(Well that  was one heck of a weird title…)

So last night, after watching the first two Hunger Games movies (which were awesome), I had a little time before I had to go to bed. So I decided to draw. Normally, I draw fictional characters about 75% of the time, but I couldn’t think of anyone to draw. But eventually, this squirmed its way out of my head and onto the page of my sketchbook:

I still have no idea what prompted it, but I love it anyway.

As I said on my Instagram post, I knew that this wouldn’t end with just one drawing. I mean, HOW COULD IT? I mean, LOOK AT THAT MERMAID THING!

…Mermaid thing???

{CUT TO THIS MORNING}

And then this happened…

BEHOLD!

THE MERMAID (OR SOMETHING)!!!

I had a lot of fun drawing and designing this mermaid. There were a few points I definitely wanted to discuss (here comes the “biological analysis” part), so here goes!

DISCLAIMER: Though I have been a total zoology nerd basically since I could read, I am not completely knowledgeable on this topic. Some of this information might not be completely true, just to let you know. 

In general, I wanted this mermaid to look more fishlike than human, so there are a lot of things that I took from various fish species to piece her together. For example:

-The ears. Most fish do have ears, but they are very small and different from ours. They use not only their ears but their lateral lines to sense sounds in the water.

-The stripes. When I initially drew the mermaid the first time, she was very colorful, with horizontal stripes. I based her off this general image I had in my mind of a tropical fish of similar color and pattern, but when I googled such a fish, it didn’t exist. (**** you, imagination…) But, I did find a fish similar to my vision, albeit with horizontal stripes as opposed to vertical ones.

-The mouth. Realistically, if I were to steer in the far fishier direction, the mouth would probably be bigger, and the lips wider. The teeth were a rather confusing point, because when I googled “fish teeth”…

…well…

Let’s just say that you should never google such things. *shivers*

So I just went with small teeth.

-As far as the nose goes, I just put little slits.

-The head fin and tail, I discovered, are not only similar to each other, but similar to leaves of kelp (which the mermaid’s leg band things and dress are made of). I suppose this could possibly be a form of camoflauge. Maybe this mermaid lives in a kelp forest.

-Lastly, I’ve been kind of in self-debate about this for a little while, but I can’t decide whether my version of mermaids would lay eggs (I imagined them like shark or dogfish eggs-HEY, PEOPLE SOMETIMES CALL THOSE MERMAID’S PURSES! MAYBE I’M ONTO SOMETHING!) or if they would give birth to live young, like mammals. Either way, this mermaid has no visible breasts, which would be a mammalian trait. I’m still unsure about that. I suppose either one would work, but…hmm… *strokes imaginary goatee in thought*

Well, that just about wraps it up. Thank you for reading!

EDIT: The mermaid now has a name (or nickname), thanks to my dad: Abigail Sapien (like Abe Sapien) 😉