Ariel as a Pirate – Altered Coloring Book Art #4

Time for new altered coloring book art! I’m reimaging a new coloring book page. Today I’m sharing how I changed the look of the heroine of my favorite Disney movie: The Little Mermaid. (Find my other makeovers of Disney Princesses here.) 

I decided this was a good week for a lighthearted post. If you’ve been following what’s going on on the West Coast, we’ve been having unprecedented wildfires. I’ve never heard of so many brushfires and wildfires so close by, and a large one in Washington is in a neighboring city. I have several friends and family who are waiting to hear if they need to evacuate. We’re praying for everyone affected and fighting the fires, and I appreciate your prayers for the West Coast as well!

We could all use some stress-relieving coloring…

I love coloring, and I have found it even more fun to color if I inject some originality. This is my way of keeping the creative juices flowing in spite of the limitations of chronic illness and chronic pain. It’s a lot easier for me to take a coloring book page and make something “new” by looking at it from a new perspective!

This coloring page was just begging for more excitement to be added to it. To be honest, this page looks kind of boring. Nothing interesting is going on with Ariel’s hair or wardrobe—she’s just wearing a nightgown. The only scenery is a curtain and the balcony railing.

Which got me thinking…that railing kind of looks like the railing of a ship. The curtain kind of looks like a sail…

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It hit me: I should totally make Ariel into a pirate! I like that this idea still fits with the oceanic theme of her movie.

I started thinking up a story for this character as I was coloring. (Does anyone else do this? Make up stories about what’s going on behind the scenes leading up to the snapshot of a coloring page? Ever since I was a kid, coloring has gotten me thinking about what the character might have been doing when they were not onscreen during the movie. I’ve always wondered if that was just me…)

Anyway, I stopped my story when I realized I was basically rehashing the plot of Pirates of the Caribbean, but with Will and Elizabeth’s roles revered. Good thing I’m working on coloring and not plagiarizing writing at the moment!

I started by making that shapeless dress more interesting. I nipped in the waist of her nightgown to make it a corseted dress and added more ruffles. I originally was going to leave her blouse white, but it just looked like I forgot to color it. The green turned out a bit more vibrant than I was going for, but hey, it should look better once she has red hair.

I wanted to make her hair look a little more realistic, so I was aiming for a strawberry blonde. I started with the lightest flesh tone for her hair, and then added in some peaches and orangey-red and a little hint of orange-ish light brown. It turned out still being a little more cartoony than I wanted, but I still think it turned out pretty good.

PS these are the color pencils I love and the coloring book I’m using. (I haven’t found the blender Crayola pencils again.)

Next, Ariel definitely needed a pirate hat. This is when I realized: Ariel’s head is. so. big! And it’s not just her hair (which is also pretty massive), but her whole head. I kept having to make her hat bigger and bigger so that it didn’t look ridiculously out of proportion to her head.

After I finished Ariel herself, it was time to move onto the scenery. I added wood grain to the railing to make it look more like a ship, then looked up examples of compasses and spyglasses to add to the drawing. My spyglass turned out wonky (I blame the tachycardia I was experiencing at the time.)

I then realized that Ariel appeared to have no legs (this seems to be an ongoing problem for her) as her dress wasn’t drawn in below the railing! I made sure Ariel wasn’t levitating by extending her dress.

(See some of the photos that inspire me while I am creating altered coloring book art on my coloring Pinterest board.)

Having a cartoon crab in the scene was making my reimagined story kind of hard to visualize. It felt weird to erase a movie character. Sorry Sebastian! I decided to turn him into a treasure map. His segmented legs ended up making a perfect mountain range, and I think the map is one of my favorite parts about this whole thing.

So there you have it, Ariel is now officially on adventures captaining her own ship. Hopefully she’ll be able to rescue Eric from the pirates who kidnapped him.

Like this post? Check out how I redrew these other Disney princesses: Steampunk Aurora, Fairy Belle, and Rosie the Riveter Cinderella.

I hope this post inspires you to find a new way to be creative and relieve stress. Happy coloring!

What do you think of the idea of altering coloring book pages? Also, what characters would you like to see me alter next?

If you create altered coloring book art, please share a link in the comments or tag my Facebook page!