Research

Illustration by Rockwell Kent

First thing I started doing was highlighting passages from the book — basically any descriptive passage that I thought would be useful later for character, prop, location, creature design, you name it. Turns out that’s a lot of stuff. Also: just a note, Moby Dick is in the public domain, since it was written in 1851(!) so its copyright is long expired. Good news.

As you can tell, that’s a lot of stuff. I definitely want to do a few things for sure: The Whale, Ishmael, Queequeg, Ahab, Starbuck, and some key props like the harpoons and some harvestable whale parts. Possibly overambitious: I’d love to do a design of the Pequod too but that’s opening a whole Ship Architecture can of worms that I have never opened before. But hey, we’ve got the time.

I also got a bunch of books out on whaling to try to understand the history and the process a bit better, as well as on Sperm Whales!

I will be satisfied when I hear a whale fact and can just nod knowingly and calmly because I’ve heard it before, instead of yelling “WHAT” at the book and then texting all my friends immediately.

The thumbnail art for this one is by Rockwell Kent, you can read a bit about him and his work on Moby Dick here.