Hurrying to the Fantasy AU

Digital Painting, comic style, simple beige background, light shadows: Paula in fantasy version; young woman, short turqoise hair; toe nails painted in rainbow colour, finger nails in lesbian Pride flag colour; she's wearing some kind of green leaf-like loincloth that only covers breasts, lap and butt, green braces, a knive in a sheath of leaf optic, a bag also in leaf optic, turqoise wrist bands, a green leaf band at her right ankle, a pink shell band at her left one and a golden neck band; she is holding a wooden bow and arrow; in the background the outline of a flying big bird with a strong beak; text: "Paula Lûce".

The Hurricorn – Arcryla Citiy Fantasy Festival

It’s been cooler a little bit last week but still quite warm. While I had some time to draw, next week will be packed a lot with job’s busy work, so please be patient with me, if there will not be that much new art (although I already prepared one this weekend). Technically speaking, in the past week there was not much news for you.

I already announced last week the start of the Arcryla City Summer Fantasy Festival last week. Of course there again is a separate subpage for this event, following the same structure like the 2021 event. Likewise, it shouldn’t surprise you that I also created a new unicorn for vitranas_arts‘ Junicorn challenge.

The Hurricorn

Third week vitranas_arts Junicorn challenge has passed and again I did a drawing matching the third week’s Wind theme and accompanying subtopics. Again it’s part of Samandra’s Fabric journal.

Creating a wind based unicorn, a birdlike creature came to my mind. At one point of the design process I even thought of giving it a bird’s beak but it was hard enough to keep the unicorn features in this creature, so I went with the simple snout.

I’ve to admit, I was almost finished as I spotted that the legs were rather tall for a flying bird. To fix this issue, I also made it a running bird, this way also fitting the unicorn theme. Since I right from the beginning thought of giving it the power to create strong wind blows (and with the horn even tornadoes), it worked out nicely in the end.

The name, of course, is a pune on „Hurricane“.

This time it’s Samandra who gets in trouble by being caught of one of these wind blows and she isn’t too proud to admit it (although she also doodled a facepalm into the journal).

„Running faster than a horse, ruling the sky like thunder, the Hurricorn is on the hunt, causing storms and mayhem thereunder.“

PS: After request I also did a smartphone wallpaper of the Hurricorn for supporters on Ko-fi. The size should fit for most smartphone screens but if it’s completely out of the frame, please just tell me.

A Festival in the Fantasy AU

I’m really hyped that there is another Summer Festival again on my beloved Arcryla City Discord server. We had so much fun, last year, participating the showcases, looking at all the great artworks we came up with, the comments, the chitchat.

This year our OC’s have been transferred into a fantasy AU realm, main challenge prompts and general prompts following this topic.

To remind you: The showcases for the main challenge prompts are taking place every two weeks on Saturday evenings Pacific Standard Time (PST), meaning in the Suday morning hours of European time zones.

Since the entries for the main challenges are revealed during the showcases, I’m going to share them only afterwards to keep mine as a surprise. Still, this fits perfectly with publishing my PaintLog.

The first main challenge asked for a fantasy version of our Arcryla City OC’s. I, of course, went with my OC Crissy.

Crissy doing Crissy things, creating, fixing and crippling devices whenever required – but keeping away from people as good as possible.

Digital Painting, comic style, simple beige background, light shadows: Crissy in a fantasy version; young woman, short purple hair, big round glasses, bellyfree leather top, leather skirt, a hook, a bag, a pocket watch, a purse and a quiver with arrows on her girdle, orange-brown striped trousers, toefree boots, blue cape, a small crossbow mounted on her right lower arm, she is putting an arrow in it with her left hand; text: "Cristalya Coraly "Crissy" Fayth".

I slightly changed her name to make it sound more mediaval, but stuck to her usual colors, the boots‘ and trousers‘ design, the skirt and the top resembling the mechanic’s coat of her steampunk design. The glasses are made of a wooden frame, however, and instead of a steam driven driller she’s equipped with a arm-mounted crossbow. This is inspired by the hand-mounted crossbow Marcy Wu in show the Amphibia used to carry around.

Charactersheet, digital Painting, comic style, simple beige background, light shadows: Crissy in a fantasy version; young woman, short purple hair, big round glasses, bellyfree leather top, leather skirt, a hook, a bag, a pocket watch, a purse and a quiver with arrows on her girdle, orange-brown striped trousers, toefree boots, blue cape, a small crossbow mounted on her right lower arm, she is putting an arrow in it with her left hand; descriptive text to her sides: "Cristalya Coraly "Crissy" Fayth; (Rogue); "Gadgetsmith (learned locksmith but using this title only so loosely)"; "Croossbow Hook (for carrying when not in use)"; "Tool Bag"; "Special Skills: Inventing + Repairing; Picking Locks"; "Dismantling traps"; "Crippling things without visible damage"; "Arm-mounted Crossbow"; "Working Knife"; "Weaknesses: Handling people; (Slightly) Afraid of Heights"; "Except for skilled finger's work clumsy and chaotic in almost everything else".

