Beneath the waves lies the city of Mertopia, where merfolk live as one with the sea. This campaign is for a collection of enamel pins featuring the creatures and denizens of Mertopia!
Announcing Mertopia and Exploring Character Design!
Hello everyone! Wanted to stop by and announce a campaign that will be dropping in May 2027 for Mermay!
This week I wanted to get more familiar with the speculative anatomy of mixing human and fish anatomy forms. To kick things off, I decided to clown around with a very familiar, funny little fish!
To be completely honest, I struggled with the character anatomy more than I expected. Characters have a certain unique familiarity with them that I just haven’t had to dig into with my usual creature work. Drawing a face is a delicate matter, and one that I’m seriously out of practice with!
Here is a look at a full sketch page filled with might become a clown fish “Mertopian”. There is just so much room to play here.
To drive all these ideas, I started with tiny exploration drawings to figure out where to begin. One of my goals is to give them the ability to go on land in some capacity. Tiny hidden legs are quickly becoming one of my favorite ideas for this!
Do you ever want to float around simply existing? Sometimes I can really relate to this reverse-reverse reverse-Fishtopian! It’s both a simple concept and an absolute mood.
Next, I played with different kings of leg concepts. The first design merges the fins and legs together, which instantly reminds me of wearing flippers in the water as a kid. The second design features small legs meant for navigating tight spaces on the ocean floor and occasionally popping up on land for short sprints. They are still most at home in the water where they can swim fast!
I just love how cute this one came out! It leans closer to a traditional mermaid style, but with a more stout and fishy body. Kinda like the halflings of the fish Mertopian world!
Lastly, this design below leans heavily into both worlds, granting them more access to land while still allowing them to jump back into the water at a moment’s notice. I can’t imagine they would be particularly adept at either. The anatomy would probably be a drag in the water and awkward balance on land. But the shapes are neat!
All these forms give me a lot of ideas. Perhaps they could be shapeshifters going back and forth as they feel, kind of like in Ponyo.
What do you think of these “Mertopian” forms? Be sure to leave your comments below! Everyone is welcome!
Lastly, we’re throwing up a poll to vote on favorite coral reef creatures that might be features as Mertopians! Which are your favorite?
Thank you for reading and checking out the work! We’re so grateful to have you here with us as we dive deeper!
