How To Draw Mermaids with Tom Bancroft! #MerMay | Tom Bancroft | Skillshare
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How To Draw Mermaids with Tom Bancroft! #MerMay

teacher avatar Tom Bancroft, Author/ Character Designer/ Animator/ Director

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Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Watch this class and thousands more

Get unlimited access to every class
Taught by industry leaders & working professionals
Topics include illustration, design, photography, and more

Lessons in This Class

    • 1.

      How to Draw Mermaids: Introduction

      0:40

    • 2.

      How to Draw Mermaids: Lesson 1

      10:27

    • 3.

      How to Draw Mermaids: Lesson 2

      9:48

    • 4.

      How to Draw Mermaids: Lesson 3

      20:01

    • 5.

      How to Draw Mermaids: Lesson 4

      10:59

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About This Class

In this four part course, animator, character designer, and MerMay creator Tom Bancroft shows how he approaches drawing different styles of Mermaids and how to create a "flow" throughout the body poses. 

Lesson 1: The Basics of Mermaid Anatomy

Lesson 2: Posing and Line of Action in Your Mermaids

Lesson 3: Shape Variety and Thinking Outside-the-box With Your Mermaid Designs

Lesson 4: Expressions and How to Get More Expressiveness Out of Your Mermaid Characters

Meet Your Teacher

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Tom Bancroft

Author/ Character Designer/ Animator/ Director

Teacher

Tom Bancroft has almost 25 years of experience in the animation industry, most of which was for Walt Disney Feature Animation where he was an animator for 11 years. He has been nominated for Annie and Rueben awards, spoken at the Kennedy Center and awarded an entry into the Chicago Children's Film Festival.

While at Disney, Bancroft had the opportunity to contribute his talents to 10 animated feature films, five animated shorts, and numerous special projects and commercials. Among the classic films on which he worked are, "Beauty and the Beast," "The Lion King," "Aladdin," "Mulan" and "Brother Bear." He was also a character designer and director for Big Idea Productions, makers of the family-friendly "Veggietales" video series.

