#only the pose tho i did the hands and clothes and etc myself just the initial sketch i had to trace bc hoo boy those shapes were not shapin

[magicalgirlartist]

[ID: digital drawing of a young man with slicked back purple hair, yellow eyes, a long purple shirt with a cropped black vest, and a black cowboy hat. He's seen from above, frowning slightly, arms at his side. The one arm we can see is holding a gun pointed down. End ID.]

DEJ Day 11: Onepu

Sloooowly catching up (last week was INSANE) and the thought of Onepu being a cowboy (crabboy?) made me laugh when I saw this pose so that's what I went with lol. Who gave him that gun honestly

[Commissions open!]

[muggycuphead]

Hey look I did my take on a concept idea for a possible FNF AGK mod because why not lol

**WARNING!!**

This concept is actually based off of a real person and their backstory as well, not to mention it slightly contains strong topics such as school shooting allusions along with mental issues, yet I’m not meaning to glorify or romanticize these with this as I’m aware of how actually serious the matter is.

Viewed discretion is advised.

So yeah, I’m stuck on this whole FNF now and well…I’m trying to get out a little from it

Welp, let’s just get this rolling right round over here

Although my first idea for this was to make it a 5-6 phased level, each one referring to a façade of the Echter Gangster videos along with Norman’s actual rapper persona ‘Hercules Beatz’, after digging around the music he made surrounding his life during the hype of his satirical persona, and remembering that one video-documental covering it, I decided to make it a little more into his actual real-life story for the sake of making it more ‘true’ to the character (and cuz I think it’s truly inspiring as many would say)

Yet I’m still a little dum dum around the whole FNF stuff, so if there is something I might be lacking on over here, let me pretty please know

Aaand yes I accidentallydrew the sprites facing leftways (on Boyfriend’s position instead of the boss’), so beware for any technical mistakes in the drawings that I just gave up on fixing while editing the scans for the sake of better quality and lineart neatness (such as a weird-looking keyboard and stuff)

Anyway, these are my designs for the phases along with the environment’s characteristics:

Phase I – Der Echte Gangster kind

‘Yo homie! It’s the one and only, Leopold Slikk!’

Song suggestions:

WAS WILLST DU TUN

By Hercules Beatz

I’m a Real Gangster

By QPHX ft. Hercules Beatz

Scenario:

“Leopold’s” Neighbourhood (Monochrome Blue)

Author’s commentary: His design was kinda hard but real fun to make, and as you might guess, each item he has resembles a façade on his videos, such as the striped- puffy jacket referring to Das Murderische Jagd and that one video with him wearing a long white coat and stuff (also has to do with the fancy cigarette on his other hand) and the metal sign on his hand referring to Metaler, etc.

Also, I held myself from giving him the CV:C’R’ hairdo since Leroy is more like in a character ‘neutral point’ between Leopold and Norman (a fusion basically) and because it doesn’t match exactly with the original so ye

He still cute tho

Cute edgy bad boi...though he just acting but still

Phase II – The Angry German Shooter

‘…’

Song suggestion:

ANGRY GERMAN KID

By Hercules Beatz

Possible scenarios:

-School resemblance (Distorted Mind Perspective)

-Distressed Subsconcious Mind side

Author’s commentary: Okay, now I’m getting serious here I based this one off of the song’s cover in the (official?) video it got uploaded in, as you can tell by the black-dyed hair and markings on his face. The bottle and cans behind him, along with the Kalashnikov (or AK-47 to be more clear) he’s holding and the shattered keyboard below/broken glasses next to his foot, are an allusion not only to the ‘shooting threat’ event where he was drunk and stuff, but also his darkest years because of you know what. But aside from that, just fyi no the Kalashnikov wasn’t the hardest thing for me to draw but the pose of the mic-holding arm, I originally wanted it to be forwards, maybe holding one or two alcohol bottles, but I just gave up long after a few more attempts. And please don’t ask me why I picked these clothes for him specifically, I just wanted to think out a simple yet concordant outfit for his ‘broken self’

Still, yikes about those guys in the news and the comments on his PC spielen video in the old days of the net They clearly couldn’t distinguish between real and satire And yeah I might have had my silly thoughts while watching the parodies and stuff, but even I would leave the benefit of doubt and not be so scummy/cold like these guys, jesus christ

Phase II – H E R C U L E S B E A T Z

‘Yo, remember me?’

