Oh dear. I started the last post, critiquing March’s drawing going “third month running! I’m sticking to my promise” aka “Yay!” and now it’s August. In my defence I did a drawing in April but it wasn’t digital, it was with colouring pencils. I attempted a landscape for my mum’s birthday. So theoretically that could have kinda counted for April’s drawing and I did start this one in May – it was for MerMay as the title says – but then I never finished it.

I was without my PC for three weeks end of May and into June. I should have then picked the drawing up but I’d started a ridiculous number of fanfic WIPs while I was without a computer. So I sort of lost the rest of June and July to clearing the decks a little bit. Unfortunate because I did sign up for a drawing course – which I haven’t touched. Still, the intentions are very much there so all is not lost in my art goals for the year just yet.

Anyway the drawing! It was done as a cover for the Sanctuary fanfic I wrote The Tragic Tail.

I have to be honest I tried something new with this one. I did the bulk of the drawing in Clip Studio Paint, as opposed to just the line work and then swapping to Photoshop. I used an oil brush and painted, rather than doing block colouring and then blending. I don’t think it would have worked so well if I hadn’t had references that I was basically just copying. It was interesting though using a new tool.

I’m quite pleased with how the icebergs at the back came out, and the lifeboat on the left is pretty good too. The lines of the Titanic itself are a bit wobbly in places but through basically copying the reference I managed to capture the general impression I think. The ice on top of the water was more difficult and I’m not sold on that. I think it needed more highlights. I also think I over blurred in the end the mermaids body that was under the water, and I didn’t manage to draw waves, the ocean looks far too flat really.

Still considering it’s a cover it actually looks quite nice thumbnail size, which is always a good test for a cover. I like how the title came out. I’m pretty pleased with the overall effect. It’s quite simple in a lot of respects. I know I said that I felt I over blended on the last drawing I did, and I don’t think I have quite the same issue on this one. Usually I spend forever on the face but I did the mermaid quite quickly, and I didn’t worry so much about it being too dark/too light with the shadows. Some of that I think is that I wasn’t trying to capture a likeness, and also it’s a mermaid not a person which I think tricked my brain a little bit.

I think I’ll have to try again doing more colouring in Clip Studio Paint. I swapped to Photoshop for fiddling with the lighting, adding some textures etc. and of course the text. Now technically I owe at least three drawings – June, July and May (or August if we’re counting this one for May as I started it then) – and possibly April as well if we don’t count the pencil landscape I did.

As I said I bought a drawing course for coloured pencils so I see a lot more of those in my future. I need to have a think about my drawing goals and what will best serve me in terms of art progression. I thought that the pencil drawing course might help me with fundamentals which I could then apply to digital but we’ll see if that’s true or not. Either way I hope it’ll make me a better artist.