Mermaid Reference

Here is a snapshot of my current low polygon mermaid model. It has come a long way and I have learned a great deal about modeling but it still has a way to go. She doesn't have her hair yet and some of the edges need to be adjusted for a stronger silhouette with the low polygon model. But overall I am very happy with the direction she is going. I will have her critiqued by a few modeling specialists soon and then there will probably be a number of changes.



Finding reference for the mermaid was easy. There is an abundance of excellent mermaid artwork swimming throughout the web. But deciding the style of mermaid was a more difficult decision. After months of looking at stylizes and designs I eventually chose to draw from three main source characters. Emily from 'The Corpse Bride', Asajj Ventress from 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars', and the skeletal figures of 'The Tale of Three Brothers' short from 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1'. Here I am adding a few images from the hundreds I gathered from the various source material.

Ventress looks evil, pure and simple. She is sleek and streamlined, almost shark-like. I used her the most in my development. I will admit I fell in love with her character while I watched Clone wars for reference.



Emily has a long slender neck and waist that make her beautiful, yet corpse like. Tim Burton is always an excellent reference when you are looking for macabre stylization.
The Tale of Three Brothers short is one of my favorite shorts. The theme of this short is death and as such the characters are as skeletal as possible. Their fingers, arms, legs and neck are bones. They are even separated by divider bones. It is an ingenious character design to have the characters themselves represent and foreshadow the main theme of the story.

And lastly I have the miscellaneous mermaid concept arts that I referenced the most. I posted earlier a large collection of reference but these are the ones that really struck a cord with me for my final design decision.