Monday, May 4, 2009

"Call me Ishmael"

Here's one of my summer projects. It's YS Masterpieces version of Ahab from the book "Moby Dick".

Will a mast help frame this figure? I originally had a pencil which looked a little skinny to be a mast, then I dug around and found this brass tubing which, has some girth to it and makes it look more convincing.

Whats neat about adding a mast is the things you can add to it. For one, the Spanish ounce (worth $16 US I believe) nailed to it. This was the prize for the first mariner to spot Moby Dick. I also thought of small carvings mariner may have done during some down time on deck.

How about the staggered barrels? Is there too much verticality going on here?

I don't like the hat, so thats being replaced.

I'm open to any suggestions as I'm anxious to get started on this project.

Thanks for following.








3 comments:

Gary Dombrowski said...

Jason, Cool figure. Here's what I think. I'm not sure I'd want to be on a boat that had stacks of barrels on the deck. Although it might be okay if you depicted a ship not out to sea yet. I'm also thinking the mast is too close to the hatch. Maybe you could get some pictures here that may be of use. ~Gary

http://www.mysticseaport.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewPage&page_id=58CDBE74-65B8-D398-78B82F78C63BCD4A

Jason said...

Yeah, space is pretty limited for what I would like to see. I thought making the barrels stacked would be more eye pleasing, rather than a single barrel. The mast idea sounded pretty good too, but your right about it being too close to the hatch.

From the pictures I've seen of the whale oil casks, these were fairly larg, atleast waist high. I don't know if anyone makes them in "75mm". If there is, it would surley go over the base. Now I've seen a picture of a deck with some on their side. Not sure how they were secured to the deck. Perhaps making a barrel top "wedgie" would work?

Jason said...

Gary, thanks for the link. Awesome paintings!

Here's what I got~
http://www.whalingmuseum.org/index.html

I searched their photo bank and came up with a ton of pics.

Big ol' pile of heads and armatures for the St. Privat project.