MerMay 2021

I joined Instagram in 2020.  One of the first big Instagram events I joined was in the spring of 2021:  MerMay.  For several years, this month-long even was hosted by @thadollylama, who would publish a list of prompts, one for every other day of the month of May.  Below are the prompts I managed to do for MerMay 2021, starring Rufus Turner and a Steffi Love doll mermaid.

For the first prompt, I photographed Rufus on white paper and then used my ancient PaintShop Pro software to make it look like he'd just fallen overboard into the SEA OF LOVE.  

(I don't remember in what order the rest of the prompts were originally supposed to be, so I'm just posting them in whatever order makes sense to me to make a little story.)

My mermaid was this thrifted Steffi Love doll.  I dressed her in a homemade tail trimmed with iridescent white lace, and a shell bra lined in scraps of the same lace.
I used my "Gates of Hell" diorama as the stone backdrop, and decorated it with aquarium plants, shells, and a piece of pale green towel.  I used a flashlight stuffed into the top of the cardboard box diorama to make it look as if sunlight was filtering down through the water into the mermaid's GROTTO.

I made a hammock out of some fringe, string, and a scarf my sister didn't want any more.  The backdrop was a remnant of upholstery fabric.  I used PaintShop Pro to give Rufus closed eyelids and photographed him making the most of being marooned on a TROPICAL island.

I posed the dolls on a painted backdrop to look as if they were in the water.  The bubbles and passing fish were added with PaintShop Pro.  I wrapped Rufus in a net made of a worn-out bath pouf to look as if he'd been caught by the curious mermaid.  She may seem dangerous, but she really just wanted to say, "HELLO, SAILOR!"

One aspect of MerMay is the many puns, for example, this prompt, SEA LA VIE, as a water-themed pun on the French phrase c'est la vie.  Since la vie is life, I posed the mermaid, who I named Kiki,  as if swimming up to the surface to save Rufus's life, having realized her mistake in trying to keep him with her underwater.  I like how I managed to light this photo. 

Fortunately, mermaids can breathe air, so Kiki suffered no ill effects when Rufus netted her as his CATCH OF THE DAY.  I think I ran out of time to post this prompt and thus didn't bother to edit in the title.

Rufus became a blues guitarist as a result of this MerMay prompt.  Kiki the mermaid has some sort of thrifted mini plastic instrument that I hot-glued a few shells onto.  I used some very old scarves sold by Dollar Tree during the nineties as waves, with polyester batting as foam.  A tan towel is the beach, and the sea grass is repurposed from my spooky frontier cemetery diorama.  

I don't like to even attempt to put dolls in erotic poses, so Rufus's jeans and Kiki's bra shells discarded on the beach were a cute way to convey that they were off-screen indulging some carnal urges.  That's just the natural outcome when a man and a mermaid get to FEELING NAUTI.

As May came to an end, Kiki and Rufus acknowledged their  feelings for one another in a tender moment.  However, they had to admit that their two different worlds made long-term commitment a FIN-TASY.