“They passed lovers promenade, a few late night junkies bloodletting by some totems. Graffiti artists flitted over any barren limestone, leaving intricate fluorescent paintings and hymns. Most of them would be gone by morning as the shrimp would clean them as they grazed.”

(Slowly getting these chapters illustrated guys, I don’t need to tell you, it’s been a long 2020)

These siblings are dressing up as each other. Seahorses can change the pigmentation of their skin, but the hardest bit is acting the role. They aren’t good at it at first, but over time... they are able to swap places...

A comic idea I had, I’m just going to see how far I can take it for now … [ tag ] Parhelion

Some quick sketches of my characters Rive... Doshi and Po.  Rive is a harpy... turned siren later on. I was not happy with the siren design, it was too much like the harpy, so I humanized it a bit more and I think it’s loads better. 

Also playing with his design, all the harpies are based off of real birds. Rive is based off a bird of paradise... yeah... that bird of paradise.

angry punk dolphin. I had to nail down her design a bit better for comic stuff- she’s based off a common dolphin.

V serious thought here. Throughout my entire time writing stuff about mer-people, I’ve graciously avoided the fact of how they poop. Not the ACT of it, but how they use waste and the whole.... uh... culture of the act.

They are not fish, so they wouldn’t just let one fly in front of their companions. So if not at any given time, when is it acceptable? Where is it acceptable? After that, where does it go? I need to know these things because if I draw a home, maybe I need to draw the lavatory. 

Maybe their bathrooms are like aquariums, and the “toilet” is like a sponge filter you’d get for a tank, only it’s made of actual sponge. The waste is soaked up and then it is ever overgrown it is harvested to be repurposed for seaweed etc. Then again, if they are like whales and don’t have houses, what then?

Hi new followers this is the type of stuff I think about late at night.

Ok, here is my other Mermay. Another chapter illustration done : )

To get around, merfolk that can’t normally can’t swim very far might catch a jelly taxi. 

Beware if the seahorse ask you to touch the gills. Definitely be worried if asked to ‘dance’. ...and  if you a red head.  oc kiss week. I thumbnailed a whole saucy comic but who has time.

Some warmblooded merfolk my friends came up with for this world; humpback, and her son, a curviers.

It’s given me a decent challenge to develop what cetaceans and dolphin mers would be like in this world, as initially they were definitely not going to be a part of the universe.

Just moving to finalize a character of mine. This character’s name is Aldernan Nul Po. Po for short. This guy is a tinkerer (of sorts). Tengu are really interesting to build a race out of, since there are varied types in Japan’s mythology. They were initially portrayed with beaks, before beaks became represented as long noses.  In this world its attractive to have the longest nose... the more beaklike the better. 

Your weekly Sunday post Hippocampus are fitted with special saddles for their riders to fit their tails into, and in the case of traveling from Pilgi to Banthi, are fitted with kabutos, respectively, this hippocampus is likely native to Banthi and doesn't require a full suit.  Those traveling to Banthi are often encouraged to grow out their gill filaments (which to us, would look like the hair on our heads) to better breathe in the oxygen poor environment. This is often why you see long "hairstyles" in Banthi, as opposed to Pilgi, which favors short. 

I sketched this on a bus for a friend, who thought these were the same female character. They they are in fact siblings! Left is a boy, he's prepubescent in this story. Seahorse/pipefish/seadragon familiar merfolk have slightly flipped morphology. The males need wider hips to bear young.  For Toc, (right) I considering launching a comic following her own arc that complements the main novel. You'll hear more about that soon!

Young tengu boy- who is actually one of the important/main characters. I decided to finally concept him out better (I decided to show my initial doodle-brainstorming how I was going to do tengu below). I took a couple ideas and trashed others. The whole race has a more rounded design now.