DISCLAIMER: I will make references to Finfolk Productions (Tailmaker), Courtney Mermaid (Mermaid Youtube Creator), and PassionfruitDIY (Mermaid Youtube Creator), and potentially a few other creators throughout the course of this thread. I am in no way trying to replicate their designs or trying to steal their intellectual property. I want to make sure they are properly credited for their artwork. I am a newer mermaid so if there is anything that looks similar, I want people to let me know so I can address it properly.
TLDR:
~ I’m Maura. Finding my mersona was cool. Basically, if you took Morticia Addams and gave her a slightly bubblier personality and made her a greek goddess that is the vibe I am going for.
~ The goal for this tail is to be a neoprene fabric tail with individual scales made of resin. The color of this tail will be black with accented silvers. This tail is being made for the Mahina Monofin. See towards the end of the post.
NOTES MOVING FORWARD: My goal for this forum is to make sure I can keep it as organized as possible. This in no way deals with the responses to this forum post. I just want to make sure if someone wants to find something like a materials list or how I did a specific step, that they can find it all in one of the posts I make. Every post will have a post theme.
If anyone has any questions about anything I am doing you are more than free to DM me here or on Instagram at mermaid_eos, post a question in the forum or email my gmail at the.mermaid.eos@gmail.com .
POST THEME: Background and Tail Design
Hello everyone!
My name is Maura Kaiser (Also known as Mermaid Eos.) I am a mermaid from North Carolina. I currently attend North Carolina State University. I am studying Communication with a focus in Media. I have been a mermaid since June or July of this year. My first interaction with mermaids in general was seeing mermaid tails on Wish. (I am so glad I didn’t buy any of those!) it lead me in a community I didn’t even know existed.
When I started my mermaiding journey, I did some research and from then on, I knew I wanted the Mahina monofin. The biggest problem in my eyes with the Mahina monofin is the tail skin. Now more than ever there is a wide variety for this monofin and they are all really beautiful designs. However, every design I came across I realized I was settling with some aspect of the design. I wouldn’t like little things and I always am so indecisive. I wanted my first tail to be something I was really proud of.
More than that, I was struggling to find the mersona I wanted for myself. I didn’t want to be a siren exactly, but I didn’t want to be as super-duper bubbly princess mermaid either. I went back and forth whether I should pay so much money for settling and the answer to me was no. I wanted to fight for the first tail, even if it wasn’t 100% perfect. I didn’t want to go that much further above my skill level and get a silicone. But I also was realizing I wasn’t the biggest fan of spandex fabric. Not that there is anything functionally wrong with spandex fabric, it just wasn’t the magical tail I wanted. I do know that since I am technically a beginner mermaid, I should have gone with a thinner tailskin to start with. But I decided if I were willing to put in the work to make the tail, I would put the work in to swim in it. (I know this logic is low key flawed but that is my story and I am sticking with it XD)
The result was I decided that maybe I should digitally create my own tail out of neoprene. I bought Courtney Mermaid’s book on digitally creating a mermaid tail. I highly recommend it if you are interested! It really does go into everything. Linked here: https://shopvancouvermermaid.com/col...id-tails-ebook
While designing my tail one of the serious problems became apparent to me. My mersona didn’t seem to fit. At the time I was calling myself Mermaid Maura Manatee. While I based it off my name and one of my favorite animals ever, it just wasn’t me. It was too long and cumbersome. Mermaid Maura was already professionally working with that name, so I did not want to cause confusion. After designing again and again trial and error style I scrapped it all together. After some research I finally found a name that I LOVE, which was Mermaid Eos. (I made sure Mermaid Eos was an original name and basically claimed it on all the platforms I use.)
The next problem I was having was I had trouble picturing Mermaid Eos. Eos is the greek goddess of the dawn. From that I thought I wanted traditional dawn colors. Nope, after some trial and error I finally concluded that dawn colors were not for me. I just thought of colors I like on me and I thought of black. I looked up black mermaid tails on pinterest and I was sold. Then from there everything fell into place. I would have this darker romantic vibe that let some of my personality shine through that lens.
After this big mersona discovery, I went to work digitally designing the tail. While it was successful it wasn’t quite what I wanted. Flash Forward to Finfolk’s release of their mythic line with Kariel. I had heard about Mythic tails, but I never realized they weren’t plastic scales. As soon as I heard they were resin I was so happy! My dad had worked with resin before so I thought he could help me. I decided that would be what I do is just make my own resin scales. I would have bought the scales from Finfolk but I wanted to really be proud of myself in making all the scales.
And that’s how I ended up here.
I drew a design. As a note I am not an artist so please forgive me.
This is how its all going to go down. (Ideally) :
- Mold scales with silicone putty.
- Make all the resin scales I am going to need.
- Make the fabric body.
- Paint the fluke with screen printing ink.
- Sew Scales on by hand.
- Brag about my gorgeous tail!
I am currently on step 2. The first quick post I'll make is a material list and then after that I should be posting step by step and with updates.
WHEW. That was a long one. I hope not TOO long. I am so excited, and I will begin typing my next post…right as you are probably reading this. Unless of course you are seeing my post in the future! In which case just scroll down.
With love,
Mermaid Eos.
Bookmarks