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dolfinguy β Moby Dick
Published: 2011-07-29 17:36:25 +0000 UTC; Views: 4330; Favourites: 49; Downloads: 0
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Description
Pen and ink drawing, colored in Photoshop, of Herman Melville's famous white sperm whale, "Moby Dick", showing his wrinkled brow, crooked jaw, & the numerous harpoons & whale lines, as described in the classic novel.Related content
Comments: 24
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Awesome work. I certainly wouldn't want to mess with this denizen of the deep.
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amazing man. I think I like this battle-scared look to the beast than his normal, unhurt look
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Thank you.
As I mentioned above,Β I have been drawing and painting whales for over 40 years, and I've become an expert on sperm whale anatomy and behavior; all inspired by seeing the John Huston/Gregory Peck film version on TV back in the early 60s as a kid. Even though there have been a couple of TV remakes since then, I still feel it is the best adaption and the look of Moby himself is fairly close to the description in the book, at least as good as they could do back in 1956; but even they didn't attempt to do the crooked lower jaw. No film or TV version ever has. I have thoroughly scoured the book and wrote down every single description of Moby or any part of him, and this drawing is very accurate, including the 3 holes punctured in his starboard fluke. And Melville/Ishmael makes it a point to say that he was not an albino, but rather most of his head and the oversized dorsal hump was white, while the rest of him was streaked with dark gray and white, like marble.
However, for an even more accurate version of Moby, go check out my more recent painting at dolfinguy.deviantart.com/art/L⦠ , painted in March 2011. I did over a year of research on crooked sperm whale jaws and mostly white, non-albino whales that are usually dark in color, as well as a great deal of new research on the harpoons and whale line (And I have several books on old Yankee whaling already in my collection), on top of the decades of general research on sperm whales, before I started doing the actual painting. I know that it might seem a bit like bragging, but I dare say that it is the most accurate painting of Moby Dick ever attempted...if there's a better one, I haven't seen it, and I've seen hundreds of illustrations of Moby Dick, the whale.
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I'm drawing a true-to-book portrait of Moby Dick myself.
Honestly this is a rare illustration - everyone draws him as a smooth snow white whale, almost cute.
I prefer your fearsome interpretation
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Thank you. I have been drawing and painting whales for over 40 years, and I've become an expert on sperm whale anatomy and behavior; all inspired by seeing the John Huston/Gregory Peck film version on TV back in the early 60s as a kid. Even though there have been a couple of TV remakes since then, I still feel it is the best adaption and the look of Moby himself is fairly close to the description in the book, at least as good as they could do back in 1956; but even they didn't attempt to do the crooked lower jaw. No film or TV version ever has. I have thoroughly scoured the book and wrote down every single description of Moby or any part of him, and this drawing is very accurate, including the 3 holes punctured in his starboard fluke. And Melville/Ishmael makes it a point to say that he was not an albino, but rather most of his head and the oversized dorsal hump was white, while the rest of him was streaked with dark gray and white, like marble.
However, for an even more accurate version of Moby, go check out my more recent painting at dolfinguy.deviantart.com/art/L⦠, painted in March 2011. I did over a year of research on crooked sperm whale jaws and mostly white, non-albino whales that are usually dark in color, as well as a great deal of new research on the harpoons and whale line (And I have several books on old Yankee whaling already in my collection), on top of the decades of general research on sperm whales, before I started doing the actual painting. I know that it might seem a bit like bragging, but I dare say that it is the most accurate painting of Moby Dick ever attempted...if there's a better one, I haven't seen it, and I've seen hundreds of illustrations of Moby Dick, the whale.
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I was motivated to pickup the book (or rather the audiobook read by Frank Muller) by Mastodon's Leviathan album, which is inspired by the book.
Blood and Thunder, for example, is about Ahab chasing Moby Dick from both the whale's and Ahab's perspective.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-Su1Yβ¦
"he was not an albino, but rather most of his head and the oversized dorsal hump was white, while the rest of him was streaked with dark gray and white, like marble."
Yes that surprised me as well, implying that he is, though mostly, not entirely white.
