Selkish's Ratchet Workshop

[Mermaid Clarity]

I'd like to start by saying this is all Wesley's fault. Followed by PearlieMae's. Yes. I'm calling you out. I want a hand-written apology, deposited in my locker, before 3 o'clock today along with $25 in Hot Topic bucks. Additionally, I want control over ALL of the girl's bathrooms from the east-bank locker to the second floor. And two trees in the quad.

Sorry, that kinda got away from me, there. What were we doing? Oh yeah, tailmaking.

So *ahem* inspired by Wesley and PearlieMae and other mers on their lovely tailmaking escapades, I suddenly woke up from a fever dream of sugarplums and seaweed to find my amazon account had somehow ordered Monster Clay ALL ON IT'S OWN! Whaaaaat? Nooo, whaaaa?

Anyway. I just got out of college like, a couple months ago. I don't do the whole fully independent human adult thing so I don't have the space to hold an entire leg mold and scale sheets and whatnot. So I've opted to do an individual scale method because I can put that s#!t in baggies and stuff when I need it out of the way (until the leg mold... we'll uhm... burn that bridge when we get to it.)

Frankly I'm hoping making this thread will keep me accountable rather than do the thing that New Years Resolutions do where you tell people you're going to stop small woodland elves because they're just way too high in calorie but then the act of telling people and them congratulating you was just so rewarding you feel like you already stopped eating small woodland elves and you never get around to doing it because TINY WOODLAND ELVES ARE SO TASTY.



Oh you thought I was talking about like... people.

[Mermaid Wesley]

Lol you're welcome. It's gonna be RAD


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[PearlieMae]

"I'd like to start by saying this is all Wesley's fault. Followed by PearlieMae's. Yes. I'm calling you out. I want a hand-written apology, deposited in my locker, before 3 o'clock today along with $25 in Hot Topic bucks. Additionally, I want control over ALL of the girl's bathrooms from the east-bank locker to the second floor. And two trees in the quad"

Rub a lamp!

You are making me unpack brain cells I haven't used in decades. Locker? Quad? HOT FREAKIN' TOPIC? Come on, you can dream bigger than that!

And if you take two jackets and those acidwashed jeans that are never coming back in style out of your closet, you can hang your tape dummy in there.

Fluke mold can go under your bed, but you're gonna have to clean there first, like your mom's been nagging you to do.

[Mermaid Clarity]

And if you take two jackets and those acidwashed jeans that are never coming back in style out of your closet, you can hang your tape dummy in there.

Fluke mold can go under your bed, but you're gonna have to clean there first, like your mom's been nagging you to do.

(also hi Pearlie, it occurs to me I've never actually talked to you and now I'm demanding retribution... ) Anyway, I'll find space, though dust is an issue. It's good to know I'll probably be able to keep the legs in the closet.

Wow... that's a sentence I didn't think I'd ever write.

[Sabrina the Selkie]

Hahahaha! That whole exchange gave me an excellent laugh.

Good luck with the tail, I'll be keeping tabs!

(And I wonder if fevered somnambulism has anything to do with ordered monster clay.)

[Mermaid Clarity]

So an ongoing issue I've been having with color schemes. As a historical costumer, I get REALLY nitpicky about accuracy. The problem here is... well, mermaids aren't real... Or at least, not to the point where I can be accurate to something for it. So I'm getting fussy about coloring on a different level. I want it to look "natural" with my skin tone (tannish with yellow undertones) but also stand out and look striking. I made a kind of template in Adobe Illustrator in the hopes of helping visualize. You can see a lot of my fickleness with fluke design too.

I'm going through a lot of color scheme ideas:



like... a lot


Liiiike... a lot



(the reference pic was the inspiration to the first color scheme, I decided I probably didn't need so many colors)

Then I read Rescue Sirens: Search for the Atavist and thought Nim's tail would be awesome.


Now I'm kinda liking a precious metals inspired tail. I don't wanna go full orange really so this would be gold based.


Buuuut then I started loving that teal patina and playing with the idea of a metallic tail with a teal patina on the sides so I added rose gold. I'm hoping to make the patina glow in the dark too.







I am having a little trouble visualizing the palette but I think this helps a bit. I want to do a darker bronze along the back and then to a brighter rose gold along the hips into a yellow/white gold on the tummy. This. Will. Change. What I do know is that I want to kind of avoid a very orange tail, they seem kinda common, and I'm trying to avoid a lot of blue as it tends to disappear in the ocean.

[Mermaid Clarity]

Hahahaha! That whole exchange gave me an excellent laugh.

Good luck with the tail, I'll be keeping tabs!

(And I wonder if fevered somnambulism has anything to do with ordered monster clay.)

actually though, it might have more to do with the fierce determination that comes from a couple of glasses of wine...

[Dancing Fish]

OOhhhh. That teal/copper dress was my inspiration too. I already love your take on it. Welcome to the Individual Scale Tail Dark Side. I see you brought cookies!

