The Story Behind the Artwork

The Story Behind Deadly Quiet

It started with a different submarine.

In the late 1990s, working with the U.S. Navy as a primary source, Stephen Rountree created a cutaway illustration of the Los Angeles-class submarine for U.S. News & World Report. The piece was the kind of detailed, technically precise visual journalism that had defined his career — work that had appeared across the pages of National Geographic, Smithsonian, WIRED, and Popular Science. The Los Angeles illustration was later selected for inclusion in the Smithsonian's Fast Attack and Boomers exhibit at the Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

The Navy, already familiar with Rountree's process and standards from that collaboration, came back with a new assignment.

The Commission

The VIRGINIA-class was the next generation of American fast-attack submarine — a vessel capable of intelligence gathering, special operations support, and strike missions, all while remaining virtually undetectable beneath the waves. The Navy wanted an official illustration, and they wanted it done right.

The assignment carried unusual responsibility. Illustrating the VIRGINIA-class meant walking a careful line: reveal enough to convey the technology's sophistication, but never enough to compromise a mission or endanger a crew. Rountree worked directly with naval officials throughout the process. Every label, every system depicted, every cutaway detail was reviewed and approved before the piece was complete.

The process reflected the moment it was made. Digital tools in 2000 had a fraction of the capabilities they have today. Rountree carefully constructed a 3D model of the sub based on the plans the Navy provided. He then lt the model with virtual lights and rendered the whole scene, essentially capturing a digital image of the virtual submarine. The processing power of his computers 20 years ago meant that a single render would often require hours, sometimes taking all night to complete a render. He did this multiple times—once for the exterior to capture the pressure hull, and several more times to create the various interior rooms of the boat. Finally, he composited and refined every layer in Photoshop, digitally painting finishing details by hand.

The result is a combination of technical and artistic craftsmanship.

From Congress to the Fleet

The illustration ran in the April 2000 edition of All Hands — the U.S. Navy's official fleet-wide magazine. But its first distribution was more selective: printed copies went to members of Congress, military leadership, and a small circle of media and government officials.

From there it traveled further than expected. The illustration was picked up internationally, appearing in newspapers and magazines around the world as they covered the story of the VIRGINIA-class program. For many readers — and many sailors — it was their first real look inside the boat.

A Place Aboard the North Carolina

When the USS North Carolina (SSN-777) was commissioned in 2008, Rountree's illustration was incorporated into the submarine's exhibit at the Battleship North Carolina Museum in Wilmington, NC, where it debuted alongside the vessel's commissioning ceremonies. Rountree was honored to be invited to present a framed edition to the submarine's first commanding officer, Captain Mark Davis, for installation aboard the boat itself.

The illustration has, in the most literal sense, gone to sea.

Deadly Quiet

More than two decades after the original commission, Rountree has returned to the artwork — not to revise its history, but to make it available to a wider audience for the first time.

Deadly Quiet is a special edition of the VIRGINIA-class illustration, redesigned for display as fine art. Produced on museum-quality archival paper, it preserves the depth, detail, and technical authority of the original.

It is offered now for the people it was always really about: the sailors who serve aboard these boats, the engineers and builders who bring them to life, the families who wait at the pier, and anyone who believes that what happens beneath the waves is worth understanding and remembering.

"Working with the Navy, I wanted to create a piece that gives the viewer X-ray vision — to marvel at the technology, appreciate the designers who engineered it, and honor the crews who serve on it." — Stephen Rountree