New original painting, this time I wanted to paint something summery and colorful, and I also wanted to include water/sea as a main element/theme. This painting is very loosely based on Finnish mythology too, as Vellamo is the goddess of the water, lakes, and seas in Finnish mythology. She is described to be beautiful and wearing a blue dress, so I included the water-inspired color scheme into her outfit, but otherwise made her look more like a mermaid.About the idea behind this painting, I also wanted to paint this painting as a message related to climate change/global warming. We should do our best to protect and treasure this planet, as we have all the means and possibility to do so, if people choose to act. Because of this global message behind this painting, I wanted to paint her to be surrounded by colorful corals, sea turtles and different fishes that live near the corals, as a celebration of all the beautiful and unbelievable rich lifeforms, such as coral reefs, that this planet's seas (still) have. All of them are in danger of destruction if seas warm up. Because of this important message and cause, I really poured my heart into this and painting all the things as beautifully as I could.I started this painting 3 months ago and my initial thought was to try to finish this for Mermay and just do a simpler head portrait. But then, I got carried away and decided to make this much bigger painting, as I got inspired by this sea theme and painting all the animals and the undersea background. I wanted this to be very colorful and rich in detail, and I spent so much time painting the layered reef background and all the frontal corals too. I also had never drawn any sea turtles, but I really enjoyed painting them. Because this has so many colors, it was also very challenging to harmonize all the colorful corals and fishes and find a good balance between blue and the yellowish colors, and I spent a lot of time trying to get them right.This definitely took me some serious thinking and I had to do a lot of problem-solving, but I am happy I pushed through the obstacles! I also got to try painting some new subjects with this painting so I feel I learned a lot too, even though I always find it hard to let go of my paintings as I am never 100% happy with it.Edit 1: After looking this with fresh eyes, I fixed the arm anatomy a bit. Hope it is a bit better now, even if I realize it is not perfect!Edit 2: I've decided to let this painting go and this edit to be the last one, thank you for the constructive criticism. I will try to do better the next time!Edit 3. Just realized that this got a Daily Deviation! Thank you so much tofor suggesting, and tofor featuring this! I'm so happy!Tools: Paint Tool SAI, PS CCLayers: over 500Used some Photobashing with the smaller fishes