Artist's commentary
For the last day of MerMay, please enjoy this papercraft commission of mer!Jiang Cheng! What a fun commission :D
Before starting on the piece, I thought I might stick to a single fish as inspiration to make things more realistic. But then I figured WHAT is the point of making a mer-version of my favorite little fictional man if not SELF-INDULGENCE? So then I went whole hog (whole hogfish?): BEAUTIFUL betta fish tailfin! Dorsal fin like an EEL except not really! The blue shimmer-paper scales are BIOLUMINESCENT! His long trailing fins can ELECTROCUTE his prey! His tears turn to PEARLS, which he then uses to ACCESSORIZE!!! It’s a fancy and biologically nonsensical life for mer!Cheng.