Winter Mermaid
Digital Painting and Photo Manipulation of a Viking Mermaid
by Justin Gedak 2016
I spent most of Christmas finishing this mermaid artwork. It ended up looking a lot different than I had originally intended, and I actually had a really tough time finishing it. I never intended the snow to be there, and had actually spent a bunch of time painting an old ship in the background. Something about it's angle, proportion, and lighting seemed very off though, so I cut it out, and added an abstract distant castle instead.
With the snow, I imagine her as almost a viking mermaid at home up north in the cold of winter. I think it was fitting too that I was snowed in during most of the creation process for this digital painting (I sort of live out in the stick, on the side of a mountain).
Like a madman, I probably painted over a thousand layers on this one. That's what I love about painting digitally, no waiting for paint to dry.
Hope everyone had an awesome Christmas!
This mermaid print was created with a combination of digital painting and photo manipulation using Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, and a Wacom Intuos Pro drawing tablet.
Based on the photography of Derek Brewster (Pygar)
For anyone wanting to sign up to my mailing list, I'm giving away a free full resolution digital download of "Born for Battle". It's a very large image, 9000 x 6750 300dpi, and I figured it would be interesting for people to be able to zoom right in to see the details and brushwork. Also, anyone with access to a good printer can print off their own print of it without having to order anything online.
Click on the image below to sign up and get your free download