The only footage of an actual white sperm whale I've seen and am sure probably wasn't manipulated is this small clip from a whale documentary I found on YouTube
www.tubechop.com/watch/1404075
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Say, did You know that Timur Bekmambetov (the guy behind 2008's Wanted) is making a modern version of Moby Dick with Jeff Bridges as Ahab & James Franco as Ishmael?.
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I had heard about his plans to do a re-imagined version of Moby Dick quite a while back (Sept 2008), but in the descriptions that I saw about his plans/idea for the script, he said he was ditching the character of Ishmael, and it was going to be very weird; more like a filmed version of a graphic novel. Here's a link to one of many articles that appeared when it was first announced--go to [link] . However, this is the first time that I had heard that he was actually moving forward with the project, and was already looking at a cast. Did you see the recent remake of the classic version with William Hurt as Ahab? If so, what did you think of it?
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Hey, Antonio, I was looking around some more about this via Google and ran across an article where some random movie critic/blogger --Elisabeth Rappe, was talking about Bekmambetov's plans to make Moby Dick, and decided to offer her suggestions for a possible cast, which included Jeff Bridges as Ahab, James Franco as Ishmael, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Starbuck, etc. You can see her suggestions here [link] . So the actors you mentioned are most likely NOT in the cast for this film adaption, but merely someone's suggestions as to who might be right for the part.
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In my opinion, the only chance to make the most accurate version of Moby Dick was in 1985: An intended companion to A christmas Carol (1984), with George C. Scott (who was born on october 18th, like Me & Melville's Novel), who played Scrooge as Ahab, Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker & The Joker) as Ishmael & Peter Boyle (who was also born october 18th) as Mr. Starbuck.
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Interesting. I had not heard of that production even being in the works, before. Although Peter Boyle was far too old to play Starbuck, at least if you go by the novel's description (it says that Starbuck is @ 30). In fact, most film adaptions have gotten that wrong, with the actor selected almost always being in his 40s, or older. The only one that came close to getting that right was the most recent one with Ethan Hawke at least looking young enough to be in his 30s. Also I get the impression that Ishmael is perhaps 30 at most, but probably somewhat younger, so Richard Baseheart was also too old for the part in the 50's version. Both the 90's Stewart version and the newest one at least got that part right.
I have seen both "The Sea Beast" and the 30's "Moby Dick", both with John Barrymore as Ahab (I have the last one on tape, made from Turner Classic Movies channel several years ago), and except for the addition of sound, the 2 films are almost identical. All the scenes of the whale are exactly the same, and it's still not white and looks more like a potato than a sperm whale (if you look carefully, they did put a white bump/wart looking thing in the middle of his back, which I believe they meant to represent his "white hump", although it's still not located at the place where a sperm whale's dorsal hump is supposed to be, as that's quite obvious on the "potato whale model as being much farther back, where it's supposed to be).
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alright, 1: I don't think that production was made in the works, I just meant to say that Mr. Scott, Mr. Hamill & Mr. Boyle & the crew of the '84 christmas carol movie should've made a spiritual sequel since I got the idea from Francis ford Coppola & Kenneth brannagh's version of Frankenstein & 2: You have the 30's version of Moby Dick?. Any chance You could send the final battle with Ahab & Derek to my email Tugaction@aol.com so that I can See it?.
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Ooooo. I don't think you understand. I have the 1930 Moby Dick movie on VHS videotape (Yes, I still use ancient technologies), not on DVD or in any other digital format for ease in email, nor any way to convert it. Sorry.
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Thanks for telling.
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I did see that version as well as Peck's & Stewart's, even John Barrymore's The sea Beast, but I'm dying to see Moby Dick (1930).
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Thank you. Be sure to check out my recent painting of a breaching Moby Dick at [link] . Have you seen the recent 3-hour miniseries of Moby Dick starring William Hurt as Ahab and Ethan Hawke as Starbuck? It just came out on DVD in the US last week, and I finally got to watch it last night. Although they did change some things in comparison to the novel, they also put in a lot of elements and occurrences from the novel that previous film/TV versions have left out, so in the balance I liked it very much. However, they did a lousy job with the CGI sperm whale they created to play Moby Dick; the anatomy was all wrong and therefor he looked more like a cartoon whale than a real one.
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