~I do art sometimes~

[mishelkie-art]

These were supposed to be done and posted by the end of May for MerMay, but the last drawing (Jinbei) ended up taking longer than expected. I actually started these in May of 2023, inspired by the mermaid designs in the live action Little Mermaid. I didn't want to post anything until at least all ten of the Strawhats were done, as I tend to pick and drop projects depending on my motivation, and I kinda got paranoid about potentially keeping people waiting for the next drawing 😅 Most of these are also the second time drawing the Strawhats as merfolk, and I'd like to post those as well for comparison. As for what kinds of animals they are:

Luffy - Mako shark

Zoro- Tiger shark

Nami - Goldfish/barracuda hybrid

Usopp - Sailfish

Sanji - Betta fish

Chopper - Leafy sea dragon

Robin - Zebra shark

Franky - Humpback whale

Brook - Chimera/ghost shark

Jinbei - Whale shark (obvs)

Vivi - Nile perch

I think these choices fit the characters for the most part, for Luffy through Brook, most of them were the same as the first time I drew them as merfolk. The ones I changed were Nami, Franky, and Brook. For Nami, I thought goldfish suited her well for name and colors, but then I read somewhere that barracuda liked shiny things, and I decided to include that as well, making her a hybrid of the two. Franky was originally a lionfish as a nod to Sunny, but I wanted to diversify the designs more and show that not all merfolk are part fish, but can be part aquatic mammal as well.

Brook was originally a random fish I don't remember, maybe a pike? But I'd seen a video about chimera and heard that they're also called "ghost sharks" and like, I couldn't think of anything more fitting 😆 For Robin, I think an octopus would've been more fitting overall, but these designs originated from a specific AU I had in mind, which is why she's a shark instead. Jinbei was obviously going to stay a whale shark, but I still had to redesign him so he'd fit with the others, and overall, I feel he may be the weakest of the designs as he was the last one I did and I was rushing to have them all done 😓

With Vivi, I did like her original design, but I felt that for a character who comes from a country inspired by Egypt, it didn't really come across in her design. I made some slight changes that could hopefully convey it more, but also differentiate her face more from Nami's.

I think overall, the designs I'm most happy with are Zoro, Nami, and Chopper. With Chopper I had this vision of fins shaped like sakura flowers and tree branches and I adore how he came out 😍🥰❤ But overall I am happy with how everyone looks, but I think improvements can be made. I'll make a separate post that shows the difference between my original designs and the new ones and include it in an edit.

Edit: 2017 vs 2024

[mishelkie-art]

Been a hot minute (like a year *coughcough* what who said that 👀) since I posted anything, during which I became obsessed with a little game called Honkai Star Rail ⭐️🚂 I got curious after I saw fanart of two characters featured in the big story arc running at the time, and I tell you once I started playing I was hooked, like hooked hooked lol

Anyway, since then I’ve fallen deep into obsession with Phainon, Mydei, and Phaidei as a whole, I loved them so so much 🥰🥰🥰🥺 and even though it’s only been a few patches since Amphoreus wrapped up I miss them and want them back asap 😭😭😭 Please enjoy my first HSR fanart and humble offering to Phaidei enjoyers everywhere 💙❤️

[mishelkie-art]

My pieces for MerMay 2025, I decided to make a slight change to how I draw mermaids and may update some of my previous designs in the future.

[picsthatmakeyougohmm]

[skiptomy]

I've never drawn in the pokemon style, but I had to, no control

[mishelkie-art]

Been working on some sketches of my mer!Zoro, since he's one of my favorite designs. What started as me figuring out what his markings look like under his bandana turned into some of them ending up a bit more uh... sluttier than I imagined 😅😆

And then, while drawing these, I started to spiral and wonder what Tera and Arashi would look like as well, what traits Zoro inherited from each parent. Well, all this pondering resulted in new mer designs!

