For the past month I have been partaking in a monthly drawing challenge.
This isn't the first time I've done so, but it is the one I have done to such a consistent degree.
When I saw the prompts for a full month of PREHISTORIC mermaid designs, I immediately jumped into the challenge. The prompt choices were varied, and also filled with plenty of obscure genera. Many of which I probably would not have drawn otherwise, I mean, have you heard of Cycleryon? Eretmorhipis? Yawunik??? Die hard paleonerds probably have, but even I was unfamiliar with some of these prompts..
With so many different and varied creatures with different forms, body types, and biological families, it proved quite the interesting challenge to portray them as unique and coherent mermaid designs. But this is part of what made it fun to do, I've had to think outside the box for some of them, and even for the more straightforward ones, I've done my best injecting my own creative juices in making interesting Prehistoric Mermaids.
Credits to the prompt by Subjectively on YouTube, or @magik_jack_art on Instagram. I have been following him along for some time for both his fakemon and creature designs, and they are just genuinely creative and fascinating.
With that out of the way, let's get on to the first round of Mesozoic Merms:
The Conulariida are a group of shelled cnidarians that lived from the Edicaran period; some 545 million years ago, all the way through the late Triassic period. They were sessile animals that likely possessed tentacles to capture prey.
My first thought when I saw this prompt was "what the hell is this?" And then afterwards "It's a marine flowerpot." Flowerpot or not, this was what I had to work with. I went with a gorgon-inspired look, and she turned out pretty cute for a day 1 piece. Looking back, she did end up looking a lot simpler than many of the later works in both concept and execution, but I still like her regardless.
Cycleryon was a crablike decapod that lived in the Jurassic period (not Triassic! I didn't make the prompt!). Anachronism aside, My design for it was fairly straightforward. At first I didn't quite know what to make of this creature, but after looking through many species of crustaceans and the like for color reference, something suddenly clicked:
It's probably the least human-like of my Mesozoic Merms, but they're an interesting one to me.
Eretmorhipis is a marine reptile from the Triassic of China known for its broad, fan-like fins (its name literally means "oar fan").
You can clearly see where the influences lie, now :]
Her color scheme is personally one of my favorites. A little bit of Chinese water dragon, and a touch of lotus flowers, all wrapped up in an elegant assemblage of flowing fabrics, fans and bows.
While it looked like a turtle, Cyamodus was actually a Placodont, and a member of Sauropterygia (for non paleonerds, Sauropterygians included animals like Plesiosaurus). It was a durophagous, feeding on hard-shelled organisms like shellfish.
This one partly inspired by ancient Chinese armor, which some of them did use turtle shells! (I know it isn't a turtle, but close enough.) I still went in with the details though, including the hair tied in reference to the segmented shell, and all that damn armor detailing..
Chinlea; named after the Chinle Formation, was a freshwater coelacanth, not unlike the modern day genus Latimeria, though it did go extinct by the end of the Triassic.
I was suggested by @temoti to give her a lil meat on her bones, and thus, we have ourselves a chubby Coelacanth for this week!
I'll be honest she might be one of my favorites I've done for this week. The colors, the personality, even the little freckles sprinkled on her.
Better watch out for that Saurichthys though..!
Trematosaurs were large temnospondyl amphibians. Uniquely for amphibians, they were tolerant of saltwater, and as a result, one of the few fully-marine amphibians.
My design was.. certainly an interesting take on the animal. I was looking for a way to somehow integrate the creature's long snout as part of her design, and I eventually landed on a long cap. It took several redos of the sketching and color scheme before eventually deciding on a fire-bellied newt, and leading into a spunky streetwear-inspired girl by the end of it.
This month's designs were all originally planned to be 'one shots', but I like to think that she and the Chinlea gal would make a cute duo. A spunky, hotheaded gal and her more laid-back companion. Might make art of the two in the future, we'll see!
Capping off the Triassic week, Prosaurosphargis was a fairly recent discovery (2023 at the time of writing).
It is a member of the Saurosphargidae (another family in the Sauropterygia) from the early Triassic period 250 MYA, only 1-2 million years after the Great Dying that wiped out
On to the Mermaid — or I suppose Man in this case, I don't have much to say, but I did reference leatherback turtles, and free divers. Oh, and I can't forget the cute little ammonite.
That's it for week 1's works. I'll soon get to posting the rest, and eventually all of them..! Once I get to finishing them...