In 2005, Bancroft had his popular art instruc... See full profile

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Transcripts

1. How to Draw Mermaids: Introduction: I am Tom Bancroft and I created Mermaid. It's a drawing event where you draw Mermaid every day in May, so I want everybody to get ready for it. So what I'm doing is creating these tutorials where I'm gonna teach you some drawing tips about drawing mermaids. Now, there are a lot of different styles out there. My is a pretty cartoony style. I'll be showing a kind of a simplified way of doing things. And the reasoning is that I want everybody be able to join into Mermaid. So even if you're more of a beginning artist, but all we have to at least intermediate, I think that you get something out of these tutorials. 2. How to Draw Mermaids: Lesson 1: So let's start today. I have my huge walk. Um, Cen Teke is the 32 inch I love it. I want to do this devil on this antique and the drawing software that I'm using isn't drug shop. This is called TV pain. It's actually an animation program, but I like to draw it to the pencils are very nice and it's super easy. Now I can add extra frames that rather than layers and stuff like that. So I've already done some sketching in it, and we're just gonna very easily get into new frames because I could just hit a button. So I What I did was I found some fish reference because when we talk about mermaid anatomy , obviously mermaids are a little bit made up, but we wanna have some ideas of different kinds of fish and all that. So I wanted to have great reference for that on, But I did was that I started collecting all this reference about what did the different tales that fish have. There's rounded shape tales. They call this one the fork tail. Uh, this truncated tail just sort of like a brush, I guess, and then loon aches. Uh, just more like a shark fin. I'm guessing. Um, and then here's like different kinds of shark fins. I love that shape there. Um, this is more Your average telling, I would say, is that fork tell different kind of fork tail. There's another kind of fort tail. Uh, this would be more like that. Truncate. And then there's also different kind of dorsal fins to the soft door soul news. Your dorsal fin on the top with more of a point, of course, same with the shark. And so knowing that will give you a lot of more variety and how you design your mermaid, right? You put different kinds of fins on that mermaid doesn't have to be the same that we see all the time. It's that just gives me ideas. Then I go into what some other reference I have. Sorry. And so this reference shows me all the different kinds of colors and varieties of fish that are out there, and that gives me even more inspiration. So the different fins and shapes the fens and colors. We'll also give me extra ideas. So right before I dive in, I want to look at all this kind of stuff and really get to know fish anatomy. So I'm just drawing and I'm drawing her at an angle. Now, um, it's kind of like looking up, but still same basic shapes, the neck, and we're gonna do the rib cage. Now, at this point, this is obviously where things get a little different, And that's gonna be we still want to have the hips here. So we have that pelvis, but yeah, Okay, add done our research right of what a fish tail looks like and it's definitely wider here. And then it's gonna take for here, and I'm gonna choose one of those kind of fish tails. This will be the forked tells. This is more what we call the more traditional mermaid. They tend to have the four tail fish tell, but we can always have fun with this. We can add some side fins here that, and even like, maybe like a dorsal fin, that's but it's way back here that way. So when she's swimming people kind of way that tell around, of course, and, uh, Watson movement stuff. But because I wise we're gonna have fun with these little friends and things to which not everybody draws those on a mermaid, something it makes for having interesting, a different kind of a mermaid In doing that and just doing simple shapes, even for hands and things like that. I'm kind of figuring it out as I go. You don't want to have a bend here. Course flowing hair that's gonna help feel. Make it feel like she's moving to have care that flows back whatever direction she's going . She's moving this way. Hair is gonna move that way, right? Pushed back. Just a super simple saves right now, working this being on this wake was beautiful. I feel like I'm just sketching a pencil. Paper paints great sketching, too. Of course, Enemy. I wanted to animate this. I could start down there right now, so that is the sort of the evolution, right? So human simple shapes to mermaid simple shapes. Let's go to the next thing. Um, just go over one and create a new frame. So I have a nice blank piece of paper and let's now start posing, so I want it. I want you always to think dimensionally to, So if this is, say this is the rib cage we can start kind of figuring out a nice sort of flowing roommate , but a mermaid kind of on the pose. But I always think about these shapes. And I want to not forget all the anatomy that goes into this, because now I'm gonna start doing some overlap, right? I'm gonna start thinking of now the pelvis and maybe even a twist. So I had the pelvis is twisting this way. Draw as a block while the torso ribs are this way. Shapes considers nice twist here. And some people kind of What kind of a but shape here with Finn, it's optional, even what she's sitting up, She's got her friend and she's on a rock. So start sketching that in Streaming Prince. Is that rock