Show us your tail designs!

[Daphne]

So I've been having a lot of fun coming up with the stuff below. Since finding the Merbella Studios template, I went about doctoring the fluke, and coming up with the designs and colorations below.




Down the line, I redrew the tail entirely and altered the template to indicate the semi-transluscency I want to achieve. Everything below I took with my phone off screen. Naturally, I started out with an approachable design. I felt it was kinda befitting to my race.



And then for giggles, I hit the invert button. What resulted (and what is one of my favorites) has a nice Baltimore Ravens theme. And also has a nice color scheme. I'm partial to the whole nighttime dusky palette.



Then I tried this, which screams Chinese regal. I like this a lot too...though if I go with this I'm not so sure I want to be called "that Chinese mermaid" when people already think I'm Chinese It would be more fitting than the Koi concept, though.



Then I tried a green version of it — my favorite color — but I'm kinda meh on it.



Some time later I looked to other inspiration. Butterflies. Lizards. Peacocks. Tropical birds. Frogs. The concepts below are my attempt at Poison Dart Frog patterning. Frankly they scream "mermaid on acid trip meets art school dropout" to me.



And then I tried a few, a little less crazy color schemes with metallic scale patterning.



This is what I got so far. In terms of mer-persona, I want to convey a sense of exotic mystique. Something beautiful and fierce. I see this "character" with metallic claws, a net-like holster that hides a dagger or a pair of sai, and either a trident or javelin. When not armed and dangerous, I see this character hanging around at dusk or nightfall. I can even see her racing with other mermaids or creatures.

I do have more ideas here and there; just want to exhaust all possible options by the time I have the means, and availability with Merbellas, to make ONE of these tails a reality. What do you think could work?

[Aziara]

Wow, you've been busy! So many lovely designs... I personally like the inverted koi and the Chinese regal. Those two just look so dark and mysterious.

[Miyu]

OMG Daphne, I love them. LOTS OF TAIL DESIGNS! So, lots of opinions, LOL

Tribal Tails: I love them! I really really like the tribal tattoo design! My man has tribal face tattoos, so I always think they're awesome. I want to say I like the purple one more, but the gold one is also so lovely, I can't choose! I really like the fluke design.

Koi: OMG LOVE. I especially like your ideas for the light one, but the inverted one is also sooo cool! Wouldn't it be neat to have both, and switch back and forth like an Odette/Odile sort of thing? :P The red one is pretty as well, but I like the first two best. *squints to try and read print on there*

Acid trip tails: I especially love the first and last ones, those are just so cool and trippy heehee

[Anahita]

Wow, Daphne! That first one! I'm in love! And the Chinese Regal one and the patterns on the "acid" ones are so cool! The first purple acid one is a beautiful color scheme.

Then I tried this, which screams Chinese regal. I like this a lot too...though if I go with this I'm not so sure I want to be called "that Chinese mermaid" when people already think I'm Chinese It would be more fitting than the Koi concept, though.

So this got my attention, if it's not rude to ask, what ethnicity are you? I'm curious because me, personally, I'm TOTALLY exploiting my own ethnicity for my mersona. We've got really cool fish where I come from (and really awesome marine mammals too, so yeah, I can't help but steal designs from them and mash them up into a tail )

[Merman Arion]

Wow! Daphne, you really did a nice job! So many beautiful designs... I don't know which one i prefer yet.

[PearlieMae]

Hi Daphne! These are wonderful! So creative and colorful!

I am currently refining translucent fins/flukes and hope to be able to produce them very soon. I'd love to try one of your designs! Maybe on a smaller scale (see what I did there?) at first, but WOW! So much to explore!

[Soulstrifer]

Fantastic! I love the fluke design and color combo's you've come up with

[Daphne]

Thanks for the compliments!

Anahita, ethnicity wise I'm Filipino. Heh, just today I was at the mall and some old guy started speaking Chinese to me. Then Japanese. Then possibly Thai or Korean. I'm like...no...
None of the above. if I charged people every time someone assumed I'm Chinese, I'd have enough money to fund a tail. They crack me up.

Anyhoo, what kind of fish and mammals are you referring to? I had another derp moment posting a reply from my intro thread that should have been here. Basically I had this idea of taking the characters in your name and applying it vertically on a tail, opposite some colors I've yet to figure out. The type becomes a pattern. I want to also try some other characters and see how they play out. I'm open to new fluke options too. Just tough trying to work around that monofin.

PearlieMae, can't wait to see the clear(er) options. It must be a challenge getting the materials to work in that way. Nice pun there too.

[Daphne]

Oh, and feel free to see what you can do with these builds. I'm curious how they'd turn out with different materials.

[MerEmma]

WOW. o_o

[Anahita]

Anahita, what kind of fish and and mammals are you referring to? I had another derp moment posting a reply from my intro thread that should have been here. Basically I had this idea of taking the characters in your name and applying it vertically on a tail, opposite some colors I've yet to figure out. The type becomes a pattern. I want to also try some other characters and see how they play out. I'm open to new fluke options too. Just tough trying to work around that monofin.

