Animation Crossing

A collage of all Mermay2022 paintings, starting in the upper left corner, each of the 4 paintings coming together + the prompt board; Ocean ("The Return of the Merindiana Jane"): Merindiana Jane and Ceratia ascending from the depths towards a swimming turtle island; River ("A Bridge between Worlds"), Engineeriel and mermaid Crissy working on a steampunk bridge in a river leading to a distant steampunk city, sending a salmon, a mermaid Paula watching them; Lake ("The Heart inside our Caves"): An axolot mermaid cuddling with Nessie in the lake of a cenote, in the background the marriage ceremony of Swampgirl and Amphimaid in a boat; Swamp ("Wytch on Vakation"): The Little Sea Witch sitting in a deckchair in a swamp, conjuring plants to bring her a coconut drink, next to her a floating ghost starfish and her staff and hat holding a sign "Wytch on Vakation", while doing this also summoning giant bone snakes in the background, a frog and a salamander watching; text: "Mermay 2022".

A collage of all Mermay2022 paintings, each of the 4 paintings, left to right, top to bottom: Ocean ("The Return of the Merindiana Jane"): Merindiana Jane and Ceratia ascending from the depths towards a swimming turtle island; River ("A Bridge between Worlds"), Engineeriel and mermaid Crissy working on a steampunk bridge in a river leading to a distant steampunk city, sending a salmon, a mermaid Paula watching them; Lake ("The Heart inside our Caves"): An axolot mermaid cuddling with Nessie in the lake of a cenote, in the background the marriage ceremony of Swampgirl and Amphimaid in a boat; Swamp ("Wytch on Vakation"): The Little Sea Witch sitting in a deckchair in a swamp, conjuring plants to bring her a coconut drink, next to her a floating ghost starfish and her staff and hat holding a sign "Wytch on Vakation", while doing this also summoning giant bone snakes in the background, a frog and a salamander watching.

As hinted last week, I’m going to bring this year’s Mermay to a close. As much as I love the Mermay as glad am I not to draw only mermaids for a change. Still, although I actually did some new paintings since last Sunday, we are not quite there.

Therefore, for a last time this year this PaintLog (the first half of it) will deal with the Mermay, the recap I promised you.

With the second half we are getting back to fanart again. Amphiba came to an end, so did season 2 of The Owl House. Additionally, I made use of my short vacation by binge watching the show Gravity Falls.

You will find the results of this combination below and on the respective pages, of course.

Mermay Recap

The main thing was: To have fun!

And fun I had. I enjoyed to create the prompt board together with my collab partner Potato, to draw the prompts, to come up with the texts, the ones for the general board as well as the ones for the weekly introductions. Thank you Potato for co-hosting this Mermay!

Goaling four major paintings and sharing one small detail every day turned out to be exactly the right thing. This way I managed to come through the Mermay quite well despite tigh working schedules in May.

Mentioning these … yeah, at some points in time it was stressful. I started around Easter with the first drawing and until the second week I was way ahead of the calendar with my preparations. Still, from week 3 onwards it initially often was a day by day drawing. Only the vacation of the fourth week were able to fix this.

However, it was a delight to finally see the paintings coming together. Which one is your favorite? Tbh, I like „The Heart inside our Caves“ the most. Like in last year’s Linktober, I created some short clips that will show you the drawing progress of each painting and there also is a collage with every painting shared this Mermay.

Looking at the four paintings in retrospective, I come to think that you clearly can spot how my time schedule influenced the work progress. The first two already were quite elaborated before their respective week even started, I just had to hide the details I didn’t want to share on the particular days.

Week 3 is starting with Nessie, the background came quite in the end. Week 4 starts the same way (with the Little Sea Witch) but as soon as I found the time, the whole background was on its way and only needed slight alterations.

Last but not least a shoutout to everony who participated in our 4WeeksMermay. It was the first time we were hosting it and perhaps there will be another one next year.

It was great to see all the other entries, the fantasy and imagination you put into the combinations of the prompts.

Thank you so much!

We would be happy if you’d join next year again!

Mermay 2022 paintings

Crossovers

Amphibia, The Owl House and Gravitiy Falls spoilers ahead

As mentioned above, last week I felt the fanboy vibes again – threefold!

It all started with the finale of The Owl House’s 2nd season finale (but is rooted back to the one of Amphibia too). In the final scene we see a newspaper article featuring a picture of Anne Boonchuy and the question if her being lost in a frog world has been a hoax.

The same moment the image of Camila contacting the Boonchuys jumped to my mind, and this way Luz finally meeting Anne. Luz of course would be enthusiastic about a world with giant snakes in it (the very first episode of her show introduced her by throwing snakes).

For Anne’s part, however, it may be important to know that it felt like half of the fandom shipped her with one or the other of the other two girls who were stuck with her in Amphibia. But it wasn’t meant to be canon up to the end whereas Luz, of course, came back to the human realm with her girlfriend Amity.

