Vengeance of Sailor Witch Ahab

Once upon a time, there was a magical girl named Sailor Witch Ahab. She was cheerful, kind, and happy as she did the sort of things magical girls do: saving cats from trees, helping the elderly cross the street, and fighting crime. Life was good, and Sailor Witch Ahab was content.

Then the elder gods returned to the world. These primordial forces had been dormant for ages, and only now have they begun to return. Something had to be done, and Sailor Witch Ahab answered the call. She wasn’t the only one to do so, but Ahab was special due to her ability to successfully fight – and kill – these elder gods. One by one they fell to Ahab’s magical heart harpoon, and her legend as a godslayer began.

Everything changed when Sailor Witch lost to an elder god of the ocean. Ahab was left battered and beaten, even losing her left leg during the fierce battle. Despite all the physical injuries she suffered, not one of them was as deep as the mental blow of being defeated by an elder god. This was her first time she lost to an elder god, and this defeat was just too much for her. Ever since that day, she no longer sought to save the world from these ancient forces – now she was going to fight for revenge.

When her wounds healed and her health recovered, she began forming a team of magical girls willing to join together to fight these foes. It was easy for her to gain followers due to her reputation as a godslayer (even with one loss she still holds an impressive track record). With this army at her back, she announced the group’s primary objective: to track down that elder god of the ocean and slaughter it.

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This is my contest entry for the Seventh Sanctum’s Classic Conversion Contest [[link]]. The Generator result I used was: Moby Dick (Herman Melville) with elder gods versus magical girls!

I decided to make Ahab a girl instead of a guy, since I didn’t really want to draw a picture of a bearded old guy in a magical girl outfit (which would have been funny, but disturbing). The name “Sailor Witch” is actually a result from the Magical Girl Title Generator, since I thought it would be a better rank/title than “Captain Ahab.” (It turns out that we never learn what Captain Ahab’s first name is in the book, so there was no need to change his name). I wanted to present Ahab as once being a classic magical girl who has fallen to the dark side.

I hope that Moby Dick still looks like a white whale (I had to discard a few earlier renditions because they didn’t resemble a whale at all). As for the Elder God aspect, I looked up “elder god” on wikipedia (I’m not a fan of H.P. Lovecraft, but I’m aware of his work). It turns out that an elder god isn’t a creature of insanity, but rather primordial deities that were around before humans. This is why the white whale doesn’t have a squid head (and besides, Ahab was after a whale, not a squid).

Since the whole point of this contest is to put a “cool” spin on classic literature, I decided to primarily use the brush tool to make it resemble a painting. While it’s a fantastic technique for drawing wrinkles and small details, it is also very time consuming. In the end, I’m glad I spent the time to work on this project without trying to rush through it. I learned a lot while drawing this picture, and I got to draw things I normally wouldn’t.

UPDATE: "Vengeance of Sailor Witch Ahab" won the runner-up prize in the Seventh Sanctum's Classic COnversion contest!

Made in Adobe Photoshop CS