The Sea Lord and his Harem

THIS RENDER: "Hakugei: The Legend of the Great White Whale:" The assignment with this image was to insert the much younger and peaceful ocean behemoth (circa 1820) into an all-natural family pod setting. Normally, they relaxed and breathed before diving and hunting in the deep water for an hour, then fed, then made fast for the surface to breath and lounge and relax with their family grouping.

A sperm whale returning from crushing depths of up to 10,000 feet are noted for blowing out a heavy foam loaded with carbon dioxide during that first exhalation upon breaking the surface of the sea. Big bulls like Moby Dick gathered and maintained a harem during their annual, biannual and sporadic migration and breeding cycles.

Moby Dick had existed for decades before having been discovered around 1820 and subsequently hunted as a trophy by six nations of professional merchant whalers plying the seven seas. This original render fulfilled one of my assigned (Commissioned) underwater drawing demonstrating normalcy for the book "Hakugei: The Legend of the Great White Whale."

It took a mere moment to recognize the need to show the peaceful nature of the Physeter macrocephalus sperm whale in their family grouping called a "Pod" by old-time whalers which was never described by Herman Melville. It was the accidental harpooning of a calf and a female that turned this eighty foot bull into the "Hakugei" sea daemon of legend.

My model was the Physeter macrocephalus sperm whale family pod. Back in the eighties there was one (and only once scientifically perfect) whale artist named Larry Foster who was the "god" of all us whale artists and Peter Paul Ott who was second only to Larry. I aspired to become their rival. Other famous whale artists and illustrators failed miserably when it came to portraying whales accurately. Air brush artist George Sumner who made the "Baby Diaper" technique famous, his student Robert Wyland whose air brushed giant "Whaling Walls" made him an international sensation and book author and painter Richard Ellis, all failed to create realistic, biologically perfect textures, foreshortened perspective and anatomically precise (Especially when rendering the tail and the flukes) reconstructions of living whale anatomy. Their whales all came off like plastic or rubber whale toys.

ART CATEGORY and MEDIA: I rendered this illustration study on hot-pressed illustration board with Pentel colored markers, assorted heavy colored markers, a very heavy application of Berol Prisma pencils, colored Dr. Martin quill-point inks, and a slight touch of 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.