The Little Mermaid

The little mermaid sighed, and looked sorrowfully at her fish’s tail. “I know what you want,” said the sea witch; “It is very stupid of you, but you shall have your way, and it will bring you to sorrow, my pretty princess."

This is an Illustration based on the Fairy Tale "The Little Mermaid" in my vision. The original story is by Hans Christian Anderson.

As with all the other Illustrations in this collection I'm doing my influence on the original stories. Here I wanted to make the mermaid of a different species than what the typical do. Her hair refused to be any color other than blue so I had to oblige. I chose to make the "Sea Witch" a fish being so many in the sea and they seem somewhat docile creatures. So to say they would seem trustworthy...

I kept this color pallet harshly restricted to blues and greens. It was one of the hardest things to do to be confined to not add in foreign colors to an established color key. The goal from the start with this piece was to Keep it very simple and not over detail anything. I hope it gives it the storybook illustration feel. I always hate when I have to loose my sketch lines in my paintings so it stayed for this one.

This story in particular has always held a soft spot in my heart because I was exposed to the cartoon based on the original story as a child. I believe it was done in Japan. It affected how I viewed fairy tales in conjunction to the real stories and "Disney" so to say. Anyways on to the next!

Painter/Photoshop
6 hours
© Jessa Sininger

Here is the step-by-step Illustration Tutorial for this piece: [link]