Digital painting, comic style: Luz Noceda from the show The Owl House (brown short hair, short ponytail, blue and white hoody) and Anne Boonchuy from Amphibia (brown mop-like hair with leaves and a stick in it, grey shirt with a the coat of arms of her school on it (yellow, pink, blue, purple, the letters S, J, M and S in theses fields), pink skirt) talking to each other; Luz: "Sooo ... you really were stuck in a cute froggy world with giant snakes in it?", Anne: "Wait! You actually came back from your interdimensional travel with a girlfriend?!"

It was the first time I drew Anne. I drew Luz before and even other Amphibia characters, but not Anne. I tried to do this in my own style but to keep the „Disney roundness“. Because in the show the eyes (in her normal form) are just little black dots, I had to search the internet for information about their colour and in the end it turned out that they are brown. The Amphibia Wiki didn’t mention which brown, so I chose a tone of the same brown she has as hair colour.

The same time I came up with this idea, already another one sneaked into my mind but I wanted to share the Amphibia x The Owl House cartoon first.

There are several references to Gravity Falls in The Owl House as well as in Amphibia, Stan and Soos have versions of them in both realms and it’s as good as canon that he ince was married to Eda Clawthorne from The Owl House. So, we can assume, Gravity Falls is part of the same uni/multiverse.

This being a great basis for my second crossover cartoon. Things to know if you don’t know the show: Dippper (the guy to the left) actually never had to leave the human realm. On the other side, almost hte whole show he had a big crush on the girl Wendy (who was 15 at this point in time while he was nearly 13). Of course, he didn’t came back from Gravity Falls with a girlfried.

Digital painting, comic style, an one picture cartoon featuring a crossover of several Disney shows: Luz Noceda (The Owl House) (brown short hair, short ponytail, blue and white hoody) and Anne Boonchuy (Amphibia) (brown mop-like hair with leaves and a stick in it, grey shirt with a the coat of arms of her school on it (yellow, pink, blue, purple, the letters S, J, M and S in theses fields), pink skirt) talking to each other in the background; Luz: "Sooo ... you really were stuck in a cute froggy world with giant snakes in it?", Anne: "Wait! You actually came back from your interdimensional travel with a girlfriend?!"; Dipper (Gravity Falls) (young man, brown hair, red shirt, blue jacket, blue and whit cap with a blue pine tree print): "Amateurs! I didn't even have to leave my realm ...", from the right lower corner his twin sister Mabels: "But you didn't come back with a girlfried either!", additionally a loud "OINK" from a character not in the picture.

Because by now Dipper and Mabel would’ve been almost 23 years old, I tried to paint them a little bit older than in the show. Dipper got some hair on the chin and I shortened Mabels hair. I also abandoned the ribbon. However, she is wearing a pig ear pendant, referring to her pig Waddles, of course and to once more underline her weirdness.

As with Anne I had to investigate on the eye colour. With Dipper (and mabel) it was brown again and this time I chose the same brown that I used as basic hair colour of Anne. I also noticed that Mabel and Dipper have got the same basic skin and hair colour, making things quite easy for me because I already had the whole colour palette at hand.

The Little Sea Witch and the Finished Mermay

Digital painting, comic style: A swamp and trees; a mermaid based on a manta ray in a deckchair made of plants; violet eyes, chin long straight violet hair; the ray's fins are buidling a cape; a black starfish as pendant on her chest; mud in her face, left eye covered with a cucumber disc, she's lifting another one from her right eye, looking tired to a plant's stalk carrying half of a coconut with a drinking straw in it, magical light floating from her finger tip to it and encompassing it; to her left a staff built from a long belemnite, a hat-like squid holding a sign "Wytch on Vakatin", an "o" added subsequentl, is thrown over its top; left to the sign floating in the air a pink ghostly starfish (Patrick from Spongebob Squarepants), wearing green trunks and red water wings; on her left on some lily pads a small pink frog and a salamander, watching sceptically her doings; in the background behind the trees you can see two giant shadowy snakes, rays from the magical light leading to the first one, forming its tongue, eyes and nostrils; text "Beware of Snacks - Concerning great powers and big side effects".

Week 4: Swamp

When I’m writing these words, Mermay 2022 is over. Well, it’s still going some days and as usual I’m going to do some aftermaths, but the bulk of work is finished, the paintings (or parts thereof) I’m going to share in the course of the next few days are done.

I could start to work on or continue with other projects. However, for the moment, I will just have a break.

Although we created a Mermay that gave room for a lot of flexibility, it still was a though planning. My claim to myself was to share one painting per day or at least a detail of the painting. Since real life also had tough time schedules, that wasn’t always easy.

So I am happy I made it this year again.

In contrast to last week, I will not give the finished 4th week’s painting right away. There are still some days between today’s post and the final one. So, I hid the final one in the diashow below.

If you feel prepared to get spoiled, just use the switch button. Oh, and I also will reveal the title in this PaintLog.

