Around the release of the live action Little Mermaid movie, I was inspired to draw some artwork related to it, specifically using Twisted Wonderland characters. In the month of July, I had begun to sketch out the characters Azul Ashengrotto and the Leech twins, making a minor blog post of my progress. About a month ago I managed to finish the Azul Ashengrotto piece, so it made sense to attempt to finish the Leech Twins digital art I started some time ago.
Small recap, Floyd and Jade Leech are twins heavily inspired by Ursula’s henchmen Flotsam and Jetsam, just like how Azul is based on the Sea Witch herself. Like the duo of eels, Jade and Floyd take orders from their boss and friend Azul, whether that be working at the Monstro Lounge or hunting down clients who have yet to hold their end of “contracts”. Most of the time, they appear as normal humans at Night Raven College, but on occasion, the twins reveal their original mermaid forms. For this piece, I wanted to explore that side of those characters, especially with the amount of detail put in the character design.
The first thing to do in this process was to come up with poses for the characters, using an app to construct models to get and idea of the point of view and gestures I wanted. Tracing and altering the models on procreate helped me to then shift into sketching other details. Evidently, the twins don’t have legs as they are sea creatures, so I looked at references online and their game models to figure out how mermaid tails would look like, yet still hold true to their eel-like characteristics.
The lineart was simple enough, along with the coloring in the figures. The background was blended to resemble the ocean (obviously), the water effect a brush on procreate I really wanted to use. Of course, the characters look very flat on the image to the right, not to mention it is admittedly hard to see them with the dark blue layer I used.
Quite honestly, the part of this piece that took the longest to do was in the fact the more finer details to the character’s design. The face, hands, and front of the twins’ were the palest part of their bodies, blending into the color of their tail fins. The tips of their fingers were a darker gray that had an ombre effect, along with the additional fins on the arms and on the side of their heads. The twins’ skin was also speckled and shiny to reflect the texture of their scales, so that was necessary in order to make them appear more lively. The finishing touch was definitely the iconic glowing, yellow eyes of the Leech twins, referencing the infamous Flotsam and Jetsam.
Initially, the piece didn’t need a focal point, but the inclusion of a human hand at the center of the piece was added to set the tone of the artwork. I’m big on mythology, so this drawing was no stranger to some of the darker elements of mermaids and sirens. Mermaids and sirens are technically two different mythologcial creatures, but often they are seen and talked about interchangeably; most notably, how they lure people to their deaths at the bottom of my sea. Some great examples I’ve seen in film were the mermaids from Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the Talokanil from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and recently the new Little Mermaid movie.
The hand belongs to a human reaching towards the surface, an aggressive wound bleeding and clouding the sea water. I wanted to narrate a story of someone lulled by a siren’s song, ultimately dragged into the murky depths that resulted in a scratch mark from the perpetrators. The victim is trying to save themself, but is surrounded by hauntingly, ethereal creatures that crave blood.
Floyd (the twin on the left) is often seen sporting a lazy smirk on his face in the game, while Jade (the twin on the right) is the more level-headed out of the two. Although they (thankfully) don’t drown their fellow students, they enjoy tormenting their fellow classmates in their own unique manner, so you could say they are “toying with their prey”. Regardless, I wanted to explore the dark side of mermaids while drawing the Leech twins; you could see that this artwork was more so self-indulgent.