Battle of the Ironclads

The Battle of the Ironclads

Gouache, ink, & digital colors

My submission for a Steampunk themed group show at Studio ZaPow in Asheville. I was going for an old-fashioned steamboat look, and in my research I stumbled across images of the civil war-era ironclad vessels. I remember being fascinated by these in history class growing up, so I updated the old ships while keeping some the elements grounded in the past.

I give my friend Garrett most of the credit for this piece. I was about ready to just pass on contributing to the group show for lack of ideas when he passed along “space dandies” as a starting point. I also borrowed from his long list of fictional names to come up with the personalities of the ship captains.

The ships and captain portraits are pen drawings with gouache paint. For the background, I soaked a paper in water and lightly manipulated a few drops of India ink and added color on Photoshop. The water and ink interacted in a very natural way that I couldn’t quite achieve with water colors.