Since there also are DnD game nights going on during the festival and although I won’t going to participate, I wanted to keep the option open, I also gave her a classical DnD class, fitting her finger (and fighting) skills best. The character traits are the same like the Crissy’s ones in the steampunk world.

Almost immediately after reading the first main challenge prompt, also an image of Crissy’s girlfriend Paula in a fantasy outfit popped to my mind. There were green clothes right from the beginning and also a bow, but Initially I had something more Robin Hoodish in mind. I dumped this approach to fit her character better.

Deep in the forest, Paula found herself race swapped into a wood elf. Not that she did mind, after all, cool bow and arrows went with it and she even got a flying mount.

Like Crissy’s I changed her name slightly to sound more mediaval and instead of a jetbike, she now is accompanyed by a big flying mount. I chose her to be a elf because, well, I thought of her as some (gothic) kind of vivid elf or sprite right from the beginning.

I came up with the flying mount quite lately (everyhting else already painted and texted) but since Paula owns a jetbike in the steampunk realm, it only would fit her chraracter (again, I kep all of her character traits she’s got in the steampunk realm).

My first thoughts were revolving around the bird Marcy Wu (yeah, again, and again Amphibia) rides in her show but were wiped away by the chocobo birds you get in Final Fantasy with the addition to be able to fly. Still, the name of Paula’s bird refers to Marcy’s one who was called „Joe Sparrow“.

„Paula, having the attention span not of a young kitten but of a full-grown lioness, reconsidering her day’s target when distracted by her girlfriend Crissy.“

Digital Painting, comic style, simple beige background, light shadows: 1) Crissy and 2) Paula in fantasy versions; 1) young woman, short purple hair, big round glasses, bellyfree leather top, leather skirt, a hook, a bag, a purse and a quiver with arrows on her girdle, orange-brown striped trousers, toefree boots, blue cape, a small crossbow mounted on her right lower arm, she is putting an arrow in it with her left hand; 2) young woman, short turqoise hair; toe nails painted in rainbow colour, finger nails in lesbian Pride flag colour; she's wearing some kind of green leaf-like loincloth that only covers breasts, lap and butt, green braces, a knive in a sheath of leaf optic, a bag also in leaf optic, turqoise wrist bands, a green leaf band at her right ankle, a pink shell band at her left one and a golden neck band; she is holding a wooden bow and arrow; in the background the outline of a flying big bird with a strong beak.

Btw, this is one of the rare occasions that you can spot that she actually is smaller than Crissy since in her steampunk design she always wears those high heel platform shoes.

Floods, Phones and Fires

The Floodycorn – Phone Call – Campfire Queens

Summer is coming. It’s already here and we got some really hot days. Although I tried to keep my flat cool, my brain was baking. Therefore, please excuse if this PaintLog is one day late and won’t be as elaborated as usual, some parts will even contain just the information you perhaps already know from my Instagram postings.

This week I managed to share three new paintings, including the one I announced in last week’s PaintLog. It took us long enough to finish it (see below), so it has all the rights to get a special shoutout.

It’s another Arcryla City Collab with Potato beta from Instagram and a follow-up to the Sleepover and the Zeppelin Night Ride painting. Additionally, I’d like to tell you that 2022 there will be another Arcryla City Summer Festival, this time taking place in a fantasy realm AU.

So, you can look forward to new bi-weekly prompts and another general prompts list. Actually, I’m already working on the first of the bi-weekly prompts. The showcase will take place next Saturday evening / Sunday morning. So, I already will be able to share it in my next PaintLog.

The Floodycorn

My second entry to vitranas_arts Junicorn challenge, featuring the second week’s Water theme and accompanying subtopics and again as part of Samandra’s journal.

Biggest reference to this one was the narwhale, the unicorn of the seas. First I thought of placing it in the icy waters the narwhale lives in, with a horn made of ice, but I got carried away with the background and placed it in more swampy waters.

And besides, I planned to depict a doodle of Raven in frog form right from the beginnung, so icy waters wouldn’t have been fitting at all. This way it also fits into Raven’s witches universe.

