Good evening, my beautiful and dear community!!!

I hope you had a beautiful Sunday. Today I present to you my second piece for the #MerMay contest. If you haven't seen the first piece yet, you can find it here. ⬅️

My goal in creating my piece was to capture the essence of vulnerability that is often hidden behind the appearance of strength. She represents that strength with her shell of thorns, but at the same time, her pose suggests an inner fragility, as if she is struggling with her own fears and doubts. 💔💔💔

I made that shell on her back as a symbol of protection, but it also represents the emotional burden we carry with us. We often build shells to protect ourselves from others, but in doing so, we also carry our own emotions and fears. 🥺😢

We all, no matter how strong we may seem, experience fears and doubts at some point in our lives. I like to see this piece as a reminder that it's okay to seek support or comfort when we need it. 💖🤗

As for the contest, I admit I'm a little behind, as I explained in previous posts, but I'm still working on catching up and hopefully this week light and other circumstances will allow me to do so.

Below, you can see the images and video of how I worked on this second piece for #MerMay. I hope you liked it. 🫶🏻 💖⬇️⬇️

After making several poses and erasing them until I found the right one, I proceeded to struggle with the colors, I needed a palette that conveyed more emotions, so I looked for help until I found it. But first, I applied the base to the sketch I had selected.

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I made some changes to the hair and started applying highlights and shadows to my mermaid, I also experimented with the spikes to see what colors worked best.

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Once I saw the possible color options, I started working on the seashell on the back, giving it texture and color. For the background, I didn't have clear intentions yet, so I simply placed an image from a drawing I had done earlier.

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After working on the seashell, I searched through my photos of textures from different trips I have made in my life with my family, these are one of my most precious treasures and I have used them in many of my pieces. This time, I searched and searched until I found one that fit perfectly. I also worked on the hair and did some detailing on the skin.

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After a lot of work on the skin, my new piece looked much better, and the hair was also almost finished, as well as the details on the hands and arm.

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In the home stretch, I made some adjustments to the details that didn't suit me and started working on the background, although I wasn't really going to focus on it that much. At this point, I had finished the seashell and the face.

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