After quite a number of long hours.. Here is my submission for the merman contest. Gheesh I had trouble figuring out What am I looking at when my eyes tell me 'this figure is a man'. It's not easy unless he looks like Ariel's Eric or something.

I always have little stories with my mermaids and alot are that she's pining away at some great fighter merman who's away somewhere. (Maybe play alittle too much EverQuest) Well here he his. He's done fighting, alittle too torn up to continue so he's at the hot springs giving his tail a dousing of healing potion. Kinda looks like my boyfriend (Without the blue hair) It's the only male picture around I had that night. He's gonna kill me!

He was going to be all blue but I though he would look like an opmpha loompha from Wonka's so I chickened out on the blue skin.

On Arches med cold press 140 lb paper with W&N premium paints. 8x10. That wonderful blue is a new discovery of mine. Grumbacher Academy paint has a Cobalt Blue Hue available for pretty cheap. It works alot like the real cobalt I have from W&N but 1/10 th the price. Real Cobalt paint is VERY expensive. I'll have to work with it alittle more to figure out if it's good for backgrounds. My really great backgrounds have that cobalt in it and it's terrific looking and terrifically expensive. So we'll see.

This watercolor painting is this bright. I spent quite awhile getting the scan saturation and lightness right to the original. Some have asked if I screw with the scanner to get watercolor this bright. It's really the paint I've chosen over the years. EBay sales go for the really bright, colorful paintings so that's what I do. I really don't have a pastelly pasty kinda personality so I'm uneasy about pale pictures.

This is posted on EBay now. 6-9-9) for 5 days. I'll see what kind of response it gets. If good, I'll paint more mermen. This was a real challenge.

I'm asking for critiques. If you have any specific insights on how to make this figure a manly figure I'd love to hear it.