To follow the progress so far, you still can check out my Instagram gallery, or my Ko-fi or Twitter account of of course website’s 4WeeksMermay page. Again, we had some great entries of other artists which you will find under the respective Hashtag on Instagram.

Wytch on Vakation

This time the title found itself quite early. I almost used if for the Witch prompt but thought it was going to be an even better overall title. Since there is a sign in the painting telling the title, my first thought was to not write it in the paintings’s corner as usual but in the final version, it just wouldn’t have been recognizable enough.

With the 4th week’s painting we again meet a character from the last two year’s Mermays: The Little Sea Witch.

In 2020 she got her hands on the Mighty Magic Mollusc’s Staff and … err … played around with it a little bit. In 2021 she tried a conjuring but the summoning went wrong and since then she’s got a sometimes annoying and not that bright but mostly harmless companion.

Perhaps you remember that I’m putting a Spongebob Squarepants reference in every of my Mermays. Well, this he is. He’s no new one but he’s a reference.

Now we can watch her relaxing in the spa resort. Ghostrick again by her side. This time I gave him trunks and water wings because they are on vacation (the Bermuda’s are his street clothes, so there is no point to use them for swimming).

The spelling on the sign is on purpose, of course. In an earlier PaintLog I mentioned that the fantasy world my witches OCs are living in is roughly referring to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld witches world.

There like here ortography isn’t mandatory, the old witches who are teaching their apprentices the letters being quite flexible with it. So this adds to this tone.

My witches OC’s universe? Wait! Yeas, she’s The Little Sea Witch, but isn’t she from the Mermay Mermaid’s universe?

Well, if you look close you will spot two familiar amphibians. Yes, you’re right. This painting features a cameo of Raven and Samandra. At the same time it’s a crossover and why shouldn’t they live in the same fantasy universe?

Then there are the snakes …

Perhaos you already spotted a pattern: Whenever The Little Sea Witch dies magic, something goes wrong. She used her magical abilities with the best intentions but again the side effects are getting out of hand.

I first planned to draw the snakes more like the Bone Hydra of the video game Hades but I liked the body forms right after the first drawing of the shadows and then it just wouldn’d have fit anymore. Still, I hope you can freel the same vibes.

Finally, the final makeover puts a llittle bit of glitter on the painting (I didn’t realize what this can add to a painting before!) and another pair of jaws in the foreground. The last one shouldn’t be too obvious because I wantet to lead the eye first to the Sea Witch, then to her companions, then to the coconut and the snakes in the background and only then to spot the fangs that are framing all of this.

Beware of Spoiler: By switching the image you will see the upcoming paintings

It must be Love

The Heart inside our Caves – 4WeeksMermay Week 4

I should keep writing „I’m not sure if I will be able to post a part of the week’s Mermay painting every day“. Actually, every time I do this, I finish it well before the end of the week *knocking on graphic tablet*.

So this week. I managed to finish Nessie before the start of my business trip and I was able to do Axola’s outline in the hotel and finalized her after returning home. Job was stressful in the middle of the week and in the end of the week I was somewhat under the weather.

I still am, writing this PaintLog. Caught a cold or something like that, but mainly suffering from lack of sleep.

Luckily I still was able to draw and planned my pacing according to my job’s work schedule. This way, week 3 went by faster than I thought.

As usual you will find the progress in my Instagram gallery, on Ko-fi, Twitter and on this website’s 4WeeksMermay page and other artist’s entries under the respective Hashtag on Instagram.

The Heart inside our Caves

Quite soon after starting this painting I gave it the (as it turned out) working title „Love Lake“. For comparison: I didn’t came up with the first week’s painting’s title until a few hours before posting the final version while the one of the second week’s painting jumped to my mind somewhere in the middle of the painting processe, at the time I drew the bridge. Originally the one in which the bridge showed up for the first time should be called this way, so I had to think of another title for that one.

Digital painting, comic style: Engineeriel in sideview in the upper left corner, a mermaid with brown skin and brown hair, sitting on a swing holding Founder, a blue and yellow cyborg fish; Engineeriel's fish tail is building an overall-like fin, below she is wearing a bellyfree beige top and on her head goggles with a light rod; Founders one red eye slit is sending a laser beam towards a brown metallic cylindrical contraption to mend their plates; the contraption has an upwards directed glass pipe with wather therein; it's standing in a river, the door mostly under water; on the right side Crissea working on it too; young woman, short purple hair, big, round glasses, yellow top, black and yellow striped mermaid tail, the fins around the waist are building an overall with open strings; her butt is out of the water of a river, she is working on a contraption which stays on the river's bottom, beside her you can spot a small bear under water, in the background fields, woods, hills, a forest, and two pillars, the upper endings not in the picture; text: "The Future's Bridge - Working on Progress."

Regarding the third week’s painting, „The Heart inside our Caves“ jumped to my mind as soon as I saw the finished version. I’d be lying if I’d say, I wasn’t inspired by Nick Burgoyne’s book title „The Hearts beyond our Roots“, again.

