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Gunter Hesse Blog Entry |
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March 25, 2022, 2:43:17 AM March 25, 2022, 2:44:07 AM May 28, 2023, 11:20:35 PM May 29, 2023, 2:01:04 AM June 14, 2023, 10:41:46 PM September 13, 2023, 3:00:03 AM September 13, 2023, 3:00:14 AM 3/25/22: r/SketchDaily theme, "Free Draw Friday." ...I did also a drawing for Free Draw Friday. This week's character portrait attempt from my weird anthro alternate-reality WWII storyline is Obersturmführer (First Lieutenant) Gunter Hesse, without his cap (top), and with it (bottom). This character's gone through a total revamp since I created him some years ago. He's...ah wow, he's really hard to summarize without getting into the nitty-gritty details of the plot, and I know nobody wants a text wall. So I'll just say that he's my attempt to create a very morally ambiguous character in that he's very kind and selfless to the "right" people whom he cares about, while being ruthless and murderous toward the "wrong" people. He's so good at keeping these two roles separate (and lying about it) that one of the more naive characters who cares about him has no idea about his other side. He's supposed to be a blue Doberman pinscher. As with last week's character, he wears glasses, but due to design constraints they've been drawn as pince-nez. And there'll be a lot more about him later on in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se. TUMBLR EDIT: All righty. I said Lt. Hesse is complicated. That's intentional. I have a tendency with writing bad guys, I try to put myself in their mindset, however horrible it might be, and have them act as humans rather than the monsters most people view them as. Many of these people have a rationale for thinking the way they do and it might seem legit to them even if it really isn't. (For example, in my latest piece, a labor camp commandant casually mentions that he's not as cruel as the previous guy because rather than gassing prisoners, he just has the sick ones "humanely" shot in the head. Never mind that the previous commandant was killed in that same manner and that was considered a horrible crime. To this guy there's no contradiction, it's just the way things are.) Well, my Trench Rats series is about Allies vs. Nazis, and when my brain suddenly decided to reboot the practically dead series after about two decades or more of dormancy, a slew of Nazi characters emerged as well, and I had to get to know them personally. Oddly, Hesse isn't technically one of those characters--he's an existing character who was completely revamped. Let me share my original description of his character from this old character list that seems to date back to 2002 (at least, that's the date typed at the top, though more may have been added later): GUNTER HESSE: Lt.; elite member of the SS. In frequent contact with the soldiers around Dobermann's house but thinks of Dobermann himself with disdain. Often at odds with the "common" soldiers, but never incredibly obnoxious; uses sarcasm and an overly polite manner to best insult his foes. Gerhardt, Helmstadt, Holt, Senta, and Adelina can't stand him, so he is the one thing they agree upon. Aloof, disdainful, polite and charming but in a false, condescending way; tends to look upon the "Dobermann gang" as children. Rarely loses his temper, but not completely coolheaded like Dobermann; does have his weaknesses, if only the others could find them out. Current storyline Now hol' up, that's definitely NOT the same guy I described above, is it? Well yes, it is. That's how he was originally intended to be--a kind of stock bad guy who was pissy and annoying just for the sake of being pissy and annoying. It looks like even I didn't really get his motivations. Back then, I wasn't very...well, motivated to. Bad guys were bad guys and it wasn't really worth trying to understand them much. Writing my adult series The Ameni Chronicles started to change this character development technique. There are some truly, truly horrendous characters in that series but I tried to put myself in their heads anyway. There are also good guys who do really bad things; same story. As I got more into adult writing I focused more on trying to figure out what makes bad guys tick and what makes good guys do bad things. WELP...when my brain decided for whatever inexplicable reason to dredge up the Trench Rats series this past November, this is what happened. As new plot details have been emerging, new, nameless character roles keep appearing, and then developing, and then I decide, this guy needs a name and a story of his/her own. So new characters keep popping up. I found I needed an SS character who hangs out a lot at the Dobermann estate and interacts with Inspector Dobermann's daughter, Adelina. Hesse was ready made in that he already existed, he just needed tweaking. Or