Song suggestions:

KING LIFE (Sunshine Remix)

MASSAKER [Secret extra boss?]

By Hercules Beatz

Possible scenarios:

-The Gym (outfit change possibility)

-The Night Club

-Norman’s (new?) Neighbourhood

Author’s commentary: Oml yess the man of steel on all his glory

I’m aro ik(?) but I can still say he’s quite handsome IRL, props to the man for taking care of himself, clap clap

Back to the topic, I honestly first though this one would be a pain to do…but surprisingly it came out really soft and fun, who could’ve thought? Guess the practice with buff characters, along with some new anatomy techniques I’ve been trying out did pay off after all

Also yeah the girl next to him is a recreation (my recreation mostly) of his gal, though the clothing I chose for her was mostly to match Norman’s outfit but in a softie-raddie style because reasons…and yes she also has a turn on the mic, a two-turns-me-two-turns-you dynamic to be more specific

And whoops I forgot the little back-down hair below his ears…oh well, not like it’s that much of a deal

The ‘bright’ eye on the other was just a silly detail I left there to give him a ‘savage’ vibe, nothing else. And as a little plus, if I were to make the sprites for when they have to rap, I’d do a particular one for each where there’s a little cuddle between them just to make it wholesome and stuff y’know- (left arrow for Norman, right arrow for his bae)

As for that ‘secret boss’ thing I put before, it’d think it like a ‘day-date-unlocked easter egg’ with a more ‘hardcore’ design and gameplay (if it ever goes to that point which I doubt but ok) where he goes entirely in solo and ‘full blast’ while his bae shares a seat in the boombox (a bigger one possibly) with Girlfriend and they both follow the rhythm as their boys get ready to 1v1 each other on the stage

So yea, that’s basically it

Imma head out now, bye

[advernia]

this is for that anon who asked about the danganronpa!ikerev au Σ(･口･) thank you for having an interest in this au, by the way! (´∀`) the format’s not exactly lore-ish per se since when luci and i talked about this, we plotted it out to be game-like - but still, here you go~ it’s like a prologue of sorts, i guess!

the tea party

everyone’s invited - red + black + neutrals + alice - except the tweedles + mousse, whoops. tho i was amusing myself with the idea that they could be something like ndv3′s monokubs, lol.

but since it’s also alice in wonderland themed, maybe the three are like some odd guides popping out randomly now and then??? they say they’re helping but dean’s too cryptic, dalim cycles between being vague or being an unhelpful bastard, and mousse... yeah.

the killing game tea party is set in the ikerev gardens / the civic center and in true danganronpa fashion, they can’t leave the premises. new rooms + places for exploration are also only unlocked after certain events. sometimes if they feel like it, the tweedles or mousse could open areas themselves, which makes them even more suspicious.

they claim not to be working with monoamon, but everyone calls bullshit bc how the fuck can they move so freely + open areas then??? they don’t answer that question at all, but eventually there’s the inkling that even they themselves don’t know why they’re granted that freedom too.

there’s no strict stuff about the time, but somehow everyone knocks out unconscious come midnight and wake up exactly at seven. food’s readily available at the tea party table, looking always fresh. they can see the outside, but some odd invisible barrier’s keeping them from going too far.

guests: red & black

no set protagonist, lol - let’s imagine everyone having their own routes!

the red + black main five wake up seated on their respective seats on the table. not simultaneously, mind you. the ‘protagonist’ wakes up first and when he does, he’s greeted by the sight of an odd stuffed rabbit with a monochrome pattern staring at him, wtf. 