„Roaming the flooded forest river’s shores you will find the Floodycorn. Despite its cold appearance it has a hot temper and attacks anything that doesn’t respect its territory.““

Phone Call

We planned and worked on this one since last December/January but as life goes we finished it just now. So, the events took place months ago but technically they actually happen just one day after the Zeppelin Night Ride (shared on 7 December 2021) which itself takes place one day after the Sleepover (shared on 19 September 2021).

We decided to put the narrative part on own text sheets, so it can be easier read. We also created a memory booard to refer to mentioned previous collabs plus some deco stuff. This way we didn’t have to add all the old paintings. Since the memory board would show real items, Potato draw some kind of selfie of the Sleepover, taken after both had one glass of wine or the other (Crissy doesn’t have surveillance cameras in her apartment, of course).

The painting is split in two halves, one showing Crissy and one showing Potato with their respective partners in the background. In the background of Potato’s half you will find pictures of several events her OC faced in the past (and which she depicted in their own paintings).

Likewise you will find several details of past events in my half. There is the interior of the living room, of course, but also the glasses, one the same a from the Zeppelin Night Ride – along the wine bottle Paula nicked that evening (and from which the photographer took a photo that you also can spot in this painting and in the memory board).

As for the designs of the phones (which we called „soundtelegraphe“), we thought of some of those very ancient phones. For Crissy I painted some kind of engine, a whole communication center she built by herself. If you look close you will find a menu how to connect the coloured wires so call the person of your choice. Btw: We both were quite relieved as the Arcryla City admins verye recently confirmed that there are phones around in Arcryla City – pheeewy!

You also will spot that the wires are in the colours of the rainbow, the LGBTIA+ flag, and that there also are three lights in the colours of the pansexual flag, representing Crissy’s orientation. But I thought of Paula too. On the table lies a key with a trinket showing the Lesbian Pride flag.

Campfire Queens

I am a big fan of Carles Dalmau and his amazing art with all those fascinating characters and the situations they get into. Some time ago he designed a card game set that very recently got shipped and arrived just last week.

It is wonderful designed! Please take a look at the artwork.

The decks came in two versions (day and night). When laying both decks next to each other I noticed my two favorite characters being printed on the backs of the wrappings in a way that when you put them together, they kind of merge into a new figure. That inspired me to this painting.

I love the story behind these two characters and the calendar that Carles designed is hanging on my wall showing the November picture because it features exactly them.

Still, this is not the only reason I called the painting „Campfire Queens“ but also because in the card game set they literally are the Queens, too!

I started with painting the night version, a whoole picture, followed by the day version. From the start I tried to draw the lines in a way, that they would match in the end. However, if you support me on Ko-fi, you perhaps may have spotted that the first day version which I shared as wip was slightly different to the one in the finished paintings.

The reason being that not every line matched and I had to correct them before finishing everything. With some parts (the shirt and the trousers) it was quite easy while the face and the foot took some concentration.

Woody Anticipations

The Woodycorn – Anticipations

As you can see the today’s PaintLog is online a little bit later (and perhaps a little bit shorter) than usual. I had to work yesterday morning and just didn’t find the time afterwards.

The Mermay gone on the one hand it felt a little bit like a delight. On the other hand a little bit hollow since I’ll have to orientate myself again on which of my OCs and topics I shoul work next.

Technically, there were a whole weekend plus a holiday last week but I didn’t really find a start into „not drawing mermaids“ again.

At least I managed to do two new drawings in the end and a third one is in the pipeline right now (it will be published on my birthday on Thursday).

The Woodycorn

This painting is an entry to vitranas_arts Junicorn challenge, featuring the first week’s Earth theme and accompanying subtopics. It’s one approach out of three.

The first approach would’ve been a full scale painting I didn’t feel I’d manage at this time and in time. It was similar to this one whereas the 2nd approach would’ve been totally different, just depicting some mini unicorns on the ground level of a forest.

Right at the start I had the idea of a scene with my OCs Raven and Samandra. For this third approach I kept this thought but transferred it towards a journals‘ entry.

„Being a fabric mage means knowing where to get your magic stuff to weave into your clothes. So, Samandra wrote down any bit of information she got to look it up again whenever the need arises.“

Anticipations

Amphibia and The Owl House spoilers ahead

In the last two weeks I did two Amphibia x The Owl House (x Gravity Falls) crossovers. Because of the fun ot it and because there were even more ideas, I created one more crossover shenanigan.

This time a spoiler warning and a CN tag seemed appropriate (although most of the fans probably woulde have watched both shows/seasons finales by now).

