Sketch Diary: Inktober prep - day 1 Poisonous - mermaid lounging on a jellyfish

This was my first sketch specifically for Inktober 2018. I went a little overboard with the details but hey, it was fun. 

Watch me draw on youtube:

8x speed

1x speed

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Mermaids lounging on a beach

This was an inktober prep drawing. A little too elaborate to sketch and then ink back to back so I had to do it over two nights. As you may have seen, I did some way too detailed drawings for the first half of inktober this year and then burned out and couldn't catch up. I learned my lesson! It was definitely great progress though and I had a ton of fun. I just got too excited about doing the prompts and pushing my drawings to have some kind of background if possible. No regrets. But next year, I'll be saving up drawings the month before and then only do the inking during inktober.

Also, I think I'll do some freehand inkings in between the planned out drawings. Cuz those take way less time over all. More chance to get weird and go wrong lol but that's what practice is for, right?!

with love - M

Sketch Diary: The wine mermaid ink

I forget if there was a real reason as to why she's sitting in a goblet/glass thing. I think I just liked the idea of a mermaid in a bath or something but then I wanted it to be see through and as I sketched it out, it started to look like a wine glass... so here we are. My made up lore is as follows: don't leave your wine glass sitting out or else the wine mermaid will take a bath in your glass! Presumably, the lore is to encourage people to not waste wine. Or maybe to keep children from getting a hold of wine and making a mess? I don't know man, I just work here.

Watch me draw this mermaid here:
6x speed

1x speed

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Who me? Mermaid ink

D'aw ain't she cute. The scales are always murder but I love doing them anyway.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Snake tail mermaid character

This is what happens when you just go for that gesture/pose... but don't pay attention to positioning on the page or ratio between head and hands, etc. Still like her. She a lil' sassy.

Yo - watch me draw this madness...

5x speed

1x speed

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Welcome to the mermaid conference

Thanks for taking time out of your busy life to join us at the mermaid conference! Hehe but for real, this was a fun break from practicing gestures and trying to work on more challenging drawings. When in doubt, I always go back to the mermaids.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Mermay - Cup o' mermaid

Look in the upper right hand corner - you'll see my tiny quick sketch to figure out placement. I knew what I wanted but not exactly how to fit it on the page. I highly recommend doing those little mock sketches whenever you have a complicated or different kind of drawing that maybe you're not super comfortable with placement/values/colors. Should've gone a little smaller with the actual drawing. Still cute.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Mermay - who me? mermaid

That curled up tail look is one of my fav ways to draw mermaids.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Inked fin-tastic mermaid

I liked her so I inked her. She's on nicer paper so I'm looking forward to coloring her. What is with this mermaid kick... gotta get it out of my system! Could take years... haha or eternity.

with love - M

Sketch Diary: Dragon needs a shave

Dagron! And what a snazzy beard... feels like a half finished idea though.

With love - M

Sketch Diary: mermaid idea - fiasco necklace

This one is kind of a double post. I already posted it on a little project blog I'm working on with some other artsy folks but I wanted to put it here, too. Cuz let's be real, I'm rather pleased with it. She's super skinny... I know, bear with me. But I like that you can really see the gills, ya know? What took the longest was that silly necklace. You would've thought I was painting the Mona Lisa with how much time I spent on that piece of jewelry! And I don't even like how it turned out! This is why I move through my sketches so fast (rarely more than 30 minutes on a single figure). I feel like I end up spending too much time on the details and I end up missing the big picture!

with love - M