📘 Backstory
I've wanted a creative image for my persona for a while now and finally got the motivation to finish it, and thought, what could possibly represent me better than a mershark mascot! With my love of sharks and humanoid animals/monsters, I combined the three to create Lize, the silvertip mershark girl!
🧠 Thought Process
Once I had decided what I wanted my mascot to be and roughly wanted her to look like, I needed some ideas regarding her color palette, markings, and the species of shark I wanted her to be. Although there were many good options, I decided a silvertip shark was the best fit because I'd never seen one drawn as a mershark. Plus I love their fin style, their markings which are simple yet unique, and their pale colors (meaning I could dress her up in colorful/bold clothing to really make her character design harmonize). Now, it's my favorite shark species, which was just the teriyaki sauce on the fishcake!
As for her clothing fashion, hairstyle, accessories, and body type, those were all just personal preferences I like the look of the best and totally would wear if I had them all lmao.
✍️ Drawing Process
Below is all of the steps I took to create this artwork, excluding the first rough sketch with all of the guidelines intact because I forgot to save at that stage before erasing them. You can tell I was really in the flow of this piece lol but I'll remember to save it with the guidelines next time!
✏️ Sketch
🖊️ Line art
🎨 Flat Color
🖤 Shading
🤍 Highlights
✨ Background & Completion
🌊 Conclusion
It took forever to finish her because I kept making beginner mistakes due to learning how to use an actual drawing tablet for the first time and a new software I'm unfamiliar with. I would of drawn a more detailed background had I not been experimenting with the new tablet and software. Overall, I really love how she turned out and I hope you do too! Thank you for reading my post, it means a lot!