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.