“finally awake,” it says and protag’s like no shit sherlock but wait wtf - talking stuffed rabbit???????????????????????

it ignores all the basic questions (where am i, who are you, why can you talk etc.) but responds to the why am i bound / chained to this chair, and it says:

‘if you want to break free, you have to remember your title.’ and with that the rabbit hops away, leaving the protag either a) even more confused (kyle, zero, luka, fenrir), b) agitated (jonah, ray, seth), or c) thinking about the title (lancelot, edgar, sirius).

eventually after a moment of mental + physical struggle, their title hits them in the head and it spills out from their lips and hey presto, the chains on ‘em are suddenly lifted! by this time, their ‘rival’ chara wakes up.

‘rival’ chara can vary, pure (black vs. black) or cross (red vs. black). let’s say that the pure rivalry is your normal game mode and more centric around the chosen protag’s dynamic with his group (black or red) + a little with certain neutrals. the cross is your hard difficulty, probably filled with more bullshit, and has a storyline that involves everyone (with an ending that more or less still leaves you with tons of questions).

for pure black, luci likes the matchups of ray vs. seth & luka vs. fenrir. red, kyle vs. jonah & edgar vs. zero. lancelot and sirius are faced off with a rival from the neutral group, blanc and loki respectively.

for cross we have: ray vs. jonah, lancelot vs. fenrir, sirius vs. edgar, luka vs. kyle, and zero vs. seth. note that the rival chara isn’t exactly antagonistic by nature, results may vary depending on game difficulty lol.

anyway, eventually everyone wakes up and they get to remembering their so-called titles. it’s only after they’re free that they realize they can’t remember their names, much less anything else.

but by simply looking at each other’s outfits + introduction of self through titles... the other group aside, it’s logical to first assume that they know each other. their clothes have similar colors, their titles end with the same symbol, and they’re seated on the same side of the table... question is, why can’t they remember each other???

the rabbit pops up when the mood’s gone quiet, and it’s oddly chipper as it introduces itself as amon. it answers and ignores questions on a whim, and when it finally has enough it informs everyone that there are people still missing - without them, the tea party can’t start.

what the fuck is this tea party about, someone tries to say but amon’s gone away. left with not much of a choice, everyone decides to search the area for these missing people, with this ‘tea party area’ as the rendezvous point after maybe thirty minutes or so.

guests: neutral

these guys have a harder time bc unlike the red + black that are already grouped together, the four are located in separate areas and are also chained to something (a certain cat’s been chained to a damned tree). 

the protag will always encounter amon first, and the remaining three will meet dean, dalim, or mousse. tho instead of being told the remember your title phrase, they get a remember who you are instead.

they eventually remember, break free, and set out exploring the place in hopes of finding anyone else / jogging their memories. but before they’re found by either the reds or the blacks (or both), the white rabbit meets the mad hatter, and the cheshire cat meets the joker.

the neutrals at first are hesitant to go along with whoever finds them, but eventually they comply when they hear that these strangers also went through a similar experience as they did. when the four are brought to the tea party table, a round of introductions go on and now they’re fourteen in total - but there’s still one seat left open.

since the neutrals are obviously different / don’t pose any similarities with the two groups in any way, suspicion floats in the air. that mood is diffused immediately by the white rabbit, who everyone doesn’t mind actually listening to. he points out that maybe they should try finding that last person before really engaging into a proper talk.

everyone’s sure they’ve checked around, but there’s not much places to go when some barrier-like force holds them back from going to certain areas. but suddenly the cheshire cat hits the jackpot, discovering a path hidden by the rosebushes in the gardens that lead to... a chapel???

the moonlight shining down + the surrounding rosebushes makes the chapel look pretty, but that’s not what they’re there for anyway - when everyone walks to the chapel doors, they see that there are two large chains crossed together binding the door shut, the links of one chain all colored black and the other red - thinking that those chains follow a similar formula to those that bound them, the white rabbit suggests that they try confirming if someone’s inside first.

