YO GUYS. I'M BACK.

You thought I'd just vanish like that? Hah, you wish. FOR I HAVE RETURNED!! WITH A MERPERSON! BECAUSE MERMAY!

Anyways, so for everyone who's new to the concept, mermay is an art challenge (just like inktober) where you draw a mermaid for every day of may, usually following a list of prompts.
Did I think about participating in the challenge? Heck yeah! School came along tho with a passive agressive "Are you sure? Very sure?" and nervously sweating I stammered "haha.. nah I was just joking, hah.." and gave up on that idea.

Either way I drew Ruindir again and I plan on doing some more merms, since they give me the possability to draw fullbodies without the struggle of legs xD

.... let's now get to the actual drawing though. I started off with this sketch I made one evening on my samsung tablet whilst chatting with friends. Honestly it was more of a stress relif other than anything else, but I liked the idea so I promised myself to export it as a .psd file later and make sth proper out of it.

And... well that's precisely what I did! I initially intended to just make everything more tidy and proper, but after sketching the new tail, I figured that the torso was just too digustingly stiff, which is why I changed the entire thing up to be more flowy and dynamic.

I also changed up quite some details in the tail, to be a bit more realistic and fishy ^-^

I then continued with the lineart, heavily using that drawing I made of him in january to get his face right, since I haven't drawing him in so long.... it also was crazy to see, that whilst my style development has slowed down drastically during this year, there still were quite an ammount of changes to be seen.... i found that sorta insane, simply because it feels as though I drew the old one just yesterday xD

>> yeets it in chapter so you don't need to switch chapters and can avoid wattys ads <<

So yeah... also went ahead and played with the fish-features a lot. As some of you know from last year, I have a thing for gills along the ribcage and ears with fins, so I tried to push it a bit more with this one, also adding some more fins along the arms and back.

Oh, and I gave him a haircut, since his sidecut isn't actually visible from this side... so he has an undercut and high ponytail in this one!
Next to that I also decided to change his tattoos for this drawing, since the size of the face is pretty small, and the complicated ones would simply be too complicated. For the mermaid-themed simplification I also decided to leave his scars away. It would've looked a bit very cramped and would've taken away the more surreal and beautiful effect I was going for... also you can't really see scars on fish so I also used that as an excuse >w<"

Next up were the flats! I went with the usual colours for the human parts, and then colour picked the other colours from his clothing and general palette, also having A LOT of fun with different layer modes xD

I initially wanted to base him on one of those super flowy fish, that seem so delicate and pretty, since I thought they fit his royal heritage the best and also naturally appear in some pretty wack oranges! That plan got yeeted off of the boat during the lineart phase though, which meant I also was allowed to have a lot of fun with the colours ^-^

And then... well, then I continued with the shading :D

Had a lot of fun with the entire cell-shading thing, also putting some other techniques of mine in there. Overall it was insane to see how Ruindir looks in this shading style, since my old one forced me to add some shading elements that more or less ruined the way I imagined him, so enjoying the creative freedom of just leaving parts completely unshaded without reducing the quality of the final product, definetely was a blast!

So yeah... this probably was the first time I rendered Ruindîr with him looking just like I had in mind and that honestly could be the sole reason for me to like this piece, hehe

But obviously not the only reason. Also had a blast in shading the transparent elements, since it' surprisingly easy to make them look authentic and I can essentially just have fun. And adding the rimlighting details always is a blast, so.... that's that I presume.

I did try in between to shade with colder tones, to mimic an underwater lighting, but decided that that wouldn't quite fit the bright orange I had in mind, so he's kinda just floating in evening sunlight now xD

The tail was a huge struggle, but in the end I think that I managed pretty fine. Especially the lighter fin-area was a struggle to make work, but I worked around it and through adding some more vertical lines to the thing, it added a lot more texture and movement to the thing.

So up there we have the final shaded product. I then went on to add some overlays and gradients, to push the light situation a bit more. But since sadly some of the tail elements don't look as nice and glowy with the extra multiply layer on top, I decided to upload the one without extra effects on top as well ^-^

So yeah, here's the proper final with a flashy background:

>> yeets close-ups in chapter, in defiance of wattpads picture quality <<

Aaaand... since I liked the drawing a lot I decided to bung it on the cover (as you probably already noticed, but who cares >w<)!

I also plan in future, to now and then replace the character on there, to always be a newer drawing of mine... it probably will just be the Ruindîr of the month, but we'll see what'll happen xD

So yeah! That's my first merm for mermay.... I'm thinking about drawing more of them and turning more OCs into fishpeople. The usual suspects definetely are on the top of the list, but I also think about making a nice pic with Blackberry and Cloudspear, and maybe drawing some more girls... but that's all up for my future self.

If ya wanna see the process of this piece on video with some wack music you can find it here:

https://youtu.be/XEnqsTU-PBE

I hope you lot liked the end result as much as I did! I really missed drawing digitally over those two weeks, and ngl it does feel like I didn't touch my tablet for way longer than that xD
Also went ahead and used the cover-change as a chance to revamp the book a bit, so the title style has changed and I have a completely new description now ^-^

>> cuddles you, gives you biscuits, a blanket, and a warm drink <<

So I hope we'll see each other in future or past chapters! Don't shy away to tell me how you're doing, if you draw as well (and if so, what your thoughts on mermay and monthly drawing challenges are >w<), and I'm obviously always open for feedback, critique and opinions ^-^