in the water way? Kind of have that Finn start to come at us a little bit and go right into the water. We're going to see the whole thing. That's a nice thing to remember, not to show it all like, uh, this is going into the water. It's playing the fin. Thanks for a nice The pros here rock here. We'll have her hair kind of beside here. Just think of it as simple shapes is it's gonna help this go quite so big on her eyes. I'll talk more about expressions and poses. Okay, So look for the next couple tutorials, which will get a little bit more into posing and expressions of your mermaids. Um, this one has been more about anatomy of both nor made can fish, and hopefully that will give you some inspiration to try any things. Don't just draw the same mermaid over and over again. Really Think about how can you make different kind of a mermaid every time? Like if we're gonna do 30 days of mermaids, Let's have fun and draw different ones. Unless you're doing a theme where your starting to draw the same room made over and over again, but in different poses and expressions and situations. That's a lot of fun, too. And I'm gonna be doing some animation with my twin brother Tony, and we're gonna be doing a short film. So I may be drawing the same burbey, uh, over over again. But for a film, So I hope you enjoyed this. This was all about mermaid anatomy and thinking out of the box and looking at the different kind of fans and styles of fish up there give you some extra ideas on how to draw your mermaid. Thank you. 3. How to Draw Mermaids: Lesson 2: Hey, Tom Bancroft again. And so this is how to draw mermaid tutorial number two and this one I really want to talk about now that we've addressed Mermaid Anatomy and just using simple shapes Teoh to not only draw the fish part of her but the human part of her I want to talk about now line of action line of action is that concept that we've all heard about, but kind of if we admit it don't really understand it all, I must admit, for years I rent books and, uh, have the understanding that OK, you got to create a flow through something and this is definitely got a line of action to it. Definitely esseker kind of line of action. But the way we were taught, I believe, wasn't necessarily Let me get a new piece of paper here. I'm using my wake of sent eek 32 inch. It's huge, very professional, set up on, and I'm thrilled with it. I'm also drawing in TV paint. This is an actual in animation software, but I like to draw in it. And then that's this way. I can now go right to another frame rather than layer. It makes for a lot quicker drawing and sketching. So here's what I wanted to say about line of action is that we all understand that it was kind of we learned it as this. Okay, you draw line. And this is the way the 12 steps 1234 steps and then say this is the line. I'm gonna keep growing it so you could just see the steps. So Step one was you start with this line and then Step two was I don't know. You start kind of adding the shapes in your figure on there. Um so cynicism mermaid. Okay, now, you I figured that out. I don't know what to do with the head and, well, maybe I'll put her arm over here. But now this arm, I don't know what to do. It's and I'm trying to figure out how to do this, just replicating it here now. But how do I kind of figure out? And it feels stiff and a natural, the way I'm kind of approaching this. And so I've really And then in the end, of course, the last step is it's all detailed in perfect and and, you know, everything worked. But what? That what that really was was a way for somebody to communicate to us. A simple concept flowing through your drawing. But they were starting with this A draw. Draw a curved line. That's not the way we think. Then I had to kind of make up opposed to go along with that. So what I would like to suggest to you guys is to think of it a little differently, like OK, I'm gonna start thinking about I am going to think of a line of action. But as artists, we think of five things at once. Not just one step, one step, one step. And so I want us to think about line of action and flow. But first, think about what we want to do. What is our oppose? What's the story we're trying to tell? That's job. One not drawing a line. So I'm gonna say, OK, it's gonna be a mermaid reaching for something underwater. So I like to start with the head, because that, to me, is where my story telling is gonna be. Center is in the face, and so I start kind of reaching out and just figure out those very simple shapes for that head and even where that eyes the eyes are going to be. And then I start working out of that because here's the thing. A line of action is really just a cranium shape and a spine. And with a mermaid, that spine goes all the way through the fin. So that's the nice thing is they really are made for line of action, these mermaids. So let's just keep drawing with now, think about that spine going through here and I'm gonna I'm gonna do in pieces. So I'm gonna add the rib cage and I might start trying to figure out, OK, she's reaching for something. I think of a bopper. Maybe that's her right arm. And again, I'm always thinking of flow, and this will be more of her back here. And then I could keep going with that flow. Now I'm gonna reverse. I'm gonna go up up with that. This will be here and ABS And then I wanted to kind of create, uh, whipped back here. So throwing that big fin this is automatically given me a line of action, but I was mawr intentional right now. I'm gonna go, OK? I could move that neck. Appear more my be tweaking it a little bit as I go. But I'm