they shout, rattle the chains, peek through the windows, look around for any other entrances, but nothing. no one replies, no other entrances, the windows are made out of stained glass so you couldn’t see inside. someone suggests breaking the windows, but suddenly the tweedles + mousse appear out of nowhere, standing by the chapel doors.

majority go wtf who u and how’d u get here??? the three that suddenly appeared don’t care about that though, and instead stare at the kings. mousse holds two banners in his hand - dean takes the red one, dalim takes the black one... and go to the king of hearts and king of spades respectively.

the twins hold out the banners to the kings, expressions equally serious. they ask: who are you? and while the kings don’t answer at first, they regain composure and speak out their titles, taking the banners in their hands.

the moment the kings speak their titles the banners change form and take the shape of swords - suddenly weapons appear before the rest of the army people too, and while the whole thing is odd; the weapons are actually... sort of familiar to have by their side.

dean and dalim say nothing more and go back to where mousse stands - the quiet man looks at everyone with a strange glint in his eye, and like a whisper, he says: never forget - and they’re gone.

now everything’s just downright confusing again, but the kings decide to use their swords to take down the chains of the chapel, for starters. hey presto, it works! and with those gone, they could walk into the chapel...

guests: alice

the chapel looked pretty from the outside, and was equally pretty from the inside. intricately designed stained glass, neatly arranged pews, simple yet elegant tapestries, a grand cross by the altar, a body lying facedown by the altar... yeah, pretty.

...................... a body!?!?!??!?!

chosen protag gets to the body first, and surprise surprise, it’s a girl! the moment the protag shifts her body to see her face, a sharp pain pierces his head - she’s familiar, she’s familiar, but not a single concrete memory takes form.

everyone goes through this when they see her face, and when the last person who sees her has recovered a bit from the sudden headache, the girl starts to stir.... and when she focuses her eyes on the protag, his title comes out from her mouth and.... what the hell?

she’s not wrong, but how the hell does she know??? before anyone can get to asking her that, amon suddenly pops up from the chapel’s entrance, bathed in moonlight and looking extremely pleased. 

“took you lot long enough. now... let’s have a mad time, shall we?”

fourteen men, one woman... how many can survive this tea party?

miscellaneous stuff

hours before oliver is tragically murdered, alice and the protag will have a conversation in the chapel - it’s like alice is gauging the protag’s resolve, and at the end there’s a promise. alice leaves first after that, and as he watches her leave the protag gets the odd feeling that he’ll never see her again... which proves true, since he’ll be condemning her to death come the trial. oof.

first trial always ends up with oliver as the victim and alice as the executioner, lol... but luci and i like the idea of anyone could’ve murdered oliver granted that they were at the wrong place at the wrong time - in any route, it always happens to be alice. was it by accident, or by choice??? hmmm....

her memento item changes depending on the protag! so for example, if zero or fenrir, the item is a pair of earrings. loki or sirius end up with a choker. ray with a necklace, edgar with a wristwatch, etc... the item proves useful on the last trial.

it’s actually a shame that oliver and alice are cut off immediately??? the former proved to be knowledgeable of the machinery present in the building, and the latter was actually like blanc in the sense that she could get everyone to calm down and listen... plus since she was familiar to everyone and vice-versa, she might have been helpful in regaining their memories. so much for that.

amon finds their deaths very convenient himself, stating that the mad hatter + alice were going to be a pain and would spoil the tea party if they lived any longer. to why that was, no one’s quite sure yet. amon seems to dislike blanc, too.

each executioner’s punishment is recreated through a unnervingly realistic diorama set up in that one place they frequently go to... thus alice’s can be found in the chapel. the actual bodies of the victims + executioners are actually nowhere to be found, though... that aside, why exactly was this being done??? was it because amon was simply a sick bastard??? or as morbid as it was, were the dioramas meant to send a message??? hmmmm.....

murder cases & themes also vary throughout routes! usually, the victims or executioners are related to the character’s route theme in the sense that they’re the opposite of it or are burdened differently about it as compared to the protagonist...

