This mer-fish creature is one of the predecessors of the Mermaid, and a relative of the Siren.

Background on these sly creatures who lured sailors to the deep...... The word is a compound of mere, the Old English word for "sea", and maid, a woman. Much like sirens, mermaids sometimes sing to sailors and enchant them, distracting them from their work and causing them to walk off the deck or run their ships aground. Other stories depict them squeezing the life out of drowning men while attempting to rescue them. They are also said to carry humans down to their underwater kingdoms. In Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid, it is said that they forget that humans cannot breathe underwater, while others say they drown men out of spite.

I finished this last Sunday and wasn't going to submit it, but then I thought , Oh well why not? I hope you like it.

I used 2 of my own photos for texture on the skull and clouds in the background included in the SBS.

Thanks to the lovely Razor Candi @ deviant art for the permission to use her now deleted stock. See SBS for original stock shot with Permission Email from her allowing the use of her image.

Unfortunately, because of one very inconsiderate person in the world making profit off of someones image and not even crediting her, she has chosen to delete all of her previous stock. Luckily she took the time to allow me the use of them.

all body parts made from pieces of the metal works on the boat.

This is a real card. The original idea with a line illustration was 'floating around' (pun intended) back in the 80s and was printed in just black ink.

The photo used in this card is a personal photo (just a poor quality one), and this full color version was created by me a couple of years ago. And how appropriate, as this particular sailor has recently retired and is in the process of buying a sailboat. Bon voyage!

I used this quote as a guide line
"A woman knows the face of the man she loves as a sailor knows the open sea".

Honore de Balzac

Jessica-http://faestock.deviantart.com/

Alana Smith-http://www.sxc.hu/profile/Alana12

Julia Starr-http://www.sxc.hu/profile/night_fate

Andrew Conn-http://www.sxc.hu/profile/andrewconn

Lavica-http://lavica-photoshop.deviantart.com/

Thanks guys for the great images that i used for this project...