Mermaid Progression

I had some requests to see the progression on this one. Luckily I made a few scans as I went.

As usual, I start with a rough. As you can see I changed the hair in the final.



After transferring to the colored paper, the first step I took this time was to "ink" the line work with a brush. The black areas are actual ink, the rest of the lines are acrylic.



Then I built up the shading with acrylic washes.



And lastly I hit it with a transparent later of concentrated watercolor. That stuff can be really bright, I toned it down a lot on this one. I used a little gouache as well for the highlights and white areas.



Simultaneous to all that I like to make a color study, It's basically a guinea pig for the real thing.