This time I built the painting starting from the center. This was somewhat forced by my though time plan (see above). I had not enough time to paint an elaborated background or foreground until the end of the week. But I could do the characters, and the lake afterwards – when it was weekend already.

So, now, meet Axola and Nessie. Quite frankly, she’s one Nessien, one of those lake monsters found around the world. I depicted her as some kind of Plesiosaurus. The old saurus expert in me knows: She’s painted prehistorically incorrect since Plesiosaurians weren’t be able to bend their necks that much. However, she is a Plesiosaurus comicus kritzelfazensis, she had 60 millions years time to evolve this way to meet drawing clichés.

My take one the Axolotl prompt then was an axolotl mermaid with the gills forming the hair. I first thought of drawing her without the legs (like other mermaids) but in this case she’d have looked like a big tadpole. So I gave her two legs. They appear a little bit short and thin but this meets nicely the axolotl theme (the don’t have long legs either) but avoidding a weird appeareance, making her rather cute (as axolotls are).

Digital painting, comic style, light background: A plesiosaurus-like pink and purple sea monster, the neck is bowing towards its back, the eyes closed; on Nessie's back a mermaid with the features of a light pink axolotl, the gills building the hair; she is leaning with closed eyes agains Nessie's head, the webbed hands petting her head and mouth; text "Axoa's Cuddle - Everybody should have an axolotl for cuddles.

Speaking of Cuteness: In 2020 Introduced a couple that we met in 2021 again. Ironically, they still have no names. I still call them „Swampgirl“ and „Amphimaid“. After thei first encounter in 2020 they got engaged in 2021 (Tiny Inky being the love letter messenger, find out more about them here).

This year you can spot them in the background. A ceremony is going on. Yes, they finally got married, this time Inky holding the ceremony.

Coming to the lake itself, its form (you noticed, doesn’t you?) isn’t coincidentally related to both titles, working title and the final one alike. Yes, it’s heartshaped, matching the theme and showing the heart inside the caves very literally.

The rest of the background, the cenotes, turned out a little bit different to the picture I initially had in mind, the caverns‘ entries in particular. I’d love to create more a sensation of hovering above the scene and played around with the jungle tops in the background until it worked somehow.

Week 3 has 8 days but only 6 prompts. Therefore, I used one day to build up the foreground and I’m going to use tomorrow to share the final piece (if you are reading this far, you will be rewarded with being able to see it today already). For this purpose I did a last makeover. The glitter was a last minute decision to put some magic in the air.

Finally, there was the matter with the cenote. The whole scene takes place in one. Still, their waters can get icey cold. Therefore I wondered if an axolotl, being amphibian and stuff, could stand this cold. So, I investigated. Sure, I could’ve said Axola is half human woman and also have got human traits like warm blood, but that would’ve been too easy.

Luckily, the axolotl’s traits addressing this topic are fitting nicely into the theme of the painting. Not only the winter waters of their lakes can go down to 6-8 degree Celsius, they also regenerate faster in cold water.

Week 4: Swamp

The eternal balance of life an death

We are looking forward into the fourth and last week. Would you believe it, Mermay is almost over? Again we are providing an introduction to the prompts.

See the cutout picture below. As usual I will share the corresponding text here as soon as it is ready.

Bridge Work

A Bridge between Worlds – 4WeeksMermay Week 3

Because I didn’t was at home this weekend, this week’s PaintLog is online little bit later than usual. It was a rough week anyways and I am behind my time schedule of preparing for week 3. Luckily, week 3 only has 6 prompts and the first one already has been prepared. So, it hopefully won’t be that stressful after all.

However, I actually managed week 2, see the progres You will find the progress in my Instagram gallery, on Ko-fi, Twitter and on this website’s 4WeeksMermay page. Plus, again there were some amazing entries from other artists. Check out their work under the respective Hashtag on Instagram.

A Bridge between Worlds

The past week’s painting took some efforts. It was an exercise likewise in perspective as well in background and water details. Especially getting the water right with all the movement and the reflections was hard.

We again followed one of my very first Mermay mermaids, Engineeriel. You already saw her in week 1, as tiny dot in the background, though. She escaped the Kraken succesfully and unscarred, although her friend an assistant Founder as usual got the damage. Now, safe and sound back again in less dangerous waters, they turned to a new project.

The idea of a bridge connecting the mermaid and the human world came to my mind as I looked over the prompts Potato and I so thoughtfully collected to create our 4WeeksMermay. „Steampunk“ and „Bridge“ connected immediately, likewise the fact that I a) already had an engineering mermaid OC and b) I even before the start of creating the prompt board I planned draw my Steampunk mechanic Crissy in a mermaid version.

Some more remarks about Engineeriel and Founder. They both first appeared in Mermay 2019. Quite soon Founder got injured in an accidant with a merdroid, so Engineeriel made him a cyborg fish to save his life.

