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Description
Behold, the true monarch of the ocean: RMS Queen Mary! She may well be the world’s most beloved ocean liner barring, of course, Titanic; her existence has touched lives the world over and she continues to be a cultural staple today. She’s high up on my list of favorite ships, and as such I decided to draw her not as a gijinka, not in her current hotel-slash-attraction form, but as the record-breaking liner she was built to be. Here she is, thundering across the waves, racing the sky itself as she sets a new speed record for Britain and Cunard.

And, of course, here are the notes:
-I started this drawing more than a year and a half ago, in the spring of my first year at college. For context, as of posting this it’s the fall semester of my third year, so quite a bit of time has passed. The piece was stalled for so long because coloring the hull was so daunting - I didn’t want to mess anything up, and I knew it would require a lot of graphite!
-Originally, this was going to be a fully inked and colored piece. However, the way I shaded the hawsepipe and the top of the funnel just looked too nice to erase or color over, so I switched to making it a pencil-only piece instead.
-Despite how realistic I made the drawing, there are some elements that are missing or otherwise incorrect. The horizonal poles (which I believe are cargo booms) attached to the foremast are absent; you should be able to see one of them from this angle, but I left it out because, when I first started the drawing, I wanted to simplify things slightly. I ultimately changed my mind, but by then it was too late in the process to add that in. That’s also the case with the simplified instruments on top of the bridge.
-The rigging is simplified, but I tried to be accurate with the stuff I did add.
-I made the smoke and water look like that by coloring them in normally and then smudging the pencil with my fingers. Then I added darker areas in the smoke for shading, and finally I used an eraser to make the lighter parts in both the smoke and water. Realistically, Queen Mary wouldn’t have actually produced such a dramatic smoke plume, as she was an oil-fired ship rather than a coal-fired one, but the bigger cloud looked cooler and more dynamic. Also, the smoke should be blowing backward, but it isn’t for similar artistic-license reasons; this, at least, can be explained by saying she must be sailing in some pretty strong wind!
-I was originally planning to smudge the hull too in order to smooth out the coloring, but I changed my mind.
-I based the drawing on this photograph !

For more information on Queen Mary, check out the following:

Queen Mary
”MAURETANIA” and “RMS QUEEN MARY”
Queen Mary’s Cunard Service History
Thirty-Million-Dollar Super Liner is Built

Description
Behold, the true monarch of the ocean: RMS Queen Mary! She may well be the world’s most beloved ocean liner barring, of course, Titanic; her existence has touched lives the world over and she continues to be a cultural staple today. She’s high up on my list of favorite ships, and as such I decided to draw her not as a gijinka, not in her current hotel-slash-attraction form, but as the record-breaking liner she was built to be. Here she is, thundering across the waves, racing the sky itself as she sets a new speed record for Britain and Cunard.

And, of course, here are the notes:
-I started this drawing more than a year and a half ago, in the spring of my first year at college. For context, as of posting this it’s the fall semester of my third year, so quite a bit of time has passed. The piece was stalled for so long because coloring the hull was so daunting - I didn’t want to mess anything up, and I knew it would require a lot of graphite!
-Originally, this was going to be a fully inked and colored piece. However, the way I shaded the hawsepipe and the top of the funnel just looked too nice to erase or color over, so I switched to making it a pencil-only piece instead.
-Despite how realistic I made the drawing, there are some elements that are missing or otherwise incorrect. The horizonal poles (which I believe are cargo booms) attached to the foremast are absent; you should be able to see one of them from this angle, but I left it out because, when I first started the drawing, I wanted to simplify things slightly. I ultimately changed my mind, but by then it was too late in the process to add that in. That’s also the case with the simplified instruments on top of the bridge.
-The rigging is simplified, but I tried to be accurate with the stuff I did add.
-I made the smoke and water look like that by coloring them in normally and then smudging the pencil with my fingers. Then I added darker areas in the smoke for shading, and finally I used an eraser to make the lighter parts in both the smoke and water. Realistically, Queen Mary wouldn’t have actually produced such a dramatic smoke plume, as she was an oil-fired ship rather than a coal-fired one, but the bigger cloud looked cooler and more dynamic. Also, the smoke should be blowing backward, but it isn’t for similar artistic-license reasons; this, at least, can be explained by saying she must be sailing in some pretty strong wind!
-I was originally planning to smudge the hull too in order to smooth out the coloring, but I changed my mind.
-I based the drawing on this photograph !

For more information on Queen Mary, check out the following:

Queen Mary
”MAURETANIA” and “RMS QUEEN MARY”
Queen Mary’s Cunard Service History
Thirty-Million-Dollar Super Liner is Built