Nautilus: 20000 Leagues

Came across my old notes on the dimensions and shape of the Nautilus from Jules Verne's novel 20000 Leagues Under the Seas. As well as preliminary sketches based on these notes. (Also came across my diagrams for a Yithian and an Elder Thing from H.P. Lovecraft.) Combined with some very usefull insights found on the marvelous Vernian Era web site.

This is the original notes re-created in digital art. The basic piece was a rather plain gray so decided to try and add a bit of technical look to the Nautilus hull to get the feel of the "scaled" effect mentioned in the novel. I used a very very old Giger-inspired pattern for the skin and it worked out far better than expected!

Some details. I placed the steering tower forward to bypass the somewhat problematic mention of pushing the tower and lamp into the hull. (Though I do have an idea for a diffrent approach to this action.) This way the shape is still streamlined and poses little impediment to penetrating a ship. The lamp I originally placed further back much as steering is. But this posed a hinderance to actually casting any light forward. So I moved the lamp forward some and up enough to shine over the length as needed. Its far enough back that even poking up as is it shouldn't impede progress. On top can just be made out the bulge of Nemo's detatchable boat. The railing I have left folded down flat as tries at adding it in didn't quite look right to me. The rudder is based on some of the illustrations, ine in particular I saw that suggested this shape vaugly and it looks about right.

The Title text is my own Atlantean font with a slight Sanskrit feel that I thought rather fit. If you follow Nemos origins in Mysterious Island.

For those of you who havent read 20000 Leagues yet. I strongly suggest finding the new translations of the novel. What you tend to see on the shelves of the english version are poorly translated and missing myriad bits throughout. Same goes for Mysterious Island.