Mermaid Painting steps

This one's for a fantasy painting assignment at school. It really took me forever, literally days. The last night I worked on it, I pulled an all nighter. I'm still new at this painting thing, so I know there are more than a few mistakes
I kind of like the idea that each one of the mermaids is a different deadly sin. 
Black and White- Sloth
Red- Wrath
Aqua- Lust...
That wasn't the original plan but it kind of turned out like that 

The following are 3 steps I used to complete the piece. There are other steps of course but these are the 3 major steps.

-Thumbnails, Roughs, Preliminary sketches, comps and color comps (sketches with pencil, colors with Photoshop)
Final, full size pencilsBefore final painting I do an underpainting (my underwater underpainting was blue)

Then final Painting (acrylics)

Lion and the mouse ink wash

Once when a Lion was asleep a little Mouse began running up and down upon him; this soon wakened the Lion, who placed his huge paw upon him, and opened his big jaws to swallow him. "Pardon, O King," cried the little Mouse: "forgive me this time, I shall never forget it: who knows but what I may be able to do you a turn
some of these days?" The Lion was so tickled at the idea of the Mouse being able to help him, that he lifted up his paw and let him go. Some time after the Lion was caught in a trap, and the hunters who desired to carry him alive to the King, tied him to a tree while they went in search of a wagon to carry him on. Just then the little Mouse happened to pass by, and seeing the sad plight in which the Lion was, went up to him and soon gnawed away the ropes that bound the King of the Beasts. "Was I not right?" said the little Mouse.

Moral of the story- Little friends may prove great friends

We had an assignment in class to illustrate a black and white drawing for one of Aesop's Fables. I chose the Lion and the Mouse because it's a classic, and I like it because I'm little too, just like the mouse  All in ink wash, some white out for the whiskers and such.

My first Blog Post

well, Here she is... my blog... Now what?... :) 

Well, for a little back story,  My name is Carli Ihde, I am 19 and currently attending the Joe Kubert School of Cartooning and Graphic art. I'm hoping to one day make a comfortable career out of what I love to do most in world. I'm not quite sure exactly what my plans are for art but I know that I want to be involved in the commercial portions of it. I'll be posting blogs hopefully quite often and as I do you will be about to note the progress I take as I continue on through my schooling and hopefully into the future after that. I'll be posting new art with every entry!

If you are interested in the work I'v created so far in my life, your best bet is to visit my Deviantart site here -> http://love-the-rain.deviantart.com/

There you can check out the kind of art I enjoy making and my strengths as well as weaknesses.

Thank you for tuning in! 

p.s. the art up at the top is my official logo/brand that should reflect what kind of artist I am. So when you see that symbol... :) it should be me