always thinking about what is my overall flow, but it's based off of what is the story. I want to tell, um, and in my servicing that story with this line of action to not just finding a line, I'm kind of constructing that line as I go. Okay. And then get this tell a kind of becoming at us a little bit, too. Of course, I still have this nice line of action through there and thrust, but it's right up to these eyes. This is what I want to show is she's found something super excited about it. By the way, that one of our other tutorials is gonna be about yes, when drawing right now, which is I expressions and mouths. I think I'm gonna touch on both those things shortly. I'm not going to detail. I'm just keeping everything nice and simple, because again, this is a sketch sketches. They're supposed to be just, you know, telling a story and trying to get across your intentions of what you want to drop. I always go in, Change this and involve it on and color later. Um, but I kind of want to be able to make mistakes here. Sketches are just draw a dark. I don't erase a whole lot when I sketch tryingto, um, figure things out. So there's a bunch of different ways that I could do this, but right now, I'm just show it in this way. And so maybe she has found a teacup underwater. So it's gonna be on a ledge within this underwater canyon. It's, you know, at some seaweed things like that throughout here. She just discovered this and sin perfect shape. Okay, we'll add a little crack. That makes more sense since that moment, right before she grabs it, we might put this other arm out here, So we got We have a nice line of action, so I don't think we're gonna mess it up too much. Having this arm. We don't need to see the whole thing. We'll just put it behind her here, get the design here to a little bit. But I wanted to flow back here because I wanted to feel like she's just come up to check out this little bubbles kind of help with, uh, feeling of movement. So it feels like she just brought her arm up. So again, let's back back up to this. And just remember what we just learned about line of action, which is Don't just start with a curve. Um, I want toe. I want to make sure that we're able to use a mother poses that we could take a look at S curves or are a big part of how mermaids are designed. So s curves. This is almost, you know, two s curse. This is a C curve. So it's like a very simple, you know, to get this really explosion of energy. Here's a nice s curve here of her. Um, Esseker here too. Here's another s curve right here, but it kind of flows forward to make you feel like she's gonna push forward as she swims. Really? Get a Z much of that as you can. The s curve philosophy, that line of action throughout your mermaid, it really is gonna be the number one thing that's gonna make your your mermaid have extra life and flow through her. And that's all they are. 100% flow. So remember s curves 4. How to Draw Mermaids: Lesson 3: I am Tom Bancroft. I'm a former Disney animator, and I also created Mermaid. That's a mermaid drawing event where you draw Mermaid every day in the month of May and you posted to Instagram. So it's got to be very popular over the last three years. This year I want to gear up everybody and get you excited about drawing mermaids. So I'm doing these tutorials. This is number three. This one is all about expressions. A lot of people come to me because my Disney background and asked me, How do I make my characters have a little bit more performance in their face? And so I've already talked about posing a little bit, and the other tutorials really want to get into expressions. Uh, the other thing is, I'm also gearing up. My brother and I, my twin brother, were both Disney animators were making an animated short, and that is something that we're in progress with right now. And walk ups Antiques are this walked on 32 inch. They're sponsoring Mermaid this year and also kind of giving us some equipment so that we could do a really nice animated short. So look for that that's coming up. And to get me there, I've already designed a mermaid of my own. Just for this short. This is Emma, the mermaid and, sir, turn sheets and a few expressions. So I'm gonna do some examples with Emma in different expressions. So that's gonna be the reference for her. And But I want to back up and talk about just general aspects of the face. So when I draw, uh, expressions, this is kind of what I am thinking of. Sorry. This is really sketchy. If this is a face in my cartoon universe, it's and it's all based on riel human anatomy. I tend to go bigger with the eyes. I think that that tends to give us a little bit more kind of an entertaining expression. And I really consider these eyebrows is being part of the performance there, just above the eyes. But those two really interact quite a bit. And then second to that is, of course, the mouth and the mouth becomes super important. As if this is sort of the sentence of the expression. This is the exclamation point the mouth is really gonna feed off of and add to the expression in the eyes. So if this is sort of the beginnings off a character begins just super super quick. This is a slightly more realistic. Sometimes I get even more cartoony than this. But this is what I want to talk about. Is this area especially the eyes in the mouth? So I already did up a little sketch of eyes. Here's a tip that I really want you to think about, and that is we can have different kind of shaped eyes. But all of us need to realize is that underneath the eye is the actual eyeball and it's round. And why I want you to remember