Mermay piece - May Mermay Art Challenge - Community Driven Art Feedback Platform

Cal van den Hoofdakker · 2026-05-31T17:57:41.060Z

My final submission for mermay! Though I was unable to render it in time, leaving the piece unfinished, at least i learnt a ton from it! Pff, this was my first time painting a scene again in actual years and i forgot how many principles you need to juggle 😂 …which in turn made my process into a verrry messy back-and-forth. (and with a lot of mistakes to learn from :p) As for feedback, I think the main point i struggled with is the combination of values and color (i fix the values, now the colors look wonky, so i fix the colors, now the values look wonky etc etc…). I would love any tips or examples on how to color a scene like this without it feeling washed out and how you would go about making this piece striking and readable! Also, i feel the cast shadow on the mermaids face looks weird (too harsh..?) but i couldn’t seem to pinpoint the reason nor a “fix” for this. If someone sees or knows what i’m not seeing, it would be of great help! It was a really fun challenge to partake in. Who knows, maybe I’ll give this piece a go again with some time. Cheers!

Mermay piece

Artist's notes:

Hi friends! Here's a current WIP of my mermay piece. I kinda wanna move on to rendering but thought getting some feedback beforehand is always good! I am looking for feedback regarding this: -The way the mermaid is sitting on top of the other girl kind of looks like they "clip" through each other to me. Do you agree, and if yes, any ideas on how to solve this without turning the composition upside down? I'm thinking i can maybe kinda disguise it by drawing the volume of the skirt differently but that's difficult for me as well T_T.. - Compositionally, do you think it reads well? I want the piece to look like the mermaid is posessive over the girl she found, and gets "caught" in doing so, hence the spotlight. I want her to look cute, but the general piece to feel a bit uncanny. - Does the perspective feel believable? - If you have any other feedback, thoughts or remarks they are well appreciated as well! I'd much rather apply 'em now that i can O(∩_∩)O Thank you in advance! even helping with one of these will have me grateful 4evar

Comments 3

@pvppoh3 months ago

I seem to be unable to edit my submission, but I would like to add that any other feedback would be appreciated as well! I really wanna use this piece as a means to learn from :)

@grantw3bart3 months ago

Hey Cal, Awesome work on this especially the cast shadows, so dynamic, interesting silhouette and compression of values. My only nit pick is be mindful of the pure white but in this case it makes sense from the bright spotlight over-exposure. I'd say you can definitely move to color. All the best and keep going!

@grantw3bart3 months ago

Hi Cal, Firstly, awesome work. This is a really cool idea with an interesting story. I love the moodiness and uncertainty of whats going to happen. I'm still very much on my learning journey in terms of art and drawing the figure so consider this feedback lightly. I tried my best to draw basic mannequins to represent them. Something I notice the legs/tail of the mermaid feels like it doesn't have much gravity or bend down after the hips. That being said do mermaids have femoral bones or not?? Gosh anatomy. Overall well done and keep it up! I look forward to see the end result.

@pvppoh3 months ago

Seeing you draw it out makes it so much more sense than whatever i was doing on my underdrawing (^^ゞ Thanks so much for the help, Grant! It looks much more organic that way. I'll get to applying it right away :)

@grantw3bart3 months ago

You're welcome. I'm glad it helps Yeah whenever I start getting overwhelmed by perspective and complex poses etc. I always try to simplify to "work out" my understanding or issue and then with a better understanding it mostly seems easier taking it further.