Hidey ho, Hive!
It's been a good while since I've posted an erotic or nude painting, and there's no time like the present so here we go with one! This one is minimalist, considering it's a mermaid deep in the ocean where... well, there isn't much to see, if you're able to see at all down there.
INTO THE DEEP
It had always irked me how mermaids are portrayed. The typical half human, half fish concept that makes no sense. While I appreciate the aesthetic it presents, especially in erotic art, I couldn't get over my internal nerd who wanted to fix it. Sure, have boobs, mammals have mammaries after all, but keep to the mammal. Or at least, blend the two.
Well, that was my thinking until I grew up and realised: fuck it. If it looks good, go for it. Mammal, fish, throw in some mollusk while you're at it! Whatever works for your creation. And that's what I did here.
» IDEA
But before I could dive into the fun of painting boobs, I needed to work out how this mermaid was going to look. What's the story here? If there were sexy mermaids, what appendages and features would they need to survive. I assumed the waters on this world were warm so that eliminated the need for her to have flat stores for buoyancy and insulation.
Instead, she got a lot of fins for manoeuvrability, and a long thick tail for speed. Because she's based on a humanoid form, the gills were placed where the lungs would be. And then extra frilly membranes to allow her to camouflage against the reefs.
» FILLING
When the design of her body was satisfactory, and all her bits made sense--in my head, that is--it was time to bring her to life. But unlike most of my paintings, this one isn't in colour. Full-on greyscale from beginning to end. It was a little easier to get the values to work well this way, but that's to be expected when the eye isn't distracted by colour.
» TEXTURE
Gills, fins, tail, breasts? Check and again. She was missing something yet. And what's a mermaid without scales?! She needed some extra texturing because the lack of colour makes it easy for parts to blend into one another. And texture can't be implied with it, for instance the skin being plain because it's a certain shade of colour and the brain automatically knows that it's skin, and how skin looks and feels.
» ATMOSPHERE
She was perfect. Complete. But the ocean around her wasn't. At first, I wanted to make a full background, tell a different story with objects in the water, but decided against it. Not because I was lazy... okay, not only because of that. Mostly, because anything more would have hidden the mermaid. She'd have drowned in the noise of a full scene painting. And we all know mermaids can't drown. So I used lighting to paint the story, and also to evoke the atmosphere of the scene. Greyscale is brilliant at portraying dire and solemn atmospheres.
» GIFNESS
» ART INSIGHT FOR THE WEEK
Preconceptions and the laws of reality can hinder artistic expression, imagination, and exploration. It's one of the more difficult things to change, but a new perspective can drastically alter your art. Take it in baby steps. Changing something big and sentimental to you might not work out well. The brain is stubborn, so you need to coax it to shift into a new way of thinking or breaking the old one.
What exactly you do is different for everyone, because our brains are unique to our personal histories and socio-cultural exposure. But there are a few ideas that can be universal. Drawing a person in the same position from different angles is an example of getting the brain to think differently.
Break a small law of reality each time you draw or paint.
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Oh wow, that's beautiful! I also really enjoyed how you broke it all down and ended it with a little bit of 'psychology', lol
Thanks, man! Bepsychological stuff is interesting, how it keeps worming its way into everything. 😆
Yay! 🤗
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