more like a complete personality overhaul. That included making him not just a pissy annoying guy but a guy who is really, really awful on the one hand...but pretty decent on the other. Because real life is messy like that, and even though this particular story is very far from real life, I still believe in trying to make characters, well, believable. What makes Hesse a really awful guy? Oh I dunno...pretending to let somebody go peacefully after they knock him down, then showing up later, torturing that person, and having them and their entire family executed is pretty awful. Shooting an unarmed Allied collaborator in the head after she won't reveal where somebody is hiding, then feigning surprise when somebody mentions it later, is pretty awful. Getting revenge on a Sinti Roma guy by informing Dr. Mengele that hey, a whole shipment of Sinti are arriving at a nearby camp, go take your pick! is pretty awful. Ordering his henchman (Master Sgt. Theodor Schulte, a new character) to torture and kill off various other parties when he can't get his own hands dirty is pretty awful. Lying his ass off to somebody who trusts him more than anything and reassuring her that those trains that keep going by night after night are full of soldiers and supplies for the war effort is pretty dang awful, considering. What makes Hesse a decent guy? Not nearly as much as the awful stuff, I'm afraid (he is, after all, a bad guy in the story), but devoting his life to a close friend and his family, spending so much time with the daughter that he may as well be her father (Adelina Dobermann calls Hesse "Uncle," and even develops a crush on him since to her he'd be the perfect husband), and always being there for her when she needs him (including saving her from drowning), are good, for starters. Hesse is also exceptionally devoted to Schulte, whom he pulled out of a dead-end position in the SS because nobody else figured Schulte was worth the trouble (Schulte would do literally anything for Hesse, now--and often does), and to Sophie Sommer, a nightclub singer who ends up becoming his mistress (he tells her he's not jealous of her other involvements, but she gives them up anyway since she cares about him that much). I'm pretty sure Hesse would endanger his own life for any of these three, and perhaps various others. Once upon a time he also devoted this much time and consideration to Inga Dobermann, who's Jewish (Hesse wasn't aware of this, though). So, you can see, he's a pretty decent person to those he cares about...the "right" people. When it comes to the "wrong" people...he's somebody completely different. This is a lesson it takes Addy Dobermann a long time to learn, though when she does, it's devastating. And that there is just a fraction of the stuff my brain has vomited out about this particular character...now multiply that by all the other new characters popping up, and new info about the old characters, and...ugh cripes I'm exhausted. ;_; [Gunter Hesse 2022 [Friday, March 25, 2022, 2:43:17 AM]] [Gunter Hesse 2022 2 [Friday, March 25, 2022, 2:44:07 AM]] 5/28/23: Rough character sketches anticipating the next theme. [Rough Character Sketches 2023 [Sunday, May 28, 2023, 11:20:35 PM]] 5/29/23: r/SketchDaily theme, "Expressions." Was a long day so I decided to try some rough character sketch practice. Would be nice to draw them in different poses. These aren't technically expression practice though a few have one (Schäfer has his lovely deer-caught-in-headlights look). I'd just like to get better at this. (You can see the first effort really sucked. Seems a boxy shape is better than a round one.) They were done sans reference so some details are off. I drew different expressions exactly a year ago, it turns out. Didn't realize it'd been so long. [Rough Character Sketches 2023 2 [Monday, May 29, 2023, 2:01:04 AM]] 6/14/23: Another rough sketch I forgot to upload here until now (December 2023). Probably because of everything that was going on at the time. -_- It looks to be Gunter Hesse though I'm not sure what compelled me to draw this "I am so done" look. [Rough Hesse Sketch 2023 [Wednesday, June 14, 2023, 10:41:46 PM]] 9/13/23: r/SketchDaily theme, "Making Faces." More quick character expression attempts, this time just Lt. Gunter Hesse, an 8-minute one (top drawing) and then a 27-minute one (bottom drawing). I don't feel I'm bad with expressions, it's 3/4 anthro/furry heads I need to figure out. I have yet to find a tutorial similar enough to my "style" to help much. Hesse was one of the earlier characters I drew in this series, early last year; his original portraits are HERE. He's one of my more complicated characters: Kind and selfless to those he cares about, but otherwise basically a garbage person. [Hesse Expression Study [Wednesday, September 13, 2023, 3:00:03 AM]] [Hesse Expression Study 2 [Wednesday, September 13, 2023, 3:00:14 AM]] |