[Mermaid Clarity]

Wow so much progress in one day! What are you thinking Selk? Oh yeah, I totally cheated, I've been working on this for like, a while as far as the planning stages. I didn't pull down the clay until yesterday though... so there's that.

I've been thinking about scale patterns as well, while I settle on a color scheme. I know I wanted to do something that was somewhere between "ooh fancy fantasy creature" and "yeah, that thing belongs in the water." So I turned to my good ol' buddy research. I'm not a fan of the super uniform, rounded edges that some other brands do. I've also found I wanted something a bit thicker and less detailed than FinFolk's scales or even Pearlie Mae's shell-scales (nothing against either of those it's just personal preference.) I was worried about my scales being a bit visually busy. In fact, I was noticing that I was thinking of scales as being very vertical but most fish have very horizontal scales:



that definitely modified my idea of how I was going to make my scales. I went to hang out with Mermaid Wesley a couple days ago as I kicked this idea around in my head. Using her rejects, I started fiddling with more ideas.



Hrm... too pointy...

Eventually I actually took Wesley's advice and made a model out of paper. I think I like this scale shape though people keep saying it looks like a pinecone, which I'm not sure I'm happy about.



Buuut I liked how it looked and I'm impatient HERE ARE SOME PICTURES NOW.


first scale!








I decided the scales were too pointy once I layered them over each other. I calmed down the ridge to make 'em less stripey.


Oh wait look! I added a thingie for you.



Also my cat just decided to walk all over everything so no I get to modify the scales to have less... kitten paws on them.

[Mermaid Wesley]

Yay! The more dull ridges do help de-stripe-ify it.


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[Theobromine]

I'm a little confused about what you mean by most fishes having horizontal vs. vertical scales...

[Sabrina the Selkie]

She means that scales tend to look wide instead of long.

[Mermaid Clarity]

I'm a little confused about what you mean by most fishes having horizontal vs. vertical scales...

When you look along a fish's body, the way you'd attach a human torso to the fish tail, their scales look more wide than long. most of the scales I was doodling and working with looked long rather than wide making the design look somewhat reptilian. Idk, it's just a preference for me.

[Mermaid Clarity]

Moving onto smaller scales because I couldn't sleep. Of course, that's not the case for some.



Anyway, how the smaller scales might fit with the larger ones.




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[Ilyena]

Your scales kinda remind me of Placoid scales ^_^

[Luna Dreamtide]

Exciting progress! I love the fluke design of your first two templates!

[Theobromine]

Ok, I guess I was just confused by your wording, then.



Maybe you were thinking of ganoid scales? They're not the most common scale type though (restricted to primitive fishes such as sturgeon, gar, paddlefish, bichirs, etc.) Cycloid and ctenoid scales are found on teleosts (higher-order bony fish) so they're the ones that I thiiink most people are familiar with. They overlap like shingles (see the pictures you posted above); pretty much all tailmakers who are going for a fishy look as opposed to some other type of animal are approximating these scales, but you're right, many people make them look far too rounded. Following that line of thought, something else to keep in mind is that the part of the scale that we actually see isn't the majority of the thing. Take a look at how the whole structure looks, including where it grows out from the skin. Should give you a better idea of why scales look the way they do (and why foam circles don't look convincing, imho).



Ilyena's totally right btw, your clay scales do look like placoid scales (like dermal denticles on a shark).

[Mermaid Clarity]

Ok, I guess I was just confused by your wording, then.



Maybe you were thinking of ganoid scales? They're not the most common scale type though (restricted to primitive fishes such as sturgeon, gar, paddlefish, bichirs, etc.) Cycloid and ctenoid scales are found on teleosts (higher-order bony fish) so they're the ones that I thiiink most people are familiar with. They overlap like shingles (see the pictures you posted above); pretty much all tailmakers who are going for a fishy look as opposed to some other type of animal are approximating these scales, but you're right, many people make them look far too rounded. Following that line of thought, something else to keep in mind is that the part of the scale that we actually see isn't the majority of the thing. Take a look at how the whole structure looks, including where it grows out from the skin. Should give you a better idea of why scales look the way they do (and why foam circles don't look convincing, imho).



Ilyena's totally right btw, your clay scales do look like placoid scales (like dermal denticles on a shark).

Theobromine, thank you for putting all that out for me. <--- actually not sarcasm you put into words and pictures the issue I was having.

I may have been thinking of Placoid scales when I started designing mine too. My friend said they reminded her of Pike, so that makes some sense. I think the ridge was also an attempt to make that vague shield shape and give the scale some of the subtle texture we see as well (possible to be achieved through color but labor intensive.)

[Theobromine]

You're welcome! I was hoping that would be helpful. I'm a zoologist and an aquarist and I always think of fish biology in very technical terms and sometimes I forget that not everyone does so I thought I'd try to articulate it a little better. (I'm the kind of nerd who uses terms like teleost and caudal peduncle on a daily basis but has no idea why the Kardashians are famous. I had soooo many friends in high school...)

(Edit: also, when I first started hearing about Kardashians I though everyone was talking about Cardassians)

[Ashton]