Using professional film industry resources and with academic support I combined different kinds of expertise to develop the concept of graspable water and the narrative that frames it. The main research question was to develop a new visual form that could express and depict water as graspable material. My interest in the subject was influenced by reading such art historians as Anne Hollander, who have attempted major new analyses of how painters have tackled unfixed and fluid substances such as cloth. I wanted to suggest the tangibility of water, and how it might feel as a substance to the real and imagined creatures who inhabit it. My intention was to reinvent what mernaids could look like to connect with the stories of seamen who mistook seals and manatees for women. Cloth and texture were visual and conceptual models in the research process. The graspability of water was my main design challenge as such a material only exists in a digital form. There were no existing examples of water which looked and behaved like cloth. Through screening internationally at festivals and conferences, feedback from academics, film makers and critics has led me to gain insights into the effectiveness of the storytelling, design, use of digital tools, references to sculpture and the use of sound and music. The process of making Mermaids Breed is documented in two books written by critic and historian Jayne Pilling, and by Professor Yu of the Tainan Flm School, Taiwan, sections of which have been published in Italian and Chinese respectively. Storyboard images from Mermaids are featured in a book on storyboarding by Professor Paul Wells (Basics of Animation: Writing for Animation). The film has been shown to over 45 international festivals and events since completion.