that. Is that for a couple reasons, Number one is that the eyelids, or what actually creates the shape of are right and the top lid is actually longer and does most of the work. Like when we blink right this this top eyelid comes down, and this this bottom one pretty much stays where it's at. But the bottom one is much shorter. The top lit is about three force to the 1/4 down here at the bottom lip. So really a lot of the work and expressions are his top lid, and a lot of people don't really realize that and realizing that will help you a lot because it will get away from doing this. When we first started drawing, a lot of our eyes are just his diamond shapes with a pupil in the middle right, and that diamond is connected right through the middle. It's it's primitive, equal on both sides, half here and half here. That's not the way our eyes work. We're really 3/4 where that connection point is is a lot lower on that Pupils, if you were gonna drop through, this would be brought here. So knowing that, then when you draw a side view, you know that this is more what it's gonna look like. You have a shorter piece down here in a taller piece here, which is gonna be that top lit. This is the skull all around here, and that's the lid and said, And the lid actually comes out, of course, further from the people itself. Um and so what's nice about that is that's how we can get these kind of shapes where it's maybe a little flatter on the top round on the bottom, and that could be a more of a cartoon version. Waken do a little bit more flat on the bottom and rounder on the top. It just depends. You can't even do this where a lot of people's eyes kind of droop on the sides. Here's the other side, and the way you can replicate that is knowing what those angles are. So even in a very simplified way, I have, like, one to a little bit more strain on top and in three dragging on the side. And I replicated that over here and now we can now show that from different angles. So if I want to draw that same, I kind of from a sort of a 3/4 view Oops. Then I know that I need to serve include those those angles, right? So this is gonna be a little bit more again. It's a little bit more of a re ally that's common. And now replicate that same I at a three corner angle because I know what those brakes are . You know what that shape is. So now let's talk about more cartoony eyes, Um, even with cartoony eyes, and this would this is right here is sort of like the genie from Aladdin. Remember, he has a really kind of odd cartooning, almost, you know, Warner Brothers kind of eyes, and if he's looking straight at use, his people's a little bit more round. But when he looks off to the side, they flatten. And this is how we get this kind of a look. And again, these a little bit more opportunity, real round eyes and with we flatten the eyes. What we're really showing in both of these examples is that it is a around I. So therefore, when I when I draw around around, I don't have it, look off to the side. I have to flatten, and I have to go more oval, right, because it's going around. If this is it looking straight at us, it's gonna flatten. When it goes around here, goes around this way, it's gonna flatten. And a lot of people don't do that because what that does is it makes it very directional if that's the people looking up to the left or the right. So that's what I've done here is flattened it against the side here, and even that very simple thing he's gonna make for more dimensional, more directional, kind of a look rather than if I were to draw his. The difference is, if I have two eyes, just very simple cartoony eyes on the drive, two different ways You think I'd be better? It circles right now, Um and I want to look off to the side. Here's what a lot of people did is they just do that same round shape that would be in the middle of the eye and they just haven't touched the side. But really, it should go like this and flat and doing that flattening makes it feel more dimensions. This still very cartoony, uh, way of drawing. This is still very simplified, I But doing that now, I get even more direction. Teoh feels like those eyes are pointing to the left rather than just sliding from a normal circle to a normal circle. They're going from a normal circle to a flat circle, and you see the difference in just these two drawings, but that's gonna feel like its animating around. So those little suggestions that little tip and trick is something I want you to keep in mind. Um, let's see, Let's go to the next drawing. And now I want you to consider squash and stretch. So discussion Stretch is really just an example of how our faces air can be kinda pliable. Our cranium shouldn't be even in the most cartoon characters. You don't wanna have a super. Um, I'm starting to kind of draw Emma here, Mermaid. You don't want to have a very a flexible cranium. This is the Krayem appear because that's all skulls, all bones, You know that from from real life. So this is sort of my normal, uh, my normal. Emma, you're kind of smaller slips. We're looking at us, okay, evolved a little bit of hair, but yeah, if this is normal, then if I want to squash her notice that what I do is I bring the cranium down the ball of her cranium and really mostly in. Here's where I want to really squash. This is primarily what I'm gonna do. So if this is her cranium here, Really? What? I'm gonna do this squash this way so that cheek's gonna come out. This is a little more on the cartoony side. We're gonna squash her eyes notice closed shape and they're gonna flatten out there actually going to go a little bit