Mermaid Gag Cartoon (Process)

Hey folks today I'll be showing you my process on how I did my mermaid gag cartoon. So, I do what every artist starts when making an Illustration a small rough thumbnail sketch. Just to get a small concept of what my pieces is going to look like, of course I don't sketch just one drawing that is a big no no. I normally doodle as many as I do until I'm satisfied. For me I treat every artwork I do like character design. It is more interesting exploring what the character is about, and the story that surrounds the character, instead of just some random illustration where all used to seeing.

Here is the first out 10 Thumbnails I drew up. 
     

Next, I start on the rough drawing. I go as rough as I can to capture the energy of the pose, so my characters feel alive.

This is a bit of a cheat, but I'm going to stop doing this because I enjoy the paper more than the tablet. I scan the rough drawing into the computer and do a more constructive pass at the drawing again and clean it up just a tiny bit. Also added in a background to keep the character grounded into a believable setting, so I picked the ocean because well... go figure.  

Finally, I start the final look for this gag cartoon by giving it a watercolor feel to the piece. It is digital but I wish I could have done it traditional, sadly I'm broke and can't afford the fancy art supplies I crave and pray for every day, so it's sad to say that I'm a really tight budget artist unfortunately. :,(