Bertram Fiddle's Cabinet of Curiosity

I drew a fanart for Bertram Fiddle, an awesome adventure game made by Seb Burnett  and set in the Victorian London. Rumpus Animation has just started a Kickstarter campaign for its second episode, have a look at it!!:)

The 12 Bens #7-12  These were created for The Inn to the West in Clifden. They’re based on loose translation of the Irish names of the range of peaks in Connemara. Posting the full set after their exhibition in the Inn during Clifden Arts Festival.

Here’s a little overview of the other material I’m drawing on for this project! I’ll start posting the art itself on April 1 (some progress already is on Patreon!), so I promise this won’t just be endless hype.

The history and technologies of whaling are elaborately described in Moby-Dick, and an understanding of more of those details than you’d think is necessary to follow the book. You come away from the book with a dense knowledge of an industry that feels much further from the contemporary world than it actually is. I’m interested in presenting these details as competently I can, but also using them in different, abstract ways. The Pequod itself, for instance, is presented in the text as a factory, a world, a nation, and hell itself. Most of the reference material I’ve accumulated has been in the interest of understanding the details of the ship and the fishery well enough to work with that kind of metaphor.

I’ve also looked at a lot of contemporary illustrations of whaling, and at scrimshaw, as conscious stylistic influences. I’m interested in something the looks a little like 1800s print illustration, with heavy shadows and a lot of digressive hatching meant to be suggestive of scrimshaw. Period photography of whaling is hard to find, but illustration’s a little easier. And I’ve also gotten really into Gustave Doré lately, especially his illustrations for The Rime of the Ancient Mariner: intense drama in black and white, and a dramatic use of the ship’s rigging.