Concept art of underwater Mermaid palace

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Underwater palace

in asian style

"... We must not imagine that there is nothing at the bottom of the sea but bare yellow sand. No, indeed; the most singular flowers and plants grow there; the leaves and stems of which are so pliant, that the slightest agitation of the water causes them to stir as if they had life. Fishes, both large and small, glide between the branches, as birds fly among the trees here upon land. In the deepest spot of all, stands the castle of the Sea King. Its walls are built of coral, and the long, gothic windows are of the clearest amber...."

This artwork is a visualisation of a beautiful underwater world described in "The Little Mermaid" by Hans Christian Andersen. I was trying to refine existed visions of magical world to a new design. Creating this art I was using many photos of mine made in numerous travels around the world, especially in China. It helped me to combine basic gothic elements with curious china dragon motives and some elements of traditional China architecture (such as Tiantan and pagoda).

In process of creating this illustration I made some sketches of this magical world to compose shapes and light. It should be like the viewer is hiding behind some dark stones and is looking out to see this secret place that no human can enter. The actual forms were found during references research.

Everything was composed using simple photos of regular objects around me. I used more than 30 photos to create this illustration. I show some of those objects below. No special shooting was made, just regular daylight photos. Everything was corrected in Adobe Photoshop.