Plastic Mermaid Vector Illustration Process

I started with an idea and sketched it out on some scrap paper.

Then I sketched it out in Photoshop.

I imported my sketch and some reference photos into illustrator and started to illustrate it.

The first part is just getting the shapes blocked out. I don't really care about colors at this point, just need them to be a different color than the other shapes near it. 

After I got my shapes in place I started to color things in and ad depth to the image with gradient shapes. 

At this point I was very unhappy with the eyes so I redid them completely. I love the final eyes that came out. So glad I decided to redo them.

Once I was generally happy with it, I started to get more into the details with making her look more wet with gradient mesh water drops and adding shine to the hair. 

Then came the background. I wanted to keep it simple and also recognizable as Southern California. I added in an oil rig and a large commercial shipping boat floating on the surface in the shadow of Catalina Island. 

And with some cropping and fine tuning I have the final piece! I mounted it to a wood oval plaque that's about 10"x13" and it will be displayed at the 2018 Orange County Fair, in California. 

And just for fun you can see how insane this file was. I tried to do Outline view but it just would not work. I don't think my computer could handle it haha. So here it is highlighted anyway. Pretty huge file in the end...