Bot are references to „The Little Mermaid“, obviously, with a twist. Therefore I originally named them after the names of the German synchro of the movie. Only one and a half year ago I learned the there is a difference to the English ones. I easily could switch Engineeriels name towards the English form but Flounder is called „Fabius“ in the German version („Fabricius“ in my own one). I learned about that only some months ago. To keep the spirit of the name and also keep him recognizable for English readers, I from then on went with „Founder“.

Btw: I hate it when German syncs do those things, why can’t they just keep the names? Nobody would have thought of the washing soap „Ariel“ which is popular in Germany, and „Flounder“ quite obviously is NOT a flounder. We are not THAT dumb and the majority know how flounders look like.

Sorry for my wandering thoughts but it had to be said and hopefully gave you an insight not only into my drawing process but also into the thought accompanying the development of my OCs.

Still, there also were some design changes since Enginneeriel’s humble beginnings. In 2021 I gave her a full engineer’s overall built by her hip fins to emphasize her occupation. I did similar with Crissea, my OC Crissy turned into a mermaid but this time the strings are opened to put a glimpse of variation into the composition.

So, as with Engineeriel, Crissea’s overall is actually a combination of parts of her body, of her fins. You also will find that her fish tail loosely has a sea dragon as reference, this giving there the stability to float almost unaffected by the moving waters of the river.

The stripes on her tail are of course the same ones she has on her working trousers and then there is the watch. If her creator doesn’t forget ist *cough*, she always has the watch with her. But what kind of watch does a mermaid carry around? I simply thought of a Water Watch, a watch driven by water and telling the time by water (you may spot it if you zoom in).

Plus ther is a water bear around, the kind of water bears my compromised fantasy came up with and which doesn’t have to do much with real water bears. To put the fork in Crissea’s pocket was some kind of makeshift to check another prompt from the prompt checklist.

Digital painting, comic style: My OC Crissy Faith (here: Crissea) in a mermaid version; young woman, short purple hair, big, round glasses, yellow top, black and yellow striped mermaid tail, the fins around the waist are building an overall with open strings; her butt is out of the water of a river, she is working on a contraption which stays on the river's bottom, beside her you can spot a small bear under water; text: "Co-Workers - Crissea joins the team".

As with Paula … one of the prompts was „The Guardian“. What Guardian did I want for these two workers? Then, Paula came into my mind. It would’ve been a nice thought to mermaid her too. It also would be her full character trait to guard her girlfriend … or rather to do the watcher’s job. So, she is guardian and if you look where she is you will see, she is glancing at Crissea’s butt.

To meet her personality I also gave her the tail of a pike, a hunter, a predator, fast and agile, preying on other fishes (mermaids). Ther also it the proverb in German that literally translates to „stunning pike“, referring to a person (usually a man but I won’t mind using it for any sex and gender) who is attractive and sexual active to a large extent.

Btw, while thinking about mermaid Paula’s fishtail I also thought about her name and finally, she got a suname: Luce – from „Lucius“, the Latin name of the Northern Pike. I first thought of calling her „Paula Pike“ but, well, that would’ve been a name for a Disney cartoon character, so „Luce“ it is!

Week 3: Lake

Where the waters started running.

For the third week we again prepared a cutout. This time we changed the style to a blur with clear parts, so it hopefully will look better.

We also are plannning to give again an introduction to the prompts but it isn’t ready, yet. I will share them here as soon as this is the case.

Le Mere Weeks

The whole painting; digital painting, comic style: Merindiana Jane, a mermaid resembling Indiana Jones, dark blue hair, a stingray as hat, looking determined, holding a deactivated Light Sword (Star Wars), swimming towards the right upper corner of the painting, dragging Ceratia with her, a mermaid bases on and anglerfish including a light bulb on a rod originating on her forehead; above both a seal diving into the water; in the background a dark bottom and the wreck of the Nautilus (submarine), two divers apporaching the wrack in front of the shadow of a giant octopus; next to this wrack a giant black dead starfish; in the right corner a submarine hill with corals and sea anemones, two shadows in the most right bottom corner; there are schools of fish in the water; in the right upper corner a yellow part of land with the back legs and the tail of a giant turtle, a red and white striped lighthouse and a palm tree on top of this island with a black flag showing fishbone; text: "The Return of the Merindiana Jane".

The Return of the Merindiana Jane – 4WeeksMermay Week 2

The first week of Mermay is over. While the first week’s painting came together part by part on social media, I already was working on the second week’s one and I still am. Tbh, I’m not sure if it will be finished before the start of the second week but every day’s prompt I manage to add to the painting will buy me time.

In the past week there were some lovely entries from other artists who joined the 4WeeksMermay. You will find their work under the respective Hashtag on Instagram.

Please feel invited to join any time!

The Return of the Merindiana Jane

The first painting of this year’s Mermay features my OC Merindiana Jane on her way back to the surface, dragging Ceratia behind. You will find the progress in my Instagram gallery, on Ko-fi, Twitter and on this website’s 4WeeksMermay page.