wider to write, because that's the difference between volumes. This the normal circle and we want to squash it. It has to go out to both ways, but up as it comes down. Otherwise it's it's not squashing correctly. It's the same distance has to get a little bit wider because that that's called volume. It's gonna take up the stream space of volume. So we'll do that with this. And now maybe kind of even cream now for that, of course, the eyebrows. They're gonna come down to grimaced shape. And once I do that, that squash stretch. But notice that that I'm doing it to the eyes to squashing that high shape. I'm not squashing Ukrainian very much. This is keeping a little bit more solid here. Most of the work is happening right here. This is compressing this area here and then in here to actually cause eyelashes the eyebrows. So doing that that's squash and stretch just a tad on and then stretch. Let's squash stretch would be taking that same shape, but again, not missing with the cranium too much keeping it pretty much, uh, solid in the back here in the top. And now what we can do is if this is about where her eye line would be is now we can stretch, right? And what we're gonna do is gonna bring the chicken. This is gonna make it a lot more pliable. So this is now her. The nose doesn't do a lot. It's not gonna maybe come down just a tad in general. We're gonna see that most of the pliability in the eyes on cheeks in the mouth. So now maybe her fears were kind of surprised. Okay, People's stretch this just a tad. Of course, the eyebrows are very high. That's why a lot of our, like Disney star characters have a little bit more, uh, a cranium. And because they have bigger eyes, you need to be ableto animate within that area. Get those eyebrows up really high and not like going to the hair or something like that. So this is her more in a stretch now, really stretched out that distance again, keeping the cranium pretty solid. Not really stretching that as much as as I am. All of this area here alone here. So this is normal. That's our squad. And that's a stretch. Now, last thing I want to do is I want to show you, put that into work, which is not going to go By the way, I'm using TV pain, Uh, software here. That's what I'm drawing in. And it's just it is an animation program for two D animation. I'm using it on this welcome. And really, why I use it is just cause it's a lot quicker. I like pencils in it, too. Um OK, so now let's talk about how that works with the mouth and the eyes. And so if I want to do Emma, drop amount really quickly and she's gonna be kind of looking off to the side, and I'm gonna sort of squash one side and stretch the others because I want to get a nice directional look off to the side. So I'm already starting to kind of sketch in in a really quick way, this eyebrow being up, this one being down course, the people's looking out to the side, and what I'm doing here is I'm stretching this. I I'm actually doing both squashing and stretching at the same time. And I'm you can get more of a stretch over here, maybe on her cheek to you go into a smile over here, get that speak up a little bit serving wise guy, I guess a little bit more crunched over here. So I got more of a squash going on here in that cheek more stretching here, and I could get a real directional kind of a look on her. And that's sort of part of the pliability of these faces, too. You want to be able to get as Mitch out as much out of those expressions as possible. And so, by able to use using that pliability of a face in a squash and stretch, I can start getting a really nice pliability out of her face as I'm sketching her. So another version of that. So I really want to think of it almost like a line going through here, right? So again, if I I don't know if I have her more of a front view, but she is now kind of I don't know what say she's so confused. You might do this kind of a look or hair. This is a funny way of drawing, some sort of going backwards, I guess you could say, but because I want those eyebrows to kind of come in here and a little bit of a worried look, So I think it almost is one shape doing that. Imagine there's like a mask. Your baby. Um, then I know I could have to compress these eyes just a tad move it notice to least with her . But a lot of kids like to do a smaller, thinner top player. Fatter bottom lip also just is a nice touched keep her from being lips exactly the same you could see now, like I'm creating a feeling that is going through all through her eyebrows, compressing her eyes. So again, let's make her look a little bit more sneaky direction and more sneaky. With I brought down, compressing the eyes, the eyebrows down like that one kind of pushed out make these Lumet more oval bye week. You do have a lot of pliability with the eyes and stuff that you don't think about normally , and I just want to kind of consider that that we don't have to always be so solid and always the same on these waking, even kind of compressed, the bottom have a little bit. It's another thing that a lot of people like to do because that's the way our eyes work, right. We can just a little bit of compression there. That helps that expression even more. A little bit of compression on the bottom again. That's a version of squash and stretch. It's okay. So that's kind of what I wanted to instruct you with real quickly about, you know, And you could see I'm also doing squash and stretch in the in the mouth to I'm trying to pull it up a lot of times instead of doing a smile straight on with the character, even though it's a straight on view, you know, pull, pull it up to the side a little bit. Maybe you wake one side a little bit higher than the other, and that makes for a nice kind of difference. Rather than being straight on right like it could be a sort of more of a sideways grin. That's again another version of doing a little bit more squash and stretch and liability in your expressions, so try this with your characters. Even if they're a little bit more realistic, I think you'll find getting a little bit more squash and stretch and pliability. And really, considering what the eye shapes are, you think you're gonna be able to take your character expressions to the next level. 