The dolphins are mad...

Watching The Cove, a documentary about a tragic yearly dolphin slaughter in Taiji, Japan, I was struck with a sense of purpose (no, not porpoise), and decided to act on it a bit.  While I'm not in a position to join up with Sea Shepard and travel overseas to risk life and limb in protest like the heros in the film did, I am in the position to paint some horrendous dolphin monsters attacking a vulnerable ship in a storm.  So I will. 

Here are the original collection of sketches that I dropped into PS and worked out into a pretty usable composition, as well as the color comp of the sky and water to set the mood for the painting.  The board is all masked and prepped to go...  More to follow.

3 little ships

My collection thus far.  Today I will apply a semi gloss wood finish to the plaques. 

The August Moon

Finished August Moon under glass.  This bottle had a bit of a turquoise tinge to it that, while I was initially worried about working with tinted glass, I found it really added to the piece in a most pleasing way!

And a summer slips under the radar...

Almost done and ready to attach the bottle.  A couple more details here and there, and we're ready to move on to #4.  A friend recently suggested that I put a sealant on the wood, as opposed to leaving the wood just stained and raw looking... I got a can of semi-gloss wood finish, and was about to apply it to a test piece outside, but wouldn't you know it, the heavens opened up and it is just too wet out for that sort of thing today.

A month slips by...

The drawing is transferred and blocking in begins...

And after an evening of working it's starting to come together above the water!  Speaking of above water, I haven't been much lately.  I know I haven't really done much work on this piece in a month, but I've been in some pretty heavy training for an escape from Alcatraz swim at the end of this month.  I've been taking the time bobbing around in the Bay to really study water from a split perspective, and I think it's showing!

Revised sketch

Here I tighten up the sketch in preparation for transferring.  I went in with a digital eraser to unclutter and better visualize the surface of the water.  There really is not much room to work on this one...

Pen to paper... or something like that...

The final painting begins with the sky and some water blocked in a bit.

I always like to keep the bottle handy for testing purposes... in this case I find I am less than enthused about making a fuss about the horizon line being level, as the glass is rather unevenly thick and wonky.
 

Some junk...

Had an idea looking at a junk rigged sailboat to paint a fantastical junk ship.  Much like the Knarr (and the rest of the ships in the series) I didn't want to be too culturally specific, leaving room for fantasy all the while maintaining a sense of feasible functionality.  Or something.

The sketch in blueline:

Color comp:

More to follow...

Finished Knarr

A good 2 months or so pass by as the fickle artist whiles away entire weeks at a time awaiting the ever elusive fit of inspiration...

And then...

 The Finished Knarr

And again, behind glass... time to seal it!

The Knarr Ormen Korte

You ever forget you had a blog?
Yeah...

On that note, a bunch of updates spanning the last few months...

The Knarr Ormen Korte:

Longship of dragon-class built in the end of the 10th century for the chieftain Raud den ramme, Salten, Hålogaland, northern Norway. It had 30 "rooms"/pairs of oars, and was large in relation to this number of oars. It was decorated with golden dragonheads. Its length was probably about 32 - 34 m.
The ship was later captured by the king of Norway Olav Tryggvason and Raud was killed. Olav Tryggvason was very pleased with this ship and it became a model for the more famous ship "Ormen Lange". When the latter ship was finished the first ship was renamed "Ormen Korte", which translates into "The short Dragon"/"The short Serpent".
In norwegian translations of Heimskringla by Snorri Sturluson the ship is named "Ormen Korte", "Ormen Stutte" and "Ormen hinn skamme" (old norse/icelandic).

Also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knarr

Here is the first color comp. From here I layered the pencils over the completed background painting and figured out my color.