Most of the time, I am too busy (or too lazy, really your preferable choice of words here!) to participate in a lot of the artist “events” that happen over social media. The past couple of years I’ve been trying to take more of an active interest in trending artist topics as a way of showcasing my artwork to new people. The past few years I’ve done inktober and made at least one picture for MerMay. I also participated in #ArtvsArtist the past couple of times it came around. Look at me go!

Anyway, I wanted to at least do one piece of artwork for MerMay this year. The reason being was I made this piece last year, which is a rendition of my OC Azra as a deep sea fish person. It was good for a quick drawing at the time, but I liked the idea of there being variations of mermaids like there are fish, and I wanted to do a more in depth drawing of him like this.

Of course, everything is not without a backstory in my world! I had two ideas for this piece. Either the traditional “sexy mermaid on a rock combing/slicking back hair” or the one that I ultimately went with… Baiting someone in. The idea here is that maybe he’s faking that he’s stuck in some seaweed, kind of washed up in this shallow water, looking quite innocent as a fish person who needs help. But… Sirens being sirens, really are just trying to get their savior to get closer so they can eat them/drag them into the sea/drown them. Typically sirens are female, but I really couldn’t think of another word for “mermaid that probably kills people”, so siren it is!

This picture was a good opportunity to practice scales and shiny wet things. I don’t think I did too terribly. Plus I got to make it really dark which you know I like to do!

What did you do for MerMay? Did you draw anything? Let me know in the comments below!