#but god i genuinely actually love drawing napoleonic uniforms its very soothing to me

[skitskatdacat63]

Aforementioned Napoleonic AU! Martian !! I said it would just be a wip but then oops, I basically finished it! Ty to everyone who was interested :D

Really really proud of these I'm ngl! I rendered in a really different way than ever before and I'm very satisfied with it :D

Ramble about historical influences(basically me being a nerd about who I consider the F1 drivers of the Napoleonic era):

So I wanted to explain my thought process because I think that the specific context behind the uniforms I drew is very relevant, as I didn't just pick them on a whim.

I drew them in Hussars' uniforms(Austrian Empire = Red Bull, but like obviously not 100% accurate because the uniform colors are based off the RBR racesuits.) Hussars are, in my opinion, the F1 drivers of their time. Let me quote several things that led me to this conclusion:

"During the Napoleonic period, hussars, as in all armies, were employed as scouts, given raiding missions or despatched to harry and pursue a defeated enemy on the run. Mounted on light, nimble horses..."

"...Their flamboyant costume and their reputation for daredevil acts..."

"...developed a romanticized image of being dashing and adventurous.

Okay....so they're dashing and adventurous, riding specifically on fast, light horses, dressed in flamboyant outfits committing daredevil acts...sir that is literally an F1 driver!!! Tell me they aren't the historical predecessor to F1 drivers!!!

I have this big book of Napoleonic uniforms(yea I'm a nerd) and I was paging through it to see what uniforms I wanted to draw(I have a habit of drawing my one oc in the Napoleonic era. So when I started drawing fanart, I'm like of course I must draw them as this!) Austria's normal uniforms in this era are soooo boring compared to France's, so I was really 😒 about drawing them, but then I came across the Hussars, and then started noticing all these similarities and thought it was perfect. Also I need to mention the fact that Austria's royal cipher at the time was literally this:

IT'S "F1", IT IS LITERALLY FUCKING F1, WHAT THE HELLLLL!?!?!?!? I had like a partial mental crisis coming across this, at that point it was destiny for me to draw this

*I forgot to include actual ref images 😐, so here you go!!

*I wrote most of his around when I started this drawing, which was all the way back in April. And it's really interesting to consider now that I was basically immersed in the history of the Austrian Empire for a month. I apologize to everyone in my life who had to endure my lecture on why Hussars are the F1 drivers of their time. But god I could not hold it back when I saw some of these uniforms in person. And it was cool to pull out this drawing, even if it was just a wip, and be like "oh hey I've drawn these!!" Anyways, I digress.

Obviously the martian drawing is a direct reference to this pic from Malaysia 2010:

My thoughts on this picture:

I almost wanted to draw Seb in the Austrian Kaiser's outfit, but it is nowhere near as slay as the Hussar uniform, so Hussar uniform it is!

I have many thoughts and opinions on the lore of this au so pls ask if you're curious but it's also just a lot.