Mera, a queen of the sea, has been originally portrayed as a supporting character to her husband Aquaman but is in fact a powerful superhero in her own right.

She has superhuman physical strength and magical powers to control water. So, she needs a facepainting design of her own too 🙂.

Being a queen she needed something gracious with a crown, but being a kind of warrior also she definitely needed something very cool too. Therefore I combined the different crowns, the characteristic red hair and her beautiful mermaid-like suit into a cool and easy Mera mask. With this mask on, she is absolutely ready to fight all the bad guys 😉.

Supplies:

PartyXplosion White

PartyXplosion Black

Silly Farm Arty Brush Cake 'Tigress' (Nat's Gold Edition Collection)

Cameleon Colorblock 'Gypsy' (sub Cameleon Red Berry)

Superstar/FAB 'Snow Petrol Shimmer'

Superstar 'Golden Green Shimmer' (aka FAB 'Ocean Shimmer')

Starblend 'Black'

Wiser's Graffiti Madness Stencil Kit

Sponge Dotter

Loew-Cornell Round Brush #3

Blazin Brush by Marcela Bustamante - Flat brush 1/2#

Short bristles angle brush 1/2" (Facepaintstuff.com)
  (sub American Painter 1/2" Angle Brush)

Cameleon Blending Brush #1

Mehron/Paradise Glitter 'Red'

Mehron/Paradise Glitter 'Gold'

Mehron/Paradise Glitter 'Light Blue'

Lip Gloss Applicator

Baby Wipes

Step 1: Sketching the shape of the mask

When painting this design for the first time, it is good to get a feel of the shape by just lightly sketching the outlines with some watery white paint. Look at your sketch from a distance and adjust the things you don't like. 

Step 2: Filling in the base

Load your angle brush with the gold and orange from the Tigress split cake and fill in the 'crown.' I don't want the crown to look flat, so I try to create a bit of depth by thinking about where the light and shadow would be in a real crown and apply the gold and orange to get this look.

Next, load the angle brush with only the gold from the same cake and paint the Aquaman 'sign' in the middle of the crown and apply some gold glitter on top.

Paint the red parts, the 'hair', next using the same angle brush and the colorblock. In this color block there is black right next to the red. You can use it to create a nice outline or a bit of shading depending on how you hold your brush.

Load a 1/2# flat brush with snow petrol shimmer and fill in the bottom part of the mask.

Step 3: Adding texture and an outline

Load a sponge dauber with a mixture of golden green shimmer and a bit of white and add a 'mermaid' texture on the bottom part of the mask using a stencil. Add some light blue glitter on top.

Next, load a round brush #3 with regular black paint and outline the entire mask.

Step 4: Shading and highlights

Add some shading with a small blending brush. There are two methods for this. You can moisten a clean and dry blending brush on a wet wipe and blend in the black outlines there where you think the shading would be. Or you can add dry black starblend powder in the same places. Especially when the outlines are a bit thin or you just need a bit more black, starblend powders work great.

Next step is adding highlights with a round brush #3 and some regular white in a watery consistency.

And last but not least paint the lips with the red from the colorblock and a disposable lip gloss applicator and add some red glitter on top.

All ready to fight the bad guys 😁!

Additional info:

This design is not very difficult or elaborate, but still well thought of 🙂! It uses a lot of placement 'rules', e.g. the focal point theory (blue circles) and the 45 degree angle. Once you get used to working with these rules you wil see that most of your designs will look much more pleasing to the eye.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial.  And if you have questions about this design, please don't hesitate to contact me on facebook or instagram!

I'd love to see your Mera designs 😃!

Annabel Hoogeveen is the owner and founder of 'Blije-Snoetjes Kinderschmink', a Facepainting company and school in the Netherlands. She is painting for about 10 years and is passionate about teaching others how to facepaint, 'because the more face painters there are, the more kids we can make happy'.