I decided to actually do mermay this year! But with a bit of my own twist... As an excuse to do concept art for my story,which has a lot of diverse species, including mermaids, I want to explore :3 I'm determined to do all days of May wish me luck XDTo help with that tho, most of the drawings are going to be a certain amount of messy. If I were to make ALL of these fully rendered scenes I'd never get them done @ v @ it is concept art anyway so it's more to just get my ideas onto a canvas.Now information time for anyone who likes world building nonsense! For the first couple drawings some of this will be copy pasted as is relevant so I'll section it off so no one has to read the same thing over and over if something is copypasted XD==> Gods in the world of Gaia were very heavily involved in the creation of the world. They come in many shapes and sizes but the general hierarchy of power goes as such,The two creators of everything > The Sun and the Moon > The gods of mortality and afterlife > The four beast gods > Original Season gods > Minor season gods > Demi-godsEach god rules has specific powers, however they can't directly change much of the world without mortal help. Their power comes directly from belief. If a mortal doesn't believe in them, they can't appear or speak to that mortal. Each god also is responsible for creating a sentient species. Being that Humans and Elves were the first creatures created, most other creatures were modeled off of the two. The gods will always look like a more mystical and extravagant version of their species, sometimes hardly resembling their species genetically. After all, they CREATED their species it never meant they had to let their creations look as magnificent as them. Gods do posses some magic which can be used to affect the world, but it's often things a non-believer could explain away. (For example, Sol, the sun god, can create rainbows or Lun, the moon goddess, can create shooting stars, but only believers will see this as the work of gods) The only exception is gods can create mortal disguises to explore the mortal world in (Its how demi-gods can exist) However while in these mortal shells, they and unable to use their powers. Until they destroy their mortal body and release their spirits, they can't return to their godly forms. (This doesn't mean certain things wont happen, the sun would still rise if Sol decided to walk among men, but he wouldn't be able to alter or control anything related to the sun until he's done)==> The season gods are a bit of a complicated mess. The story goes as such;Four gods were created to represent the four season changes of the world, the life bringing spring, the energetic summer, the fruitful autumn, and the humbling winter. However these four siblings began to fight. They each wanted to be more powerful then the other and started fighting with each other over "territory". This caused great irregular seasons in the mortal world. Deadly long winters, summers coming too early and starving places of rain... Eventually Sol and Lun, more powerful gods then the seasons, had enough. Together they punished the four seasons by splitting each one into 3 separate parts. These 3 new gods were far less powerful then their original forms and represents different personality traits of the original god. They also, rather then representing a whole season, represent a certain PART of a season (beginning, middle, and end) In the world of Gaia, these gods are comparable to months of the year. However being split into 3 parts meant each new god didn't want to share a species with their other parts. This is why creatures like mermaids have 3 very different species that all are considered "mermaids", because they once WERE the same species until the summer goddess was split in 3.To relate this directly to mermaids,was the goddess of summer and mother of mermaids. She was said to be a hermaphrodite which is why there are "no male mermaids" out of all 3 kinds of mermaids. Nae was split into 3 parts,, the goddess of insects,, the goddess of fire, and, the god of joy.==> Ect is the goddess of insects, crustaceans, and decay and was split from the summer goddess Nae. She represents the beginning of summer and was what became of Nae's pride, spite, and hatred. She created the deep sea mermaids, intending them to be powerful, intelligent, and monstrous.Deep sea mermaids at one time did resemble Ect much closer, but after centuries of cross breading, that's why her creations are more fish-like then she is. She's often worshiped by people who want revenge on someone or even farmers who want their crops to be protected from insect swarms.If you want to ask questions feel free XDZodiac, out.