so say for example, zero’s theme is purpose / duty.... chances are the victims / executioners on his route are people who are also strongly related to this theme. whiiich means that ray or luka could play a role on his route lol whoops spoilers or for ray, who deals with guilt... people who deal with certain burdens are of interest. whiiiiich means that edgar or kyle are probably involved whooops

danganronpa itself has philosophical + psychological themes, so add that up with lewis carroll’s alice in wonderland which is philosophical by nature... and you get a shit ton of questions about judgement + morality + causality + life + death + truth + deceit that recurs on every route.

delivery and angles vary - for example, loki’s route takes a bleak perspective on causality through his flippant decision-making at the beginning. though quite the unreliable narrator, one can get the idea that kyle is obviously haunted and gravely affected by the deaths he witnesses, whether a victim’s or an executioner’s.

big question: is there a mastermind, or is this all in their head??? has everything gone mad, or was this an inevitable reality??? curious indeed...

[messedupessy]

Got tagged by both @observing-silhouette and @skelltales so here goes(͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  

Rules: Write down 10 facts about yourself and tag 10 followers you want to know better

Can't be bothered to tag anyone as I am tired and can't think of anyone ye

1. I have filled up 5 sketchbooks ever since I got into Undertale which is barely a year ago now, have begun on the 6th one now, before UT I barely filled like 2 sketchbooks a year so yeah it's cray cray what UT has done to me, and I haven't even posted half of what I have sketched pfft 

2. I actually hated crocs before I decided to give Stretch a pair, like yeah I still had a pair of my own crocs which I used when I needed to go out and do something quickly like taking out the trash etc, but ever since I gave them to him and his obsession and love for them grow so did mine and now I love them any other kind of shoe or just outfit that is considered ugly

3. I own only one skirt which my big sis made and gave to me, which is now broken allot so now I only use it when I colour my hair as a top, so I can more easily take it off so I can shower without getting hair colour on my clothes as I shower every time when you have to wash the hair and stuff ye

4. every time I am out on the town/big cities I often end up looking at people and their clothes and imagine Stretch or some other character wearing them, mostly just Stretch tho, like I can't even go into a clothing shop without looking at a clothed up mannequin and immediately see Stretch wearing it, or walk past one of those big windows with mannequins in different poses and clothes and see Stretch wearing them, I have ended up taking sneaky photos or draw quick stick figures in my sketchbook which I carry with me everywhere so I don't forget, most of the time I forget to do that so I forget the outfit altogether pfft 

5. When I sit and sketch while wearing my swap pap hoodie my eraser keep on falling into my hoodie sleeve and I have no idea how the fuck it keeps on happening 

6. Completely hooked on Hamilton so much it almost hurts, never been interested in musicals like at all before but decided to give it a try like a month ago now and ever since then I have listened through the whole musical almost every frikking day and I love it so damn much like dang the music is so damn catchy, have yet to watch a vid with the actual musical though as I have only watched animations of it so gotta so do that sometime, and thanks to my obsession with Hamilton so have it caused me to become obsessed with Assassin's creed again especially the 3rd game which occurs during the same time period as Hamilton, so soon in game I will prolly meet him and it will be funny af ye, also hooked on The Adventure Zone which is so good to listen to while out walking or while drawing like dang so good I love it so damn much I cry

7. I eat rice cakes as if they were chips, no butter or anything just completely raw have like 4 packages right next to my bed

8.  I can't stop saying kinky about everything and I am starting to think I have a problem or some sort of addiction or maybe it's just my aspergers/adhd is acting up again, like I say it about anything in any situation almost except real srs one's and I think I need to reel myself in a bit with it because it is starting to get out of hand pfft 

9. oh yeah I do have aspergers and adhd, real lovely stuff that is both a blessing and a fucking curse at times

10. someone keeps on calling me atm with a private number and I aien't answering that sheit no my good sir kindly fuck off man I don't care that you have called me 5 times now just go the fuck away and die in a bush somewhere that would be great gnjkergjke

[mermaidsirennikita]

are you an art historian? sorry if I got that detail wrong but I was wondering if you knew how people know the identity of a person in a portrait? For example, how do you know if a medieval portrait is of the queen or a noble and not an imaginary person or someone unknown? sorry if my question makes no sense

No, it’s a good question!  And I wouldn’t call myself an art historian yet, but I’m a tentatively aspiring one.  I might be one later if I do a fuckton more research and/or… get up the energy for grad school.  But I have my B.A. in art history!

