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Bartz Blog Entry |
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August 23, 2024, 12:00:31 AM 8/23/24: r/SketchDaily theme, "Free Draw Friday." This week's characters from my anthro WWII storyline are: Unnamed City Clerk; Herr Heinrich (no last name ever given); Frau Bartz (no first name ever given); and Private Etienne Laurent. So many this week as the first two are completely new characters who popped up as I was writing the Tumblr entry for Frieda Orchudesch and her father (last week), yet I wanted to still check a couple off my list. The clerk and Heinrich, the Orchudesches' manservant, help Josef Diamant start his career as document forger. Frau Bartz is in charge of a maternity home and is always trying to coax Lt. Hesse into settling down with one of the women. And Laurent is an older undeveloped character from my character list, a French partisan whose background I need to develop some. The clerk and Heinrich are already described in Frieda's Tumblr entry. There'll be more about them all later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se. Regarding their designs: The clerk is a leucistic doberman; Heinrich is a fawn boxer; and Frau Bartz is a blue doberman (I'm iffy on her hair, she's supposed to look more severe). I wanted to try something different with Laurent's colors. TUMBLR EDIT: The rest of this will be modified for each entry to avoid repetition. Frau Bartz is unimportant enough as a character that she only recently acquired a surname, doesn't really need it, but she pops up repeatedly as comic relief so I figured the other characters need a way to refer to her. She's informally(?) in charge of the Lebensborn maternity home where SS wives and unwed mothers of suitable Aryan extraction go to bear their children and put them up for adoption; I say "informal," as she does not appear to be an SS auxiliary, she apparently bears no feminine rank or title such as Helferin. I could be wrong, but anyway. She oversees the place, makes sure the women get excerise and decent meals and care, offers morale boosts, deals with visiting SS officials (the Allgemeine-SS controls the Lebensborn program), all that. And oh, yes, she's CONSTANTLY trying to convince prime SS males to either choose a nice pregnant bride from among the single mothers-to-be, or else just offer their...ahm...masculine services to the OTHER branch of the Lebensborn program to help boost the birthrate. Either one will do. For the glory of the Reich! Sieg Heil! Etc. etc. Lt. Gunter Hesse, an investigator with the Sicherheitsdienst, is suitably low key, non-flashy, stable, respectable, and of course, super-Aryan enough that he's the primary target of Frau Bartz's attention. He and his associates--mainly Lt. Paul Wozniak and sometimes Master Sgt. Theodor Schulte--occasionally visit the maternity home for inspections and whatnot, and every time, Frau Bartz wheedles at Hesse constantly, showing off the lovely Aryan moms (they find Hesse to be a decent catch and so always play along, lining up, smiling seductively, batting their eyes and giggling) and suggesting he pick one, here's a nice one, this one has a pretty face, oh is it a large family he hopes for?--look at the hips on this one!--this one is nice and strong and suited for country work, oh does he wish to remain in the city?--well look at this comely, petite, feminine example, she'll make him look good, or how about this one, she's nice and obedient, or would he be interested in someone just a bit more feisty?--well here's this one, and they're all certified as sufficiently Aryan by the SS itself, no less, so you know what that means!--pure-blooded babies!...Hesse, who already has a mistress and really is NOT interested at the moment in settling down with a pregnant wife, always dreads his visits to the maternity home for this reason, and rebuffs Frau Bartz's constant coaxing. It doesn't matter much, though; if he brings up that he's not looking to get married, Frau Bartz just changes her tune--well that's fine, just fine!--there are other ways to contribute to the Reich!--has he considered entering the Lebensborn program himself?...see, they could always use an excellent example of Aryan masculinity such as himself, surely there's a lot he can contribute, just show up and let some lovely young lady pick him and he can contribute to the glory of the Fatherland all night long, yes?--hmm?--this side of Lebensborn has always rather squicked Hesse out, so of course he always tries everything he can to get away from Frau Bartz's wheedling. He can never get out of her company fast enough, yet she remains undeterred in her efforts. It's hinted that Frau Bartz may have a crush on Hesse herself, despite their age difference--Hesse, in his forties, is rather older than most SS men involved in the program, yet this makes him appealing as it's assumed he has experience, whereas Frau Bartz is probably in her fifties--at one point she coyly mentions how if she were younger and of childbearing age, she might pursue him herself. Hesse of course hastens to think of ways to put her off without offending her, though she finds his prudence attractive as well; there's just no winning with her. Kind of ironically, Frau Bartz's persistent efforts to find mates for her girls do work toward winning over one officer--just not Hesse. Lt. Wozniak, after helping rescue the pregnant Karolin Bathelt from being pinned under the rubble following a bombing attempt at the home, assists in delivering her baby; he later asks her to marry him. Ironic--as Wozniak is not only NOT suitably Aryan (he's actually Polish), he's also gay. Definitely NOT premium SS husband material, as Frau Bartz would see it. Yet he offers Karolin an out that could benefit her, her son, and himself: They can pose as a family, thus not only preserving her reputation and saving her from having to put her son up for adoption, but helping to keep his own secret as well. Karolin is reluctant at first--she's bought in to the Reich's ideas about the degenerate homosexuals--but is desperate enough to keep her baby that she goes along with it. Despite their utter lack of physical compatibility, Wozniak ends up being an excellent and devoted husband and father. So, Frau Bartz does get ONE of her single mothers married off, just not to the guy she would have preferred, and not for the reasons she would have expected. Frau Bartz's character and physical appearance take a lot of inspiration from Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, and also from this particular photo, try not to laugh (I don't believe this is her, though I came across this image years ago and when I learned about Scholtz-Klink, this quickly came to mind--Google her and you can find similar images of her inspecting scantily clad, athletic women). You can see I styled her hair after Scholtz-Klink's, though wasn't entirely successful, I didn't want the bangs to stick out so much, I wanted her hair pulled more tightly to her head in a more severe appearance. Should I ever figure out how to draw that properly, her hairstyle may change. Frau Bartz is just a sort of running gag character who isn't meant to be developed much, and I really don't know what becomes of her at/after story's end. Maybe she'll end up like Sigrid Richter and develop some further surprise plot, though likely not. [Frau Bartz 2024 [Friday, August 23, 2024, 12:00:31 AM]] |