According to the prompts, I added another detail every day: Deep Sea, Coral, Seal, Star Wars, Octopus/Kraken, Beach, Island. Within these details there were several references and Easter eggs to discover, if you know my paintings of the last years or browse through them again.

Both characters and their stories are quite obvious to spot. But did you spot the two shadows in the right bottom corner, too? The corals are from last year and it seems, a certain („We are not!“) couple isn’t this far away yet.

Mermay3, "Coral", digital painting, comic style: Nema, the clownfish mermaid with short orange hair standing behind a big red coral in front of a lot of sea anemones. In the right corner of the painting Merdusa, the Medusa mermaid (greyisch blue skin, white snakes on her head, white tail with yellow spots) crossing arms, text: M.: "Still not ready?" - N.: "DON'T peep!" - M.: "In your dreams."

Then, there is the Death Starfish. It showed up in Mermay 2019 but also the mermaid light swords were established back then. Please have mercy, it was right at the beginning of my renewed art journey.

From the very beginning you also could spot the sunken submarine and if you looked closer, two figures diving towards it. On day 5, the Kraken emerged. You already saw this scene, last year, from another perspective:

Mermay 27, "Nautilus", digital painting, comic style: A wrecked submarine (the Nautilus) seen from far, Engineeriel and Fabricius diving towards it, a dark shadow in the foreground, title: "Engineeriel - Her Greatest Discovery"

Last but not least, I took the opportunity to honor Nick Burgoyne (again), whose stories and novels („The Deepest Shore“ and „The Hearts beyond our Roots“) took me on a fantastic journey which still sticks in my head.

I had the idea of this kind of island some time before I read the books. After reading the first book, I noticed the similarity and took the opportunity to honor the turtle Gaw with this specific lighthouse.

If you don’t know what I mean, just read the novels. The physical copies of them are really well made and you cann appreciate the drawings to the fullest. Of course, you also can give the e-booke a try first to see if you like them.

Week 2: River

Back to the hatching place.

Second week again comes with a cutout and an introduction of the oncoming prompts. As usual, you will find them on the 4WeeksMermay subpage but they will be on my Instagram account soon, too.

This means, starting tomorrow I will build up a new painting, featuring another mermaid. And, to tease things, add two more. I’d ly, if I’d say they are familiar mermaids, but the won’t be new either …

Here They Are Again

Digital painting, comic style: Merindiana Jane, a mermaid resembling Indiana Jones, dark blue hair, a stingray as hat, looking determined, swimming towards the right upper corner of the painting, dragging Ceratia with her, a mermaid bases on and anglerfish including a light bulb on a rod originating on her forehead; in the background a dark bottom and the wreck of the Nautilus (submarine), two divers apporaching the wrack; text: "Rising from the depths - Merindiana Jane heading back to the surface after her unplanned descent into the deep sea trench - dragging Ceratia behind".

4WeeksMermay Week 1 – Rising from the Depths

Welcome back not only to this PaintLog but also to Mermay. First thing I did last week was to finally translate the old Mermay pages into English. So you not longer have to translate them with Google translate to get a (more or less) accessible version.

Now that the countdown is down, you will get a new part of my Mermay week’s painting every day.

Enjoy the ride!

Week 1: Ocean

The place where alle life emerged.

One day ago we shared a cutout of our prompt board, showing the prompts of the first week. There also is a short introduction to every prompt. You will find them on the 4WeeksMermay subpage and on my Instagram account, of course.

The purpose was not only to remind you of our Mermay (again) but also to give you inspiration what you may make of each prompt. Still, feel free to go beyond those interpretations, let your fantasy fly!

Cutout of the prompt board, you can see the prompts of the first week: Week 1 Ocean (1th-8th), Deep Sea, Beach, Coral, Seal, Star Wars, Octopus/Kraken, Island.

Rising from the Depths

This is the first part I’m going to reveal of the 1st Mermay’s week. If you follow me and this website long enough, you will remember that my OC Merindiana Jane got thrown into a deep sea trench by Captain Tigra „Sushi“ Selachii in Mermay 2020. Last year, in Mermay 2021, she fell into the arms of Ceratia, my anglerfish mermaid.

Ceratia always had trouble making friends because of her grand appetite and the abyssal instinct to catch everything in front of her mouth that’s small enough. Merindia being too tall to be eaten, Ceratia finally literally found a friend.

Now that she freed Meri from her sushi wrapping, she of course will accompany her back to the surface.

I’m honest, I like how I’m spanning a story over three years, actuallyl four because I introduced both characters already in Mermay 2019.

I redrew Meri some weeks before, not exactly preparing for Mermay but the redraw still was a great help when now painting her again. Ceratia however is a full and new redraw I did just for this painting. By doing this the design changed hardly visible (the shoulder pads). There are other features I’m going to give her but I will wait for it for the time I paint her for the Mermay Squad.

