Unconventional Mermaid: Nautilus

When I started the series I really wanted to do a nautilus one, but couldn't think of a way to make a functioning nautilus merperson with the traditional mermaid set up. It took me a solid month before realizing "Holley...this series is called UNCONVENTIONAL Mermaids. You don't have to stick with the traditional body pattern. That's kind of the whole point." So I got to draw a nautilus mermaid.

The silhouette of the shell on the head made me think of the 1920s bob and then of flapper girls and the fringe could be tentacles and HHHNNNNGGGH so I ended up looking into 1920s fashion, realized fringe was almost non-existent and there were many other modern misconceptions, and wanted to come up with a design that would still be recognizable as the '20s without having it Chicago levels of inaccurate (not that I don't adore Chicago and definitely watched it while drawing this). I still took some liberties, of course, but her dress would go to just below the knee if she had legs, the straps are thicker than the spaghetti-straps we normally see, there's no fringe, lots of beading, so many feathers and pearls, and I tried to bring out the vibe with the make up. (I know that the pearls look really flat on the scan but they're done with iridescent ink on paper so they're fun and shiny. )

Speaking of the feathers, a big thanks to Katie for suggesting 'feather stars' for a mermaid. I never would have thought of them on my own, and while I wasn't able to think of anything for their own mermaid species they were perfect to use for feather accessories here and they add the 'razzle dazzle' flair that the piece needed. The colours were perfect and everything.

I can't tell if her head's too big or if her arm position just makes her rib cage seem smaller than it is. It's certainly not my best face in profile, and I'd have liked for the shell to have been far paler, but in the end I'm decently pleased with the piece.

I love nautilidae so much.

I have about 10 pages of paper left and have legit plans for:
-Nudibranch (a few species together in one piece)
-Anomalocaris
-Basking shark
-Cuttlefish
-Swimming sea cucumber

For different cool and inspiring fish such as oarfish, viperfish, dragonfish, etc. I feel that they may be too much of a standard fish shape and less 'unconventional' so they might just end up getting drawn separately from the series. We'll see how much I can change up the design (or if I just become uninspired with all the other sea life I have planned).
If there are any that you think I might be interested in feel free to let me know, and if there are any you REALLY want to see then commissioning a mermaid designed from a species is always an option.