cahn | Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 20

Two more, even though this is clearly very detrimental to my German productivity :'-D.

A few steps to the side, Fritz visits the Antinous statue! (About which I have also written fic, lol.)

Mimi burning the manuscript of Suhm's translation of Wolff and celebrating madly over the ruins! No, I don't know what species of monkey she is. My current favorite (as a wild animal, not as a pet!) is the capuchin, but that's a New World monkey, and I don't know how common that would have been in Europe in the time. A vervet is at least a smallish Old World monkey, and common as a pet now (which I repeat is a bad idea!), although again, I'm not sure about the 18th century.

Yes, I'm trying to help you improve your animal drawing skills. :D :D

Happy to trade ego boosts in return for art!

Monkey business: I can't tell which kind it is, but a century before Fritz, we have this famous picture of Lord Rochester with a monkey:

And if we're making fic-related requests, I'm eying Old Fritz meeting MT's ghost in his Sanssouci study in the last of my Five Ways Frederick the Great and Maria Theresia did not meet, as well as Heinrich visiting a dying Wilhelmine shortly after AW's death ~~and being talked out of strangling Fritz the next time they meet~~.

Edited 2020-10-20 14:50 (UTC)

I totally thought of Fritz and MT's ghost! I just had higher priorities for my own requests, but I'm absolutely seconding this request! (And I'm sure

cahn is thirding it.)

There are plenty of monkeys in contemporary art; not least, the monkeys on the wall of the so-called Voltaire room in Sanssouci! But don't ask me for more examples--I'm supposed to be working for the next few hours, and then I have a German quota to meet, lol.

I added all of this to my ever growing list! I have never drawn a monkey or seen one up close! This will be... interesting. The one with the statue and the one with MT would probably look best as full illustrations and, since there should be better photos of those places somewhere, I'll be able to practice my background drawing skills as well :'D

I started painting Fredersdorf today! The background is done and I'll do my best not to screw up the face tomorrow :D after asking my boss, i ended up opting for acrylic paint after all. He'll probably get a glossy varnish though, so he'll look real fancy (provided I don't mess up). One thing I'm already liking way more about this one after my last acrylic piece is the size! The Katte picture is 60x60cm and this one is only 24x30. That makes handling it a whole lot easier and I can actually work at a desk instead of covering my apartment in old newspapers and crouching on the floor :'D

I just read a somewhat mean sounding article about how no portrait ever got Fritz's nose right, so as soon as I'm done with my exam next week (this class has been over since late June, I don't remember shit, shoot me), I'll probably do some digital sketches of Fritz with the death mask as a reference to figure out how to portray him at different ages. I feel like that might be fun and I want to get the nose right :'D Might combine that with drawing him with Heinrich. Just a small-ish (meaning: non-shaded) digital piece to get a grip on how to draw their uniforms.

I have never drawn a monkey or seen one up close! This will be... interesting.

Wouldn't want you to be bored!

Seriously, anything you draw will be awesome, but if you ask for suggestions

with the death mask as a reference

I did notice the nose in the death mask is rather more prominent than in the portraits! I could see toning it down a bit. Plus which, I don't think he sat for many portraits, so being mean to the artists is a little unfair, lol. (As Voltaire would point out, you have to stop talking, and that's hard. :P)

The article was less mean to the artists (only to some copies which were preeetty bad) and more mean to Fritz :'D I mean, I get it, sometimes you gotta be mean to Fritz, but I don't even think his nose was THAT ugly... From an artistic point of view I definitely like it better than the forehead cotinuing nose Menzel has going on in the illustrated biography. My personal favourite part of the article was "He is looking rather cute in this painting too, even though we can conclude from this and this that he was not pretty in his youth either and his nose should have already been Like That"
My dude. He is TWO YEARS OLD in this painting, what was Pesne supposed to do!? I am pretty sure that his face changed a little between 2 and 74 :'D

Speaking of painting, an update from the Fredersdorf front: I fucked up big time and now I have to redo the entire face because I'm a dumbass who thought "Hm, this tone doesn't look right, let's go over it with a transparent layer" when not all tones were laid down yet and the colour was actually correct in context. So then he was half orange and then I didn't manage to get the right colour again and now I've painted over everything below the eyes which makes it look like he's wearing some creepy facemask and I am about ready to a) cry, b) burn everything I've made and c) condemn acrylic paints to hell where they belong :'D
The next piece I make is gonna be in anything but acrylic, I feel like I could do better by glueing together last week's newspapers than by painting skin in acrylic.

The article was less mean to the artists (only to some copies which were preeetty bad) and more mean to Fritz :'D

Ahhh. Okay, that makes more sense.

I mean, I get it, sometimes you gotta be mean to Fritz, but I don't even think his nose was THAT ugly...

