One Last Thrash

THIS RENDER: "Hakugei: The Legend of the Great White Whale:" The assignment with this image was to tell the readers the underwater portions of the story that Queequeg, Stubbs, Starbuck, Ahab and Ishmael never saw, much less imagined. Moby Dick had been hunted by the whaling industry of at least six blue water nations relentlessly, had been harpooned nearly a hundred times during over a hundred encounters between 1788 and 1838. His final encounter with Captain Ahab may have been as late as 1848.

He was described as being encrusted in over a hundred rusting iron barbs, like a great pincushion.

My original drawing of him turning on the shark, which was drawn on an acid-free paper page for sketch illustration fulfilled one of my assigned drawing commissions for the book "Hakugei: The Legend of the Great White Whale."

Bleeding, battered, agonized and at risk for sepsis, the "Hakugei" found himself being pursued by a thirty-six foot female Carcharodon carcharias great white shark who was following the blood trail toward struggling, dying or already dead blubber-wrapped meat and guts.

ART CATEGORY: I rendered this illustration study with assorted colored markers, Berol Prisma pencils, Pentel pens, ballpoint pens, quill points, colored Dr. Martin inks, F&W inks, and India ink.

BOOK SYNOPSIS: "Moby-Dick; or, The Whale" is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod, for revenge on Moby Dick, the giant white sperm whale that on the ship's previous voyage bit off Ahab's leg at the knee.

FROM THE WIKIPEDIA FILM SYNOPSIS: Capt. Ahab (Gregory Peck) has a vendetta against Moby Dick, the great white whale responsible for taking his leg. He sets out on a treacherous sea voyage aboard The Pequod, along with a crew including Starbuck (Leo Genn), Father Mapple (Orson Welles) and Ishmael (Richard Basehart), to hunt down the elusive beast. With reckless abandon, Ahab leads the crew on his obsessive and suicidal quest, anxious for a final showdown with the legendary white whale.