The Little Mermaid

Would it be Mermay without drawing Airel from The Little Mermaid? No it wouldn't, so here's Ariel!

I started out recreating a shot from The Little Mermaid but I ended up drawing it in my own style, hence the different looking head. The rest of the line art is pretty close to the actual shot of Ariel singing. When working on this I realized how much I struggle with realistic lips; I normally just draw the edge of the lip to indicate the mouth but if someone is wearing lipstick you've got another edge to draw which makes the mouth look weird when I try to replicate the look. What I did with this piece was make the lips themselves one piece of line art, which certainly helps to add appeal and resembles Disney's way of illustrating Ariel's lips.

I chose to colour Ariel in just red since the red hair is an iconic part of her design and it would make her better at attracting everyone's vision. Meanwhile the background was coloured with pencil to decrease the saturation and in green to match the colour used for Ariel's tail (on her official design, not this illustration). It also resembles the sea once some teal lines are added to mark bubbles in the water.

I did better at drawing Ariel this year than I did the last but I cheated out of trying to draw that magnificent fringe, is that's what we call it. Maybe if I do next Mermay I'll face up to the challenge of mastering Ariel's hair, is that something you'd like to see? I hope you're enjoying Mermay, but if you're not doing Mermay then I hope you're still getting creative!