Gotta admit, my first reaction when I saw the death mask was, "Wow, I can see why that doesn't make it into the portraits." :P

Incidentally, EC's favorite picture of him, still hanging in Schonhausen, has a very nearly forehead-continuing nose in profile, that, if you ask me, looks equally unattractive, just in a different way, lol.

Look, all the visitors agreed that his eyes were his best feature, and even the intense stare we've figured out was at least 50% frantic compensation for severe nearsightedness. :D

"Hot or not" reports are an important part of our fandom! Fortunately, they were also extremely important to envoys and other travelers in a pre-photography age.

My dude. He is TWO YEARS OLD in this painting, what was Pesne supposed to do!? I am pretty sure that his face changed a little between 2 and 74 :'D

Lol, omg. Yeah, that's kind of the whole point of a baby face!

Speaking of painting, an update from the Fredersdorf front: I fucked up big time and now I have to redo the entire face because I'm a dumbass who thought "Hm, this tone doesn't look right, let's go over it with a transparent layer" when not all tones were laid down yet and the colour was actually correct in context.

Even your mistakes are so advanced my unartistic self can only half follow the explanation! Color me impressed, and patiently anticipating the finished product (and still very much admiring the dogs, although not to a degree that leads me to get yelled at,

cahn. ;) Quota has been met for today!)

My dude. He is TWO YEARS OLD in this painting, what was Pesne supposed to do!?

hahahaha! Yeah.

Speaking of painting, an update from the Fredersdorf front

Aw, I'm sorry it's so frustrating! Like mildred I have no art background and can barely follow, but I get the "it was right and now it is screwed up!" thing and :((((( Of course please do other mediums if it's less frustrating for you -- we want you to have a happy time doing these :) But I'm sure it will be amazing when it's done!

Also, I love your icon :D

Yes I am absolutely thirding :DD

Replying to remarks in the last post:

Awwww that other Fritz+dog one! And hee to the Katte and Fredersdorf :D (Ah, now, is it plausible Schwerin sent Fredersdorf? Should we have put that in?) :D

I mean, we sort of did. We went with one of the two backstories:
- Fredersdorf was pulled out of Schwerin's regiment to entertain Fritz. (Whether it was at Schwerin's order--I *think* I've seen this somewhere semi-reliable, but we just don't know.)
- They met at the university student performance at Frankfurt an der Oder (which we know happened, but we don't know whether Fredersdorf was there).

And I had Fredersdorf mention that he played the oboe in Schwerin's regiment (check and you'll see it's there), which is as much mention of Schwerin as I felt fit in this fic. I did consider more, but couldn't figure out how to work it in, so I think it's fine?

OKAY CONSIDER YOURSELF YELLED AT. YOU ARE HERE TO DO GERMAN NOT TO DO RESEARCH OR LOOK AT PICTURES OF DOGS even if they are really cute and awesomely drawn dogs. YOU HAD A QUOTA AND YOU DID NOT MAKE IT.

For those new here, I've asked

cahn to yell at me in a friendly manner whenever I don't meet my German quota, because it's very helpful to have that external motivation. I haven't actually needed much actual yelling! The threat is usually enough. :D

(They are cute and awesomely drawn!)

lol forever to him being confused about Voltaire and Fritz, that's all of us Lehndorff

Lol yes.

I knoooow, this is why Lehndorff 2 is on my list, but I can't quite handle the font yet, and I'll be surprised if Google can handle it well enough that I'll be able to give

cahn a translation. :(

It's OK -- I would love to read it if there were a good font, but if not I will just be happy with you reading it :)

I knooow, but it's got so much great Heinrich sparkly hearting! If I can't render it into something readable for you, I will try to annotate it for you, even though it'll be 2021 at this rate.

I only know he was a non-noble actor-playwright at the court of Louis XIV., which makes me assume the same thing. :) Checking on his German wiki entry, I see it also claims Alceste in The Misanthrope is the most autobiogrophical of his characters.

Heee, called it!

Awwww that other Fritz+dog one! And hee to the Katte and Fredersdorf :D (Ah, now, is it plausible Schwerin sent Fredersdorf? Should we have put that in?) :D

It occurs to me this might be a good time for a refresher on Schwerin?

- Respected field marshal.
- Talked Fritz into leaving his first battle (Mollwitz) to avoid capture, and then won the battle without him.
- Died in a charge at the Battle of Prague (the one in 1757 that you know a little about from your reading).
- On the obelisk.

If this was superfluous, let me know, but I'm trying to remember to give you some repetition now and again. :)

Never superfluous :D

...is he the one who also got disgraced along with AW after the whole Bohemia thing?

No, that was Schmettau; Schwerin was already dead by then.

Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 20

Fanart requests

Re: Fanart requests

Re: Fanart requests

Re: Fanart requests

Re: Fanart requests

Re: Fanart requests

Re: Fanart requests

Re: Fanart requests

Re: Fanart requests

Assorted replies

Re: Assorted replies

Re: Assorted replies

Re: Assorted replies