Just typical reef fish and mammals; some endemic to the Persian Gulf, some in the whole area. But the colors on them are wild, which is why I don't have any problem sticking to my own region for inspiration

[Daphne]

This is roughly what I'm thinking of. I'm having a stubborn time trying to make the kanji gold, but you see how I took them and wrapped them along one side of it. Arabic calligraphy (if that's what it is) is so gorgeous as a letterform; it really got me hooked on the idea of drawing from calligraphy to make unique patterns.

I wanna explore this more. Such a shame Tagalog doesn't have a nice visual letterforms the way the mainland Asian languages and the Russian language do. I think if I can sort this out and incorporate it into one of the concepts above, I just might have my tail.

The internets tell me these kanji are "Feminine", "Elegant," Desire", and "Dream." They way they're arranged, they might say something awkward or vulgar. Or monkey butt. Who knows.

It'd be amusing and stupid going around with a cool tail that said monkey butt on it.

[Anahita]

Oooooo but Tagalog has Baybayin (I think that's how it's spelled?) which I know is a hassle, to learn a whole archaic writing system for a tail, but it's a lot better than using symbols from a language that's easy to mess up in. I saw someone do that with a tattoo in Persian. They wanted to say something all deep and meaningful, and instead it made no sense, and had a really, REALLY bad swearword in it. It's rare to see it in Farsi because very few people get tattoos in Farsi (thank god!), BUT loads of people get Chinese character tatts, and according to this article, it seems that it can end pretty badly.... I feel so bad for those people!

[Daphne]

LOL sounds like stuff that's perfect for a de motivational poster.

I did not know about Baybayin. ERHMAGERD thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!!!!!!

[Anahita]

Haha, no problem I actually only knew about it because someone accidentally confused it for something a pre-Islamic Persian script and asked me to translate it for them. I had to figure out what it was so I didn't feel bad telling them "No, I can't" and so I came across Baybayin. It's pretty cool looking, and I can definitely see how with it's pretty loops how it got confused for middle Persian.

[Daphne]

I found and reached out to a Filipino artist that specializes in Baybayin tattoo art. He's yet to get back to me. I hope he gets back to me. Either way, I'm still stoked about this discovery. When I get around to rolling credits for this thing, you're getting a nod. And him. If he gets back to me. Preferably soon. I'm too excited to be patient.

For now the kanji is placeholder. I think I've settled on a general design (below), just need his translation(s), and a final color scheme. If I were to post every single color variation of this thing I'd have another ginormo post like my initial one. So I'm putting up one of my preferences. I'm still stubborn about putting some olive green in there, or earth tones maybe, or have some bold, jewel-toned tropical OMG my eyes tropical colors, or bold Jamaicanesque colors — which would be gorgeous on dark skin IMO. But that's not quite me. I could post them anyway if someone would be interested in that kind of palette for a tail.

[Anahita]

Yay! that's so cool! I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you to hear back from him soon!

[Miyu]

Daphne: My guy really likes the "tribal tattoo" one, I'd love to make it out of fabric/neoprene and paint that for him! Although, he has tribal tattoos of his own design already on his body, so I'd like to try to incorporate his style more so it "blends in" more. I think he also wants to elongate the "sides" of the fluke to look a little more spiky and "masculine" I suppose But he adores the colour scheme, that's right up his alley! (Although I may try to get him to have pink tips LOL - one time when he had double mohawks, they were dyed purple-blue, and I convinced him to let me do just the tips hot pink, and it was so awesome, and EVERYONE loved it!)

[Daphne]

So just had an idea. A few days ago I discovered I had EVEN MORE tail color and tail design concepts. Rather than spam the thread, I was thinking of doing an album here called "laurelsky InspiraSEA: a conceptual lookbook. Laurelsky is my handle as a freelancer, basically a play on my name.

It will have all these tail designs and the unposted concepts. It'll also have other things like various fin, fluke and dorsal designs, I was also thinking of possible tops, accessories and props for both men and women. There's also stuff I was thinking about for eye makeup, hairstyles, etc.

I've been SO much more inspired since coming here. I love doing comic art and fashion illustration, what better way to regain momentum into making IPs again. And if anyone wants to produce them, apply them, print them out even, you're free to. Just credit me with the concepts. Or I will be sad panda.

And then have to go maul something.

Edited to add the four more tails I had buried in layers within my file. Subsequent tails and other concepts will be placed into the album, at which point all concepts I posted here will be stripped from my posts and redirected to the album to ensure security.

[Daphne]

@Moonlight: maybe if you go on the fuschia or a darker, redder pink, it could still be masculine. I can see hot pink working too. Heh, maybe a hot pink lightning pattern even.