Howdy ho my children! (yes, i have now officially adopted you)

So, I hope y'all remember merm Ruindîr, right? If not... wellllll... *glances to dedicated chapter*
either way, since I can't draw Ru without Cev and I didn't draw Cev since February, I thought it was the right thing to go and mermifiy the golden boy!

This was honestly the first time I actually drew Cev and he not only looked like Cev, I also didn't need to struggle as much!! And when looking back at the February rendition of his younger self I also have barely anything to change, other than shortening the nose a bit. So I think I finally figured out his face!! THE ETERNAL STRUGGLE MAY FINALLY COME TO AN END!!

Let's get to the actual process. I started off by gathering some references of former drawings I made of him.
This old portrait was mainly used for the positioning of piercings and moles, as well as his tattoos:

Then this one was for his remaining tattoos, scars and moles on his body, even though I decided to not include his arm tatts and any of the scars in the end >w<

Aand this was my final reference, which I mainly used for the face, palette distribution and rough vibe of my boy.

Then I wasted several hours on pinterest and useless sketches, since I couldn't come up with a pose... yeah that sucked, but I ended up on two different ones I kinda liked and ended up sticking with this one:

I wasn't really convinced of it, but I was tired and wanted to start the piece, so I just hoped that it would look better as soon as I added some colour and proper linework. And that was, more or less, what happened in the end!

I had a lot of fun drawing his face, since I think that I finally got it right! The torso was an entirely different story though... I draw too many stick figures guys.... I also kinda fucked up his stomach muscles, which is why he has a four-pack now xD
But I think I managed to make it look good enough for it to not look out of place...

I also decided to incorporate some elements from one of his outfits in here, just to add more visual interest and make him stand out a bit more from Ru ^-^

I also deceided to go with a shorter haircut this time around, since I couldn't make his bun look good if my life depended on it and long hair just looked stupid, so he got a slight haircut...

Then it came to the flat colours. I already had a pretty clear view of the colours I wanted. His general palette is obvious anyways, and for his fishy-elements i decided to go with his eye colour for the fin-details and then a lighter colour for the fishtail.

And whilst it does indeed look a bit all over the place in the flats, I knew that through the shading I would get it all tied together.

I decided to go with a similar lighting to Ruindîr, so they would all look coheisive next to one another.
And... I won't lie to you when saying that adding the shadow of those necklaces was probably the funnest thing in the entire shading process, next to making those fins seem transparent.

Adding details and shadows to Cevs and Dessies hair is a blast anyways... i don't know why, but it just sparkles all golden as soon as you luminosity, and my little goblin heart likes shiny stuff.

When it then came to the tail, I struggled a lot more than I thought I would, since I temporarily forgot where my light source came from and my brain refused to think three-dimensionally... I think I had to redo the rough shading several times because of that.
Another issue of mine was making the fin at the end of the tail look like it's a part of the tail. Since it was coloured in a different colour to the main body and a rather harsh line in the lineart made them look like two completely seperate entities... I just added a lot of highlights and texture there, in hopes of making it look coheisive, and I think it only sticks out and looks odd when you focus on that area ^-^"

I had a ton of fun adding the highlights and scales though, and making those transparent fins is always fun... i don't know what it is, but shading something and then adding a seemingly random multiply layer to suddenly make it look transparent is a magical experience o-o

When it came to the background, I tried to make it look as similar to the one I made for Ruindîr as I could, again, for better coheision.
When it came to the overlays though, I wanted to push the yellow-turqoise colour scheme of Cev more, so pull the overall vibe of the image together.

>>yeets close-ups in here becaue of wattys terrible quality<<

I actually made an image, with the two merms directly next to one another, but wattpad refuses to uploade it, so I presume we're at the end of it then!

I definetely had a shitload of fun with this one... it was tedious sometime in the middle but drawing these merm pictures are always fun... maybe it's because of all those highlights, maybe it's because I like drawing fishy features... either way I enjoy it a lot!

Hopefully you liked the pic as much as I did and haven't quite abandoned this artbook quite yet... I'm working on it guys!

[someday there will be a link to the speedpaint here.... someday... but until then, just enjoy this text :D ]

Welp, that's all I got for today.... hope you have a great rest of your day/night/whatever!

>>cuddles you and gives you blankets, biscuits and tea<<

I hope to see yall in a future chapter!