Mermaids; Initial Sketches

In creating my initial sketches of mermaid designs i aimed to firstly practice daring figures and compositing scenes. From looking at the competion, ive decided that id like to create more sophisticated desings, depicting the mermaids to be beautiful and elegant, not cartoon like and babyish - which is the style of many mermaid wallpapers i have seen. I would like my designs to be appealing to a wider audience - that can perhaps be enjoyed by older and young generation.

i will be compiling my images digitally, but perhaps would like to create the mermaids by hand. I think that ink would be a suitable material. the use of which would work well to create flowing lines, and soft watered patterns which i think will work well to create the elegant and delicate designs i want to achieve.

• Initially i found it quite difficult to draw the mermaids figures in a convincing and natural way, i looked to my Pinterest for further inspiration, and gathered some figure reference material. I discovered a while range of images of woman swimming underwater! these were a great source of imagery to refer to in order for me to draw mermaids in more natural and beautiful poses.