Miss Kika

News

Death of Little Mermaid

Tuesday, January 8th 2008
posted in Commissions

Private commissions are so much fun~ I love having to draw things I would not normally do sometimes. Today I just finished my latest one for a private collection, a piece depicting the little mermaid as she dies in the original story~ falling to her death in the ocean and becoming sea foam w/ dark ocean colors. In the story the prince ends up falling in love with someone else, so she is given the option to stab them in the heart with a magic knife (hence the knife in this piece) and when the blood dripped on her feet she would become a mermaid again and return to the sea. Because she could not harm the man she loved she picked death instead, quite a bit different from the Disney version!

I actually used to LOVE a japanese animated version of the original tale when I was very small ( 1975 Toei film, check it out) I remember being kind of confused when she did not die in the disney version when it came around to theaters, haha! Maybe I was too small to watch pretty mermaids die...but not everything kids see has to be fluffy and soft.

ANYWAY, I was really excited to work on this piece when I was contacted about it~ especially the scene she wanted. The piece was drawn digitally, printed with giclee inks on canvas, and finally touched up with some hand painted details. The frame was custom painted to match the piece, I really have fun painting frames for some reason. The final was a bit on the large side, about 24" across I believe.

comments

Kind of an old post for me to be commenting on, but thats okay!

I think I heard somewhere that the little mermaid was supposed to die, but I forgot! I think the ‘75 flick you showed is definitely something I want to check out.

I love your illustration, too. You succeeded at making it both dark and sad, but she’s still beautiful!
Odd
comment on Thursday, September 10th 2009