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I keep my nails short but I'm very, very tempted 😍

Whimsical Nature Inspired Press on Nails by Miminailart

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Beautiful cover. Are there any sci fi/fantasy mags that still have that classic sci fi feel? Looking for recs

I do not typically collect science fiction magazines, but this one is an obvious must-have for me. This cover art by David Martin is some of the most fun I have ever seen, from the cat galaxy to the mouse spaceship. 10000/10, no notes on this stupendous edition of Amazing Stories from 1991.

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Scientists

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Cute, cute, cute!

my recent art ^^

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Two spiders this time. Watercolour pencils and inks 🥰

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These pencils are so striking

G3 Cupid!

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So cute!

hydrangeas on a rainy day

this is the tiny stamp mail design for may! sign up by may 31st to have this mini stamp sticker sheet delivered to your mailbox 📬

join the stamp club here!

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Had a little practice with my watercolour pencils and have only just got around to scanning him. Doctor Octopus, of course :D One of my favourite characters since seeing Alfred Molina play him in Spider-Man 2.

I used photographs of music conductors for reference material.

#art #spiderman #doctoroctopus #docock #ottooctavius #villain #watercolours #artist #comicart #comicbook #superhero #fanart #spidermanfanart #docockfanart

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Two more doodles =]

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Phantom of the Opera chibis :)

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Why on earth am I getting survival horror vibes off Scooby Doo: Mystery Mayhem (PS2)? It was amongst a pile of games I never managed to finish as a kid so I decided to finally beat it.

Shaggy and Scooby have a fear meter which gets depleted whenever they encounter a ghost/something scary. I was definitely getting Illbleed vibes in the second "episode" of the game when they were investigating a movie studio and mechanical monsters kept popping in and out like theme park automatons.

And when that fear meter does hit zero, there's a small moment when Scooby jumps into Shaggy's arms and they have to run away from the enemy -- if they get frightened again, game over and they run away for good which, as I loved Haunting Ground & Clock Tower 3 in my teens, was giving me vibes for those two games.

Puzzles, dressing up in costumes to sneak past the enemies, getting chased around by the baddies (even by the other half of a brainwashed Mystery Gang where they kept on repeating "must scare Scooby" all the while I'm ducking lightning strikes to reach buttons to press and win the level)... do I play too many horror games or were the game's creators inspired into creating kid friendly versions of these game mechanics?

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so clara putting a shrunk down sutekh in her bag in flatline

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BIG fan of this thing. HUGE fan of this thing even.

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Suddenly getting the urge to draw some more even while I've got a dozen other projects to do... *sweatdrop*

mesmerized by their beauty

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Gorgeous artwork is by Sailesh Thakrar

In The Mermaid’s Gift, an old family story about a mermaid encounter brings romance and drama.

♡

“My grandfather, Josiah Young…” he began, coughing as he always did. I once heard Grandmother say to Mum that she always knew the old boy was lying when he coughed, but I didn’t believe that. “…once saw a mermaid.”

The Mermaid’s Gift was my third story with The People’s Friend. It was also my first appearance in the weekly magazine rather than the monthly specials. It was released June 18th, 2016. The setting was 1840s Great Yarmouth.

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“Josiah hadn’t been a fisherman, like my father, myself and your fathers were. He had been a rippier, one of the men who took the net’s catch and sold it further inland. In fact, Josiah was afeared of water, yet he loved to walk the beach each day’s end to see the fall of the sun. That was where he saw it.”

Grandfather blew away the smoke cloud and we realised his eyes were shut. After a few minutes, we thought he’d fallen asleep. We all called for him to continue, asking what Josiah had seen.

His bushy eyebrow lifted as he opened a single eye.

“Why, the mermaid of course! I can’t be telling you everything. As the sky darkened to the colour of fire, he noticed a thousand sparkles, like light upon the water, but this was nowhere near the sea. It was back by the rocks, just barely peeking out. Josiah followed and there was the merwoman. The poor creature was trapped, with only a puddle of water to sustain her. She’d come in the hightide and got her tail caught.”

In The Mermaid’s Gift, it’s this story which triggers the plot. A man helps a trapped mermaid and receives something in return. A carved stone that can seek out the holder’s true love.

Net weaver Hetty has now inherited the stone, but when it leads her to fisherman Seb, can she really rely on good luck charms once doubts arise?

The People’s Friend publishes feel good fiction and prefers grounded, non-magical stories, but historical writers don’t always have to keep to a rigid realism vs fantasy theme. The past is a different world. Our ancestors believed in plenty of things we dismiss nowadays.

A macabre creature could turn out to be a shadow, ghostly encounters the work of a fraudulent medium, or a mermaid sighting dismissed as the tall tale of an old fisherman.

Even with a folkloric element, the main focus in this story was on the characters’ relationships, particularly Hetty and her reluctance to wed after her younger sister’s disastrous marriage.

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Seb unhooked our arms and lowered himself on one knee. The ring, which was as thin as a fishing lure and had a pearl in the centre, was held up.

My hand stretched out to touch it, to feel that it was real, but I paused. This wasn’t just a story my grandfather had told me. This was marriage, and fairy tales and magic stones could not hold it together.

Norfolk’s Mermaids

Legends about mermaids have intrigued people across the world, but why? Is it because of their close resemblance to humans, with most depictions showing them as beautiful women with fishy features, or do they speak to something deep inside us, something which yearns to explore the sea and discover the strange, wonderful things hiding within its dark depths? 

Many of Norfolk’s villages and towns are on the coast, so it’s no surprise there’ve been plenty of mermaid encounters throughout the years. Mermaid Sand, near Snettisham, was apparently named after a dark-haired mermaid who would pluck off her tail and walk amongst humans in search of love. 

However, Norfolk’s most popular mer myth is of the Sheringham mermaid. This strange visitor has been immortalised with a wood carving on one of the pews in All Saints church. The legend goes that the mermaid was drawn by the congregation’s singing, but being unable to transform into a human, she was forced to drag herself along the beach and sneak in at the back.

Explanations vary as to why mermaid stories are so prevalent, with the main one being drunken, feverish fishermen desperate for female company. Freakshows would also capitalise on the interest. Eager to get the crowds in, they stitched animals together to create a gruesome chimera, such as the Fiji mermaid in America, which was a mummified monkey and fish. Manatees, also known as sea cows, were also blamed for mermaid sightings. These chunky creatures were thought to look like women in the distance, by those drunken sailors from earlier, although, to me, they look more like pebbles with a tail 😊

No matter the truth, for centuries humans have had a complicated relationship with the sea. It is a world we will never be able to fully explore. In the past, it was even more secretive and dangerous. Perhaps mermaids were a personification of those violent waves that, while beautiful, took so many fishermen away from their families.

Sequels & Where to Read

Being able to include mermaids, even just as a tall tale, was fun. The Mermaid’s Gift also got a sequel. For Those in Peril was published three years later by The People’s Friend. This time it followed Seb and examined superstitions in the fishing community.

Both stories have since been re-released under their original submission titles, The Sea Stone and The Lucky Net, in my anthology collection The Wherryman’s Daughter.

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So, so good. Absolutely love the colours and composition.

🎹MUSIC🎹

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Aaaahhh :D So sweet!

Fifteen as Paddington Bear because that outfit is just too good!!