I had already designed a human form of Tera which is on my insta, so all she really needed were some tweaks, but I hadn't drawn Arashi yet so I had to come up with his from scratch. Originally I had wanted to take more inspiration from Kurogane from Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles (sole reason being he and Zoro share the same English VA lol) and while I could see human Arashi wearing a similar outfit, I decided to make his overall look more distinct. I made him a blunette since a lot of the Shimotsuki have blue or blue-ish hair, and, like Zoro and Ushimaru, Arashi inherited Ryuma's huge-ass forehead 😂

Obviously, Arashi is a tiger shark, and originally Tera was going to be a leopard shark, but I ultimately decided to make her a thresher shark instead as I think the long tail matched her hair. This now makes Zoro half-tiger/half-thresher. Her eye color is a little detail I enjoy, as in fics I often find that people can't decide if Zoro's eyes are gold or silver, I prefer silver personally, but I made Tera's eyes gold in reference to that lol

I also wanted Tera to have an obvious sun theme, to go along with the Shimotsuki's moon theme. If I remember correctly, Shimotsuki Village was founded after the people from Wano drove off bandits, and Tera is the daughter of bandits, sooo... what if she was the child of the very bandits that were driven off? Maayybe there was a little Romeo and Juliet thing going on with her and Arashi? Maybe a diamond-in-the-rough bandit's daughter met the descendant of Wano's sword god and it was the greatest romance in One Piece history?!! Lol I just think it would be so funny if Zoro's parents were pretty much a Disney couple. She's the Megara to his Hercules, the Aladdin to his Jasmine, the Eugene to his Rapunzel 😆🤣🤣

Bonus for those who made it though my rant:

Other designs

[mishelkie-art]

Not One Piece this time, but my love for Pokemon is as strong, if not stronger than my love for OP ❤❤❤❤ These art pieces are reposts from Insta, like my mermaids. The first three are from an art trade I did with my friend, we took three of our favorite Pokemon and drew them in pairs, mine were Turtwig, Lucario, and Vaporeon, while hers were Dragonite, Flaaffy, and Raichu. The last piece is a commission I did for a coworker, two of his favorites are Umbreon and Espeon and I couldn't resist the chance to draw the sun and moon twins 😍🥰🥰

[mishelkie-art]

Hello~ As promised, here are the 2017 versions of my Strawhat mermaid designs in comparison to the 2023/2024 versions. I originally had posted these to a different account, however I haven't posted any art on that blog in a long time, I think maybe since 2017? And now I don't really think of it as an art blog anymore. I originally started this blog so I could post the full and better quality versions of my art that I couldn't on Insta (cuz it SUCKS), but now I think I'll also post new stuff I come up with, instead of Insta being my main. Anyway-

To start with, as I mentioned in my last post, these designs were born from a specific AU in mind. In this AU, there isn't just one kind of merfolk, but merfolk were instead made up of many groups of different kinds of merpeople. Sharks, for example, were their own subgroup. Another example would be a group including aquatic mammals like whales and dolphins, and another group would be crustaceans, ect. I think in my first go at turning the Strawhats in merfolk I limited myself too much, like three of them were sharks and the others were just other kinds of fish. I do like Franky as a lionfish, but I changed him to a humpback whale to showoff more of the differences and similarities between the different kinds of merfolk. Plus, after the timeskip I think he's now canonically the slowest member of the crew, so making him a large animal that's been known to protect other species of animals from orcas seemed fitting, ya know?

With brook, he straight up was just some random fish that I really can't remember the name of, and I'm happy that this time around I did more research and found an animal that fits the spooky nature of his devil fruit. Overall, I think everyone got a glow up, but out of all of them I think Zoro's my favorite. I hate how I gave him that serious broody expression when it doesn't suit our beloved himbo idiot at all lol I feel the new version can be intimidating still, but also comes across as softer thanks to the colored lines and use of pinks and soft red. I don't know what I was thinking making Sanji primarily yellow, like his Wano outfit looks good but yellow is mainly his Germa color 😭 2nd time around I made him blue for his All Blue, and I wasn't sure if it came through, but I tried to curl and color his tail fins to make them look like crashing waves.

Unfortunately, at the time I drew these Jinbei wasn't an "official" member of the crew, so I hadn't thought to draw him. Also, I feel that I mistyped in the last post in regards to Vivi, by "original design", I was referring to the CANON design, not a previous design that I had come up with 😓

But yeah, I can't believe it's been seven years since I drew the first versions of these designs, I swtg ever since 2020 the years have just been blurring together lol