Of course there also are other things to spot from previous Mermays. You will learn more about them in the course of the next week …

New Worlds

Digital painting, comic style: A young woman sitting at the edga of a big hill; she's got blue skin, shimmering in some places, blue antlers and long purple hair with white dots, long ears facing down withing this hair; she wears a white tanktop, a yellow skirt, brown sandals and red ribbons around her ankles; small vegetation on the hill, pase rose clouds beneath her feet, a purple sky with light purple trails of clouds.

Lirita on Yamur’s Hill – Remember Bob

Perhaps you already noticed last week, I gave the website a tiny makeover. For a start, I translated the DTIYS and the Fanart subpage into English (more subpages are to follow soon).

Done this I took the opportunity to rearrange the top menu and the website’s structure. You not longer need an „English Corner“, instead the still German parts are separated).

You also will find a countdown for our 4Weeks Mermay. Speaking of … the preparations are going on.

Now it’s only one week ahead but this year I won’t paint one painting for every day but I plan to work on one big painting for each week and to share parts of it regularly.

Wait and see next week.

Lirita on Yamur’s Hill

Last weekend I finally read the story which still is unfolding on the Instagram account of nick.burgoyne.art. I’m following him quite a while since his beautiful paintings caught my eye.

The wekek before he asked people to give him OCs to draw as an excercise and I gave him Samandra to draw. I was really happy and loved his version of her. Following this I took the time to also read the stories his paintings are about.

This way, I dived into a fascinating world with adorable characters. One of them is Lirita. I liked this grumpy girl the moment she first appeared.

So, I painted a scene from part 29 of the „Travels through Feilahn“ story arc – or at least how I depicted it in my head as I read this part.

I tried to go with the most current design of her, although the old ones still shining through. Additionally, instead of choosing one of the beautiful, colourful patterned dresses she is wearing lately, I went for a simpler desing.

I’d lie if I’d say it was only because she hasn’t been long in Varla at this moment in time, so she would rather wear clothes she was accustomed to, the ones she wore on her travels before.

Lirita on Yamur’s Hill

Remember Bob

Nick’s „Travels through Feilahn“ stories on Instagram are not his only go on this universe. They actually started as some kind of spin-off of his his novels „The Deepest Shore“ and „The Hearts Beyond Our Roots“.

Therefore, it only seemed to be logical to start with the books as soon as I finished the „Travels through Feilahn“ to learn more about the main character Dew and the world she grew up in.

Recently, I got to a scene which – sad as it actually may be (poor Bob sigh) – made me laugh and inspired me to do a painting about the blobs it featured.

It’s also quite cute because of Dew’s guilty reaction and how „Bob“ actually came to his name. Still, I don’t want to spoiler as the painting isn’t a spoiler either. If you read the novel, you will know and you also will know how the original scene turned out.

Originally, I only planned a quick doodle, a sketch at most but whenever I got a stylus and a digital canvas at hand, it elaborated towards a fully rendered painting.

The blobs in the story are depicted deep black. I went for a dark blue which turned out still too light for my taste but will work, if you consider it a blue ink sketch.

Challenging

A prompt board for the 4 Weeks Mermay 2022 Mermay challenge; a landscape characterized by four bodies of water (from top to bottom): The ocean with its beaches, a river flowing through the landscape, coming from a lake which transforms into a Swamp, the prompts a drawn into the landscape, the names of the prompts of each category coloured in the same colour; each category is attached to a week; Week 1 Ocean (1th-8th), Deep Sea, Beach, Coral, Seal, Star Wars, Octopus/Kraken, Island; Week 2 River (9th-15th), Fork, Steampunk City, Bridge, Salmon, Waterfall, Swing, Guardian; Week 3 Lake (16th-23rd), Night Sky, Nessie, Love, Axolotl, Cenote; Week 4 Swamp (24rd-31st), Snake, Frog, Water Plants, Spa, Witch, (Un)Dead.

Comic, 2 panels, digital painting: In the upper panel a balloon made of purple adomination goo in front of a dark purple night sky, some pink flowers are tied to the balloon, pink blossoms flying through the bottom rigt corner of the painting, start of the text: " 'Probaly doesn't work that way. "; bottom panel: a purple vase with a single white flower in front of a dark blue night sky (the positions of the stars are inverted in comparison to the first panel), in the bottom left corner some fading blossoms.

Digital painting, comic style: Young woman with firey middle-short red-brown hair leaning on a railing, the left arm rised into the air, the right hand holding the railing, the left feet, barefoot, behind her in the air, the wind is blowing through her hair and playing with a thin red shirt with white dots, she is wearing light beige trousers, there is a ear ring in her ear; pale yellow, orange and red sunset background.

4 Weeks Mermay 2022 – Reaching Out – Melis 300

Some weeks are more challenging, some are less. On the private field, last week was quite since I was on leave and didn’t have to bother with my bread and butter job and similar stuff.

