Drawing The Dazzle Ship

I’m going to go through the steps behind coming up with the idea and then the creation of this cartoon.

I remember way back when reading a book about the First World War and seeing some paintings in it of ships that had had dazzle pattern applied to it. At first glance, you may think why on earth would they paint a ship this way, it must stand out for miles.

However, the idea behind this was not to paint the ship and try to have it merge with the sea, but instead to break up the silouette and thus make it more difficult for submarines to aim.

The dazzle paint, also called razzle dazzle, was applied to both warships and merchant ships.

It’s not the ship you think it is…

If this ship looks familiar, it’s because it is the RMS Olympic, sister ship of the Titannic. She was pressed into service as a troop ship and became the largest ship to have such paint applied to it.

Painting of the RMS Olympic by Duncan Hannah, 2011.

I really liked the tones used in this particular painting, and so I decided to base the cartoon on it.

Initial outline

Here is the initial outline. I traced the picture, omitting some of the finer details.

Adding colour

I’ve now applied solid colours to both the characters and the ship.

Adding washes

I’ve now started to add digital watercolour washes to gradually build up the tones

I added the sky as a solid colour.

Almost there…

I’m now adding a few details, such as the smoke, and the wake from the ship.

The finished picture

I thought the composition would look better if the seal and gull were on the left. I’ve also zoomed in the frame a little so the ship is closer to them and increasing their awe.