Bye! ♪
