Website Updates – Zum Kritzeleck

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 …

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.