2 Tails Undine Sketches 04

My 1st actual sketches of these things I doodled into my paper journal in the train staion in Beijing. I was so inspired that, i just had to sketch them down.

After that, when I finally got back from my travels through Guangdong to Beijing, and all the way back up to Shanxi Taiyuan, I was utterly posessed to find my sketch book, and begin sketching.

So, these are my 1st sketches from my sketchbook.

I was sooooooooo totally inspired with these!

I didn't want to put too much detail into them because I wasn't sure exactly how I wanted them to come out. So, all the sketches have severl variations in them.

I tried to keep them very rough so as to play with their shapes, forms, and designs more... and stayed away from details as much as I could... but, at times those details would just sneak themselves in.

What actually began the inspiration was while I was in the Beijing train station. they were playing there cartoon TV show of the "Fu Wa" Mascot ellementals for the Olympic games. Durring 1 of the episodes, they actually had klips from those old Ester Williams Water Ballet films from about nearly 100 years ago, last century. I think water ballet is typically called synchronized swimming now.

But, those clips were just sooooooooo beautiful in their classic technicolor style, and set to music!
It reminded me of my most favorite Disney peice "Fantasia" which is more of an ART that a typical film.

So, once I saw that, my mind began to make up its own inspirational ideas... so, what came to me was these double tailed mermaids.

That part from Fantasia where they have those fansy Fish set to that Arabian themed musical peice from "The Nutcracker" was what ran thrugh my mind.... plus, that fact that I had been playing arround with Belly Dancing at home allot ("Shimmy"on FitTV, Cable TV, USA).

The more I played with these the more I liked them...

But, I found at times the sketches wanted fairy ears (pointy). Then, Heidi (my daughter) kept insisting they were Undines which are a kind of water ellemental or fairy, and there are just sooooooooo many versions of them... sometiems Mermaids arte considdered a type of Undine.

The most common and popular look for mermaids tends to be the 1 tail type, which I believe comes from the Greek mythos.

However, I've MANY MANY times seen sculptures of mermaids with 2 tails... probly because these are sculpted by MEN.... and for OBVIOUS REASONS *e-hemm* I'm sure you could see why a Male human in particular would prefer a Mermaid to have 2 tails, instead of just 1.... *wink wink*
Especially a sialor who's been at sea for years and years, then ship wrecked and rescued by a Beautiful Mermiad... and often bare breasted...
Heck! even stories about the Ocean goddess Calipso (whom is often depicted as a black or Nubian beauty) are often sexual in nature when she rescues sailors. Ever read the Odyssey?

So... if I ever had the chance, I'd love to create something allong the line of something musical and fanciful, much like Walt's 'Fantasia'... but my own. Something classical and beautiful like that.

I find more and more often these days, my ideas tend to be more musical in nature. In fact, there's times that I can't make my stories work without something musical in them.

I want to get a new sketch book, because the one I got in China has paper whcih is just Too fine to be practicing on.