SOOOOOO, spiel below.

Unless there’s an inscription, note, title, etc. written on the portrait it’s technically impossible to be 100% beyond a shadow of a doubt sure about a sitter’s identity…  I actually ranted about this eons ago because people on Tumblr are super desperate to find new portraits of Anne Boleyn (why Anne?  why not literally any other famous lady whose face has been largely lost to history?  because she’s Anne Boleyn, and since several probably authentic images have not proven that she’s super foxy hot people are looking for something that will).  It usually takes years for art historians to come to a consensus about the identities of unidentified sitters, and EVEN THEN, people still argue about it.  I’m sure this painting of Mary, Queen of Scots took tons of effort to uncover and based on what little I’ve read there’s great reason to believe that’s Mary (it even looks like other images we have of her) but I’m sure someone will write an article about how it’s REEEALLY someone else entirely.  I researched Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo da Vinci for my capstone project, and even tho we have letters from Cecilia Gallerani, a mistress of the man most likely to have commissioned the portrait, saying “yeah so you have this portrait of me painted by Leonardo when I was younger” clearly referring to Lady with an Ermine… but there will still be outliers who say it isn’t her.

So.  In more conclusive cases, there will usually be records in place that let us know that a portrait was commissioned in the first place.  In the case of Isabella d’Este, we know that she was after Leonardo to paint her portrait and that it never happened but was in the planning stages–which leads to the conclusion that there are probably preliminary drafts in existence.  You find a preliminary draft of a woman matching Isabella’s general description and age, dating to the right time…  You can probably guess that the woman is Isabella.

Today, we also have technology that can help us guess how old a work is–it’s way harder for forgers to do what they once did because art historians can test for pigments and other materials that were only in use for certain time periods, and that helps narrow down the era.  Before then, there were stylistic notes that could give you an idea of when a painting was made.  For example–prior to the popularization of the three-quarter pose by artists like Leonardo, female sitters of Italy were usually in profile.  So if you find a portrait of an Italian lady sitting in a three-quarters pose, you can probably date the portrait to the late fifteenth century or later–and then you go into things like her style of dress, etc.  Style of dress goes a long way towards identifying a person’s place of origin, especially for women–English women dressed very differently from Italian women of the same era, and so on.

Most European portraits were of a certain class, up until some artists and patrons started playing around with everything from idealized peasant scenes to like... the proto-gritty shit Rembrandt dabbled in.  This is especially true for Catholic nations.  You had to be AT LEAST of the upper middle class to afford to commission a portrait, and for that matter, many artists tended to court a certain specified clientele.  Raphael spent much of the prime of his career working for the pope, and so that meant that he spent a lot of time in Rome, and that in turn meant that he was often in the service of glittery rich Romans.  Now, does this mean that the sitter is always rich?  No.  Raphael also painted a famous nude, La Fornarina, and the sitter was quite possibly his lower-class mistress.  But in that case, the person commissioning the painting was probably a rich guy who wanted a nude, and Raphael was like “fuck yeah getting a chance to paint Margarita naked and get paid for it, life is sweet”.  Patrons normally had $$$, basically, so if we see a typical portrait we know that we’re looking at that class, most likely, and the more expensive the portrait looks, the richer the sitter (and the patron) likely was.  Rarer pigments indicate more money spent, more detail on the clothing equals greater $$$.