5. How to Draw Mermaids: Lesson 4: I'm Tom Bancroft. I'm a former Disney animator. I also created Mermaid, the monthly drawing event in May where you draw Mermaid every day, Just encourage people to draw every day. You just happen to be drawing mermaids. So I want Teoh do these tutorials. This is tutorial number four. And really the reason behind it is to get people inspired, hopefully to try different kinds of mermaids do variety. And that's what this one's about is about shape, right? How to create different types of mermaids and mur men, right? And were animals. Even so, we're gonna get to that a second. I did want to say that one of the reasons, too, is that my brother and I are creating a mermaid short. It's gonna be an animated short. My brother Tony is also a former Disney animator. We're combining. We're gonna create a little animated two D animated short film and this is my character m of them urbane. That's gonna be in it. And he's created a seal character and so watched throughout May and even a little bit in April as we develop that short film will premiere it at the end of May. But let's talk about this. So this is the tutorial that I want talk about, which is hold on is shaped. Right. So this isn't a great example. But as you can see, these air just different types of men. Some look like they could be teenagers, and some could be a little bit over. But even if these were all the same age, you could see there's a lot of different variety of shapes, right? This is a little bit more realistic. Um, I Then take that and I start going. Okay, Well, if I created a bunch of different state female characters and some of these could be different nationalities, some definitely different shapes, they could even be all the same age. Um, if I draw them quite the within the same proportions. But even at different ages, they're gonna be different heights. They're gonna be different shapes on don't really feel like we can kind of come up with really different fun shapes. So why not do that with our mermaids? Um, so that's what I want to try and kind of keep people thinking about. So now when I want to translate that to mermaids, let's say that I want to create a different kind of shape for a mermaid. And again I want to go. Maybe a little thicker, you know, because your traditional mermaid is very thin Mermaid. Why not go even in a cartoony world into creating a mermaid that has got a little bit more thickness to her? So I'm going with shapes that are gonna be a little bit more on the fixed side, baby. And even in drawing really quickly again, I'm trying to think of maybe your hips and that still goes down into this shape of the tail . Maybe you tell a little bit bigger. This is the family start. It's just all in how we want to draw that mermaid. And I still think this could be adorable. I'm still trying to think of really simple shapes waving along your friends here. That's the other thing to part of varieties in just a body variety, right? But some of it is different. Hairstyles and things like that gonna go maybe short hair with her right away. I already have a different type of mermaid. Uh, then you normally see right? That was fun. Let's do another one. Sometimes I like to do is fine. Really interesting photos. Okay, so find a person on. Start going. Okay, Well, that's not a person, really is. It might go a little smaller. I'm drawing in TV paint animation, which is an animation program. I'm using it just to draw with. And so here's my reference. It's a Chihuahua. So, like what? It's our mermaid. Look like this will be fun. Start with really basic shape. Was eyes a really love packs at that really far apart. Kind of bold. You looking right knows from here. So these shows okay? Are you loving it? Right, Her animal, right. These are the basic shapes. Just trying to find that to be a fun way to do that. I love his hair here. Why not just go right? Taking on these kind of find little challenges I think it's gonna make for me. Were you more interesting? Um, interestingly, Dizzy Habito. It doesn't have a tele. Think he's gotta have these. This Ben right here. Ready? Right. So that's a fun little her dog, Marshall, while off. So just remember that. What? Let's not forget that you know that guys can be Merman, right? So what is a guy merman look like again? Any kind of shape you can think of because men just like women, come in all different shapes and sizes. So if it saves a buddy of mine and he's got glasses, glasses, it depends on the story you want to tell, right? You know, like, Is this kind of a businessman? Maybe case. What does that look like? I see color my Penis business. It's bubbles. And then, of course, small hands. Smart man. This a trucker shirt off muscle, right? He's self conscious about it. So I think that's what this year should be all about. Is just having some fun with Mermaid? Great, different races, different male female characters, animals Just enjoy it. I'll see you there at Mermaid 2019.