Professional treasure hunter, Scott Mitchen, began a new voyage approximately five years ago—writing his first book. After his 1990 discovery of the 17th century pirate ship, La Trompeuse, Mitchen was ready to write. However, Mitchen became readily involved in the underwater logging industry, and the majority of his time was dedicated to salvaging old-growth timber. This, however, did not dissolve the story that Scott had brewing in his mind since Day 1 of the La Trompeuse discovery.

Finally, in 2005, Mitchen began writing. He also sought out the help of writer Susan Perry for assistance. First they created a non-fiction book about the journey it took to find the La Trompeuse. Then, not long after, they began creating the fictitious tales of Will. Mitchen and Perry combined the factual information of the La Trompeuse along with the story of a poor cabin boy, Will Davies, who sets sail aboard a merchant ship for the first time.

Featured above is page one of the storyboarding for Will of the Pirates.

What was presumed to be a job with typical cabin boy duties soon becomes an adventure filled with scoundrels, pirates, conspiracies and kings! Will finds trouble and treasure throughout the pages of Will of the Pirates!

Scott Mitchen had a good idea of the type of illustration he wanted for the cover of Will of the Pirates. After an in-depth search for an illustrator, he selected Tracey Preston Cook and set right to work explaining what he had wanted. After reading the manuscript, Mitchen and Cook got together and worked out the details of the cover. It was decided that the cave scene in Chapter 20, pages 151 - 155 would be the centerpiece of the book illustration.

Cook then began the rough concept sketches and with a couple more work sessions with Mitchen, began rendering. The first problem encountered was creating a cave environment for the pirates that felt real. A cave that is well-lit as the book describes in vivid detail would also avoid the "dark side" of pirating from coming through the illustration.

Look Out Cave is a real place located on the island of Hispaniola in Haiti. It is believed that the real Captain Hamlyn really used this back in the day, as did other pirates. Mitchen’s partner, Tony Kopp, and daughter, Diana, did metal detect the cave floor and found musket balls, but no treasure. Could it be some somewhere down one of the passageways?

Mitchen and Cook set out to research the cave and see if they could find pictures. Mitchen had spent a good deal of time in the cave and remembered vivid details. Cook was very interested in getting the drawings of Look Out Cave as accurate as possible. "I was most excited about the fact that Mitchen had based the book on yet another factual detail. Think about how excited kids reading the book will be to learn that this cave actually exists - it's a place they could go and retrace the steps of Captain Hamlyn up to the cave and then explore it, wow! Just thinking about being able to stand in the cave and imagine the division of treasure... for a kid, that's about as fun as running around on Tom Sawyer’s Island in Disneyland... so I really wanted to make sure the cave is drawn as accurately as possible," says Cook. To accomplish this, Cook submitted sketches to Mitchen and they revised details several times until the drawings matched the vivid memories Mitchen had of the cave.

The next challenge was that the cave illustration was a tricky problem of proportions. Foreshortening had to be used in the cave drawing to capture its size. "It's a large cave with real stone window/door-type openings in the sides," Says Mitchen. "So I worked with Tracey Cook to get those accurate details to come alive." Cook then worked on foreshortening the drawing to accommodate the small 6"x9" book layout and while still allowing the viewer to see the large size of Look Out Cave.

© Copyright 2008 Tracey Preston Cook

Featured above, the original cave sketch utilizing foreshortening to solve the problem of making the eye see a large cave illustrated on a small space (6"x9" book cover).

The illustration process then lead to featuring the protagonist (12 year old, Will Davies above top page left) and antagonist (Captain Hamlyn below right) interacting amongst the treasure, adding interest to the scene and pushing the "greed" button in the minds of the viewer by featuring gold.

© Copyright 2008 Tracey Preston Cook

To solve the problem of showing "many pirates" in the cave scene described by the book in Chapter 20 on page 154, the illustration gives the impression that many more pirates would be arriving, (but just weren't aren't there yet) with the pirate entering the cave (pictured left). This was achieved by creating a pirate lifting treasure up into the cave. This makes the mind imagine the rest of the scene of a troupe of pirates on their way up the cliff, all in a line, carrying chests of gold, food, and weapons as they meander from the beach through the jungle and up to Captain Hamlyn's Lookout Cave (page 151 of the book).