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I love that each mermaid pendant you draw is unique! Can I ask for some examples of different ones and why you decided to draw them that way?

Omg yeah! Thank you, first of all, it's not something I planned from the beginning but I really like the idea now! Mostly I just wanted there to be some visual differences in how the mermaid's pendants look, but not so drastic that you can't tell what it is, just enough that you can readily identify a particular person's pendant.

The most notable ones I think are the pendants I made for my OC Mal and Alex!

For these, I looked at photos of real seashells and tried to find ones with spirals to match the design of the pendants in the game, but to give them less of a cartoony shape to better match with my art style. The colors are also similar to the in-game one, but toned down ever so slightly so they're not as vibrant.

For Mal's pendant when it becomes broken ultimately, that's inspired by a charm necklace my mom had. Basically it was a locket with a glass window on the front, and the idea was that you put little charms inside that were meaningful to you. It kind of looked like those shaker acrylic charms, in a way? But predated that a lot, it was probably around like 2010 or so that I remember my mom having it, which kinda works out since I set my fic from 2009 to 2010 anyway haha. Before the broken shell gets put into it, it had smaller seashells and sand inside, but the contents were replaced when given to Mal.

But for reference, here's how the locket looked before it became a mermaid's pendant:

Another unique one I draw is for Teddy, Mal's father:

Again I looked for examples online of real seashells, found a unique one with a spiral, and based it off of that! The color scheme is meant to match his overall Purple vibes (because he's so mysterious ooo) but also he was given this pendant by his ex-wife, and I like the idea of it being so pale for the symbolism of it all... Like he took something pure and innocent from her that she'll never get back, and now he wears it like it's a trophy.

The most unique ones I draw are for Maru and Penny:

My thinking behind these was mostly that like, the nautilus shell is an artifact in the game, and thus something Penny would like, so she gifted that to Maru so that she can have a part of her. Likewise, Maru gave Penny a dried starfish due to her love of space and astronomy! They are harder to identify as mermaid's pendants because they look so different, but I thought the idea behind them was sentimental and cute :3

Lastly, not even a seashell or sea-related thing at all, I give Sam, Sebastian, and Abigail necklaces with guitar picks on them:

(Abigail's isn't pictured because I don't think I've drawn her with it yet.. but you can follow the color scheme)

I liked the idea of it being something simple and unassuming that is meaningful to the three of them! They aren't the types to follow traditions anyway, so I think it's amazing they have any sort of symbolic jewelry for their relationship at all haha It might have been cool to make the picks be carved out of seashell, but I think that might be too elaborate for the characterization I go for with them. It somehow feels right for them to just be cheap plastic (or whatever guitar picks are made of.. showing idk what I'm talking about again lol) but still carry this deep significance despite them having no real monetary value.

I think that's all of them? I've drawn George and Evelyn with pendants too but they were the standard ones. I'd love to design them some unique pendants! And my farmer's grandparents have pendants that look like the one Alex has (in fact, he has one of theirs) so I didn't feel the need to show that again. But yeah!! Thanks for asking so I could ramble a little about it! 😁

🌸 - if u don't draw Malex in a pretty flower crown rn 🫵

don't mind that this is like two weeks later.. don't worry about it 😌 it was extremely important I put maximum effort into this silly doodle gsdjghjds

🌼 some things never change!! 🥰