This gave room and energy for doing work in the creative field. So, I got time to finish three works I’m not shy to say that I’m quite proud of, each one standing out in its own rights.

4 Weeks Mermay

I hinted at it before and althoug strictly speaking it was the last of mentioned projects, I am so happy to announce it first!

Mermay is coming and as announced earlier, again I was planning something. No, we were planning something. This year I teamed up again with Potato Beta (Instagram). You remember our Arcryla City collabs? Yes, it’s her again.

Together we came up with our own Mermay Prompt Board. Although I somehow always managed to draw every day during the last 3 Mermays, it can be really tiresome and a lot of pressure.

Therefore we created a Mermay which gives prompts for weeks, not for days. Of course you can paint every day but you also can do only one painting for a couple of days with as many prompts as you like.

Of course you can paint every day but you also can do only one painting for a couple of days with as many prompts as you like.

Plus: There is a Joker prompt which allows you to turn any (non-mermaid) character into a mermaid version. And yes, there is a reason why a „Steampunk City“ also is on the Prompt Board. Speaking of … since it’s Easter, there are 3-4 Easter eggs hidden in the drawing. Some of them can be found by knowing earlier paintings of Potato and me (hint: Arcryla City), other ones are not that easy to find but knowing about us and Zelda games may help.

I again adjusted my website and now you not only will find a countdown but also an own 4Weeks Mermay subpage. There you will find the Prompt Board, the guide we wrote and finally my own entries as soon as Mermay starts.

We’d love to welcome you to our Mermay!

Prompt Board + Guide

Reaching Out

Strictly speaking I should have shared this one in this PaintLog already last Sunday. However, I was too short of time to do this and you know what I’m saying „It’s always good to have another painting up you sleeves for the next PaintLog“.

The Saturday before, another amazing episode of The Owl House aired. This led to a new painting of mine depicting the most intense scene of this episode.

I didn’t expect this painting to become my new top posting on Instagram (>70 likes currently), but here we go …

The painting refers to the last few minutes of mentioned episode. You will find a full review on my The OwlLog pages. which of course is spoilery. However, I don not consider the painting itself spoilery, if you know, you know, if not you don’t. Still, please be aware that I will referring to details of the episode while sharing the thoughts I had when painting this art piece.

„Probably doesn’t work that way“, well, doesn’t it? I immediately noticed how the colours of Amity’s adomination goo balloon and Camila’s vase matches each others and there are even the same kind of flowers (but for the colour, obviously).

In a symbolic, metaphorically way it does work, althought not in a strict physical sense, of course.

In my painting I intended to emphasize this symbolism even more. I not only put balloon and vase with the flowers straight one above the other, I also drew the vase’s neck thinner than in the episode, even more, the whole form of the vase basically is just a copied and mirrored form of the balloon.

Apropos mirrored … same applies for the stars in the background. They are exactly the same stars, just seen from the other side, symbolizing that Luz as well as Camila still are walking under the same (mental) sky though divided by dimensions.

But not only balloon, flowers, vase and stars show there connection despite division, I also painted in a band of flying blossoms. They are the blossoms of the Grom tree Luz and Amity created together in season 1 and the scene shows them flying away with the balloon.

At first, I only wanted to paint them into the top panel but then I thought „What if …?“ and this „What if …?“ turned out to create said band connecting both realms.

Honestly, I’m glad that I met the mood of this scene so well.

„Probably doesn’t work that way.
But it’s a nice thought, right?“

Melis 300

Last but not least, one of my mutuals on Instagram, Et_Meli, reached the milestone of 300 followers. Therefore, she hosted a DTIYS I participated.

So first of all: Congratulations to 300 followers, Meli! They are well deserved. Ever since I first saw your art, I loved how cute and how adorable it is. Watching your paintings and your progress makes me happy every time.

In this painting I saw life, I saw vitality, joy and fire, I saw ladybugs and fly agaric. I tried to put all of this into my version.

Along the way I wondered why I saw ladybugs despite white dots (not black ones). Still, I kept this impression but at the same time mentioned fly agaric came up, so there were both.

If you know me, you know that I always try to do something unique with a DTIYS original. This time, I changed the pose slightly. Not only to emphasize the vitality but also to practice painting feet in perspecives I am not used to yet.

I also changed the hair, I shortened it (what could I say? I simply like short hair) and gave it the fire of the sunset.

Because of mentioned impressions, I changed the earring too. First I thought of an earring in the form of a ladybugs but the black dots didn’t show well in this small scale. So, it became a fly agaric, matching the white dots of the shirt.

I had struggles with the baqckground, though. Sunsets usually are fruitful backgrounds, easy to paint, great lighting to gain, you cannot do much wrong with sunsets, especially if you use a gradient layer.

However, I had problems to find the right colours. They had to be as pale as in the original but then they lacked contrast. You wouldn’t have sees the woman this sharp, if I’d stuck to the original colours. So I divided the background colour scheme in two halves with an orange part in the middle and I added a rim light et voila – perfection!