I’m following a lot of The Owl House and Amphibia accounts on Instagram and Twitter and it’s always exciting which anticipations the fandom is coming up with. I often don’t know where they are getting those ideas from in the first place but their reasoning always seems logical enough to (almost) follow them.

In these cases there were a wildly spread fan theory that Anne (Amphibia) would lose an arm during her show. At the same time there was one that Luz (The Owl House) would get possessed by The Collector (or rather The Collector in theis physcial form can only exist by possessing somebody (and this being Luz)). So, this painting again is dedicated to all the fans who expected one of those two things happening but got … err … disappointed will be the wrong word … again, it (luckily) just wasn’t meant to be canon (yet).

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

Merlamander

Character sheet, digital painting, comic style: Merindiana Jane, a mermaid resembling Indiana Jones, light brown skin, bluish black long hair, brown fish tail with a golden tail fin, bellyfree tanktop, a belt across her hips with a light blue whip at her left hip, she is looking determinded putting a ray as hat in her head; the background is pergament coloured, resembling a journal page; explanatory text: "Merindiana Jane - Restless Raider of the Sunken Arks -; Inofficial leader of the Mermay Squad; Adventurous treasure hunter and enterprising explorer, risk-takingly eager to swim where no mermaid had swum before; Discoverer of the Lost Pineapple, finder of the Golden Spatula, Seeker of the Dentist's Bubble Chest; The whip is made of jellyfish tentacles; The hat always comes back to her (because it's a stingray); Always getting in trouble but also being able to wriggle out of it; Coffee addict since an adventure involving a sunken truck, hot underwater springs and a wagonload of best Arabica-Coffee Extra Strong; She only fears Seantipedes: Giant underwater centipedes haunting the Lost Pineapple Plains and other places; Archrival: Captain "Sushi" Tigra Selachii, Pirate of the High Seas, Terror of the Seven Beaches since they are usually hunting the same treasures; Met Ceratia the anglerfish mermaid (and became her friend) after she had to walk the plank over a deep sea trench".

Merindiana’s Character Sheet – Weaving Magic

Another week flew by, some more paintings got finished and since it’s beginning of April, I already started preparing for Mermay (this time the actual Mermay, not the redraws of my old Mermay mermaid OCs). I can’t tell you yet, so please stay patient.

In the meantime more ideas grew regarding Crissy and Raven + Samandra but I’m not sure when (or if) I will be able to finalize them. But don’t let’s talk about what I may not be able to, let’s see what I managed during the past week:

Merindiana’s Character Sheet

In the beginning of the past week I finally finished Merindiana’s character sheet in addition to the last week’s redraw. It mentions a lot of events from previous Mermay paintings depicting her.

I also love to put in pop cultural references into my paintings and my OCs. In this one, there are at least nine different ones. Leave a comment, if you can spot them!

Weaving Magic

Another follow-up to last week’s PaintLog is the continuation of Raven the Witch Apprentice’s story.

Last week, I introduced Samandra Elvennewt. This week, I threw more light onto Samandra’s witchcraft skills. The painting kinda got out of hand since I originally only planned a quick, tiny drawing, not necessarily even with Raven in it. However, this is a crucial part of the story of their relationship, so Raven had to be with part of the picture. And after this, I got carried away more and more.

I tried to change the body poses a little bit and to play around with blur and lighting. Then, in the middle of the drawing process, I got this idea of Sam’s spots glowing whenever she does magic.

First I thought of her living in some kind of closet with clothes hanging in the foreground but then I loved the idea of a full moon shining on the two of them and her sleeping place actually being in the attic of her witch’s hat (the only place she could spare as she hexed her into human being):

Saying Samandra was a great fabric mage wasn’t just figuratively speaking. She found her special field of study in bewitching clothes. This came handy after Raven nearly lost her amulet in the course of an unintented form-changing frog moment. The amulet was all that remained of Raven’s family. Sam, after having learned about this, tailored her a special collar to make sure this would never happen again.

Salamermays

Digital Painting, comic style: Raven, a young woman with light rosy skin, short white hair in sidecut, barefoot, wearing a golden brown dress, tied with a rope in the middle, a pouch and a necklace with a raven charme, the left hand and the right foot are turned into frog hand and foot, Raven is looking amused towards the right, her her left a small pink frog sitting on the floor, Text: "Raven Frogfeet"

Raven and Sam – Merindiana Jane and The Mermay Squad 3/X

When reading these words you surely will notice, I’ve switched to English language when writing my PaintLog. Last week it was the second birthday of my website. It started as a German speaking website since I only had a German speaking target groupe. This changed in the course of the last one and a half year since I started posting on Instagram and joining English speaking Discord servers.