When it comes to incredibly important families, there are spmetimes dead giveaways.  Bronzino’s portraits of Cosimo de’ Medici I’s household often featured details like rubies and pearls among the women, which one art historian I read from theorized was a signature of the Medici at that point in time.  It wasn’t unusual for women in particular to wear emblems of their families, because the portraits of them were usually commissioned by fathers or husbands, and essentially these were ownership tags.  That’s what Cosimo was doing, most likely.  If you know the artist–in this case, Bronzino–you probably know where they worked at a certain point in their lives.  If you know when the painting was executed, you know the artist was probably in X city.  Who would be most likely to employ Artist X during that time?  A small cluster of families.  You sort of have to narrow it down.  Most important families of Europe also had coats of arms, which can show up in their paintings–but unfortunately these are often the first to deteriorate and they begin to look similar.

When an artist was painting a famous sitter like Mary, they might include her initials somewhere, maybe in the case of a king or queen with a good Rex or Regina for measure.  Kings and queens are often given little identifiers, too, though these aren’t always consistent.  In several portraits of Mary her hands are emphasized because beautiful hands were prized at the time, Mary was considered a beauty, and so on (also Elizabeth’s hands were rumored to be scarred after her bout of smallpox, and whether or not this was exaggerated I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a dig after her reign began).  Mary is also often depicted in widow’s wear; now, this doesn’t mean that she wore those clothes often, but she was an iconically beautiful young widow after her first husband died, and then she *oh so tragically* lost another…  A lot of artists probably worked off of one painting Mary actually sat for in widow’s wear to have shopped around to potential suitors.  From what I read of this newly discovered portrait, Mary probably never sat for it; it was a tribute/propaganda piece by a support, and most likely the artist was working off of copies.

It’s kind of like how many portraits of Elizabeth I during her reign depict a few of the same things; grand red hair, magnificent clothes and jewels, flawless skin, dark eyes, the same basic facial features.  Did Liz have the time to sit for umpteen portraits?  No!  And she didn’t want to.  She didn’t want the reality of her aging appearance, she wanted the iconic Elizabethan image circulated, and so it was.  Art historians can later pick up on the commonalities between these propaganda pieces and figure out who they’re of.

In the case of this newly discovered work, I imagine the art historian also did a lot of research about the patron’s potential ties to Mary, the political climate at the time, whether or not the artist had materials to work from regarding Mary’s appearance, and so on.  Like I said, the painting looks like Mary, though that… doesn’t necessarily mean much–but the eyes are similar to the other portraits we see, the profile is right, her hair is styled as it was in other paintings, the outline of the clothes seems fine.

Basically, there is soooo much that goes into “proving” a sitter’s identity and even then you’ll never be 100% right in the eyes of everyone.  For years, people thought a portrait was of Katherine Howard, and recently that was debunked.  Everyone shops that portrait of a blond lady with one tit out as Lucrezia Borgia; it’s not.  Identifying people is cool but for a lot of art historians it’s somewhat irrelevant, because we’re more looking at what a portrait reflected about the times and that’s why Mary’s identity IS relevant in this particular case.  Going back to the Secret Anne Boleyn Painting conspiracy theories–people just wanna see a hot Anne there, and that’s what’s frustrating.  By showing us Mary here, this art historian has also given us an example of people showing their support for this embattled queen through propaganda commissions, and for that matter getting scared and covering it up.  That speaks to the political, social, and cultural goings-on of the time.

Some art historians love to find SEKRIT IMAGES because that sells books, but when you ask a lot of professors “do you think that’s a portrait of JANE SEYMOUR” or whatever they’ll probably be like “eh idk man”.  The identity is less important on its own than it is as it relates to the reasons by a commission.  I mean in my case the identities of portraits I studied in school were only really relevant in that I was able to discuss the political constructions that wives and brides became in one Italian court.  Otherwise identity didn’t matter at all.  And tbh, that ambivalence towards identifying people probably makes it even harder for the art historical world to come to a consensus on ANYONE.  But this new discovery sounds pretty solid and honestly, it’s really cool.