This piece was done as a commission sketch at a comicon that I attended in 2005.

The client requested a Mermaid and having worked at Disney for nearly six years, I still had their version of the fable in my mind. But Ultimately I decided to try and stay true to the original Hans Chrstian Anderson's story and proceeded to do my take on the character of Ariel.

I have rarely depicted Mermaids in my career, as they are just not requested often (granted, if I was doing what I'm doing now in the mid 80's, I probably would have had my fill of Mermaids ), but I really enjoyed creating this piece.

Cool thing about fantasy and science fiction and the creatures that inhabit the various worlds of the genres is that you have some leeway when depicting such characters, you can just let your imagination run wild. I could have really gone nuts on this one but exercised restraint when illustrating it and in the end the client was quite pleased with the finished product. More surprising, he revealed himself to be a Disney fan ,and the "Little Mermaid" was one of his favorite animated features.

It was tempting at the time, but I persevered and fought off the urge to add versions of "Sebastian" and "Flounder" to the piece.