Even then I stuck to German and just added an English translation but since my target groupe became more international and the translation (and linking in both columns) always needs its time, even with DeepL translate, I’m going to try to skip the German part and writing in English right away. I’m also going to change the PaintLog’s structure a little bit (well … giving it structure!):

Raven and Sam

Last week I introduced my new OC Raven Frogfeet, my entry for the SoG Moodboard Challenge but also an OC who enriched my imagination. Not long after submitting my entry, I painted her in frog form and after that I now created Samandra Elvennewt, her companion and soulmate.

These ideas were heavily influenced by the Tiffany Aching novels of the late Terry Pratchett. They have some nice witch apprentices interactions within them and somehow like this witches‘ universe I imagine my witch universe with Raven (and now Samandra) in it.

The witches are less morally integer than Granny Weatherwax, obviously, turning people into animals and vice versa on purpose. They may not intend any harm and in fact Raven as well as Sam are quite content with their new lives, still this is a mistreatment they will struggle with, a plot point for further exploration later on.

After finishing the introducing Samandra charachters sheet, I also gave them a sheet of their own:

$Digital Painting, comic style: Raven to the left, a young woman with light rosy skin, short white hair in sidecut, barefoot, wearing a golden brown dress, tied with a rope in the middle, a pouch and a necklace with a raven charme, the left hand and the right foot are turned into frog hand and foot, Raven is looking annpoyed towards the frog foot; Samandra to the right, a young woman with brown skin and yellow frackles and spots on her body, neck long red hair, barefoot, wearing light brown leather trousers with buttons on the sides of the legs, a red tailor's bag by her side and a grey apron-like dress held by some ropes as straps, a scissor and needles tucked into a band on the of front part of her dress, a ruler in her right hand; she's looking amused towards Raven, covering her grin with the left hand; Text: "Samandra Elvennewt", "When you are a witch apprentice, you meet other witch apprentices. One of them was Samandra Elvennewt. She was a natural with needle and thread and experienced in retailoring clothes of people who occasionally turn into animals (you get them a lot around witches and wizards). She retailored Raven's dress which was no more than a mere sack before and together they travelled around a lot.>>"$
$Digital Painting, comic style: Raven to the left, a young woman with light rosy skin, short white hair in sidecut, barefoot, wearing a golden brown dress, tied with a rope in the middle, a pouch and a necklace with a raven charme, the left hand and the right foot are turned into frog hand and foot, Raven is looking amused towards Samandra, to her left a small pink frog sitting on the floor; Samandra to the right, a young woman with brown skin and yellow frackles and spots on her body, neck long red hair, barefoot, wearing light brown leather trousers with buttons on the sides of the legs, a red tailor's bag by her side and a grey apron-like dress held by some ropes as straps, a scissor and needles tucked into a band on the of front part of her dress, a ruler in her right hand, a tall fire salamander's tail appeared on her back, waving the back of her dress into the air, she's looking embarrassed out of the corners of her eyes towards the tail, blushing, still covering her mouth with the left hand, right to her a small fire salamander; Text: "Samandra shared Raven's fate in reverse. Originally she was a fire salamander. The whitch she was apprentice of was in need of a helper who could do the chores she wasn't able to do anymore. So she simply turned a newt into a human being. Since Sam was a fast learner and also showed talent in witchcraft, she finally raised her as her apprentice. Although not completely voluntarily drawn into apprenticeship, she, like Raven, preferred her new life to the old one (not having many memories of it anyway)."$

Merindiana and The Mermay Squad

Well, no, your calendar is not wrong, it’s still March, it’s still a month to go until Mermay. Still, you may remember that I started to redraw my Mermay OCs in the beginning of this year.

I already did redraws of Nema and Merdusa, this week it was Merindiana’s turn. I wasn’t able to finish the character sheet yet but i surely will be next week (it’s always good to have a painting for the next PaintLog up the sleeves).

Merindiana is one of my most often drawn mermaids ever. I created her for my first Mermay participation in Mermay 2019 in which she had four appeareances and once again four times in Mermay 2020 and in Mermay 2021. In the meantime there even was a cameo in my Inktober 2019 painting.

In all this time there were visible design changes and this time I changed her slightly, too. The most obvious item is the belt to fix the whip (it was never depicted how she actually carry it along before). Other changes were made with the fin tail, it’s more transparent now, the top has become bellyfree, she got more muscles and visible abs and the hip crest and the top are torn at some points.

Of course, I put her together with Nema and Merdusa into The Mermay Squad painting I talked about some time again. There are still some of my Mermay OCs missing but now it’s coming together.

Merindiana Jane