Mermay (Patreon)

You MAY or may not know of the drawing challenge 'Mermay'.

It's a popular challenge to draw a mermaid every day in the month of May. I thought it would be fun to attempt some mermaids in gesture drawing style.

Tricky thing though, trying to find real mermaid reference...

Instead of drawing from real mermaids, I looked at photo reference of dancers on Pinterest. This was challenging because when I got to the hips, I wasn't sure where to take my lines of action...

• Which leg should I follow? 
• Do I follow the same top of the thigh back of the calf flow I use for human legs?

I found that choosing one leg to follow and imagining that both legs were stuck together often worked.

To keep the tail feeling anatomical and not suddenly lacking in detail, I tried to keep the angles found in the glutes, thighs and calves.

Another tricky area was capturing the feeling of the body being suspended in water, almost weightless. This isn't something I've been able to observe in life, cause you now... gravity.

What do you think? Do these read as believable mermaids living underwater?

- GG

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Want to try some of your own Mermay gestures? 

You can use my Pinterest Board as inspiration.

I'd love to see your gestures if you join in! You can tag me on instagram @gilliangestures.

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You can see my daily Mermay gestures on my Instagram, but Patrons will receive a free PDF download of all the gestures at the end of May.