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Mermay 2026
I decided to participate in Mermay of this year because I liked mermaids, but I decided to add a bit of a twist to it. The idea would be that in preparation for my OC world, I would draw various sea animals as merfolk. Each week would tackle a different type of sea creature, so one week would be cephalopods while the other was about fish.
I also took this opportunity to draw more female characters, and work on other drawing techniques like shape theory, as well as wanting to draw diverse types of bodies so as to prevent any kind of same-face syndrome in my art and art style.
However while working on the challenge, sleep wasn't great and I couldn't do all prompts on their days due to how busy I could get at times. But I didn't want to just give up, so I decided to have a rule where I could do art that combined multiple prompts into one thing.
| Week 1: Cephalopods | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | ||||
| Week 2: Fish | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | |
| Week 3: Dolphins | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Days 10 & 11 | Day 12 | Day 13 | Days 15 & 16 | Days 14 & 17 | ||
| Week 4: Sharks | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day 18 | Day 19 | Day 20 | Days 21-23 | Day 24 | ||
| Week 5: Whales | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Days 25 - 30 | Day 31 | |||||
Cephalopods
Day 1: Japanese Flying Squid
I thought this was kind of a weak start to Mermay, but I do like the scenery I made for it.
Day 2: Octopus
Had a bit of fun with designing this one. I liked the oriange I used with this.
Day 3: Nautilus
This one was one of my favorites considering the lighting and coloring of the art piece.
Fish
Day 4: Arapaima
Really liked working on this mermaid. I love the clothing and hair color and style of this.
Day 5: Panda cory
This was the first merman that I drew for the month. Around this time was when I was experiencing a lot of gender dysphoria, so I felt a bit odd and uncomfortable drawing this.
Day 6: Clown Fish
I might've gone a little cliche with this, but I still thought it would be fun to draw a clown mermaid.
Day 7: Glo Fish
This was another one I liked for working on the scenery and imagery of it.
Day 8: Fourhorn Sculpin
Probably one of my favorite mermaids this month. I saw a dress on the internet that I really liked and thought was beautiful, so I decided to draw it on this mermaid. As I've said, loved how this turned out!
Day 9: Cat Fish
Another one of my favorite art pieces and mermaids from this month. I took some inspiration from the Witch from Slay The Princess, and I loved the coloring, design, and environment of this.
Dolphins
Days 10+11: Pearl Courami Fish & Oceanic Dolphin
This was the first art piece where I decided it'd be best to combine multiple prompts into one art piece.
Day 12: Striped Dolphin
Was proud of the lighting I did with this.
Day 13: Dusky Dolphin
Really liked the work I did with the scenery here.
Days 15 + 16: Risso's Dolphin & Austrailian Snubfin Dolphin
Knew I wanted to draw some mermaid yuri, and so I decided to do it here.
Days 14 & 17: Amazon River Dolphin & Guiana Dolphin
Thought this would be a nice thing to draw and practice more with environments and scenery. I also started working more on texturing and overlaying as well, which we'll see more as the days come by.
Sharks
Day 18: Tiger Shark
Was really excited to work on sharks this week considering they're my favorite aquatic animals. So I decided to do some cool art with them, starting off with a shark merfolk hunting for its prey.
Day 19: Bullshark
Really wanted to do a mermaid warrior piece at some point, so I decided to do so here.
Day 20: Basking Shark
Decided to do something fun with this piece.
Days 21-23: Hammerhead Shark, Blue Shark, & Great White Shark
Decided to have some fun with this piece and do three mermaids in one thing.
Day 24: Whale Shark
Considering how the upcoming week would be surrounding whales, I thought it'd be fun to give the whale shark her own piece before the upcoming week.
Whales
Days 25-30: Beluga Whale, False Killer Whale, North Pacific Right Whale, Sperm Whale, Humpback Whale, & Blue Whale
Because of busy I figured I'd be this week, I decided to have most of the prompts to be put into one piece, with the last prompt saved for something special me and my mates wanted.
Day 31: Orca
Before May, one of my mates, Mirage, began to manifest.
She really liked orcas and so they wanted us to draw an orca mermaid at some point.
We decided that for the last day, we'd make art of Mirage and this orca mermaid together.
Probably the biggest highlight of the month!
Overall this month was fun to work on looking back, although it was also very tiring given how much I was doing at this time. I'd probably be up to do another monthly challenge, but it's gonna be some time before that, especially because of how much doing so much art can drain you.