Polsterreich Dev Diary @polsterreichdevdiary - Tumblr Blog

Hi! This is the Dev Diary for @polsterreich, a historical fantasy drama in comic form. On this blog I post rough concept art, personal thoughts regarding the creative process, as well as other bonus content.

If you're interested in reading the actual comic and seeing polished illustrations, it's on @polsterreich, not here!!!

vikkicomics

Eric Ethelstan, our favorite Waterlandian. Commissioned by @polsterreich I love their character designs, very distinct! 🖤🌊

polsterreichdevdiary

He looks so epic!!!

What could that smirk be possibly hiding?

#polsterreich #art by others #eric ethelstan

polsterreichdevdiary

The shop is now open! with brand new Fritz merch!!!

alongside some old beloved favourites!

polsterreichdevdiary

The shop is now closed, thank you all who supported me and got a real piece of Polsterreich <3

Numbers [10.05.26]

•69 pages of the comic drawn so far, slightly less than one per week* on average. That's 46 more than this time last year!

• 16 full pages of the script have been converted into drawn comic pages, out of a total of 116 pages of the script.

•that's 14% of the story completed on paper, an increase of 10% from exactly one year ago!!

*I split my free/drawing time between Polsterreich and commissions

#stats for nerds #so grateful for my past self to push on despite everything so i can be here today making these stats

irishironclad

For @vvaterland / @kriegsherrin

#julia adler #art by others

Fritz over the years

I'm done hiding any biases I have towards Fritz. He's my favourite character for many reasons, the main one being the embodiment of my project's evolution as well as a reflection of personal growth, he grew up with me for what is now almost half of my life.

#author's yap #character design evolution

Conjuring a brand new character with such a few strokes made me remember back when my sketches were extremely messy and time consuming. I compared my own sketches to the those of professional artists who have been drawing for over a decade, while I was just at the very beginning of my artistic journey. Their sketches looked so clean they could basically be mistaken for lineart. I'm not at this stage nor sure if I'll ever reach it, but it's still nice to look back where I came from.

never seen before 2015 sketches under the cut

#the archives #author's yap

5 min concept art for page 66

A nameless Cherykovian peasant boy. Can you tell I love folk clothes? These ones in particular are Finno-nordic. Special shoutout to @vikkicomics for helping me with references!

#character meet and greet #normally i would have inked it and coloured with copics #but unfortunately i scribbled this at the back of the manuscript #not to toot my own horn but im chuffed with how well it looks despite the time time it took to draw #ten years ago i had the messiest sketches ever and thought i'd never grow out of them #they're far from super clean but it's nice to see the exp grind from the pages slowly manifest

Fritz's first kill.

Supervised by his cousin, Joachim von Weizbach

#concept art #fritz weidmann #polsterreich #joachim von weizbach #backstory

Quinn, Waterland's gunnery officer, without his hat, so I could practice drawing his hair. He is always cold so he likes to layer it up with scarves.

Being half Leonian and half Waterlandian, Quinn overcompensates for it by competing with Eric and being extra attentive to his nation's interests

#doodle #waterland

Further proof that Polsterreich is actually a dress up game disguised as a historical fantasy drama

#i just love drawing characters and their cute outfits

When you're in a Leonia hating contest and your opponent is

a certain redheaded Commodore of Waterland

and yes this is Eric's normal everyday officewear, just his standard cape and a suit with a tie, surprisingly modern considering what Waterland's dress uniforms are

#eric ethelstan #spoilers #i tweaked his character last year and he's become ...more fun to write #going back to his roots for the role that he was originally designed for #waterland #doodle

vikkicomics

Celebrating @polsterreich 's Fritzpocolypse Merch drop!!! Fritz is my favourite character in Polsterreich because he's loyal, straight-laced and introverted, it makes him way more interesting than the typical flounders ruled by appetites that have replaced heroes in contemporary fiction. I am always invested in what he will do next and curious to see his secret philosophy manifested and put into play.

I usually don't like fantasy that incorporates belle-epoche, central-European aesthetics because so many of them paste American, neo-liberal, capitalist values onto a civilisation that, nevertheless, has European, theocratic, militaristic and monarchist aesthetics. The aesthetics of a civilisation are a product of the morality and politics of that civilization. Polsterreich is an acception to this stale formular, because the creator understands this, and has worked hard to specifically ensure the aesthetics and values of each of the civilisations shown in her world match up.

polsterreichdevdiary

Thank you so much for such a wonderful review <3 <3 <3

I may have only finished 60 pages of my story so far but I'm so happy it already comes off as fresh and different from the other media out there. I create from the heart, each character has a part of me.

Fritz was created as a defiance of negative stereotypes usually plaguing his role. Why should loyalty and a passion for books be a bad thing? Fritz may be secretive about his philosophy, but the events in the plot as well as the upcoming Fritzpocalypse will peel off a bit of mystery around him.

The keychains and stickers are available to purchase until the end of April!

I'm sorry about not being able to ship to the States just yet, I will be in touch with my local post office as they hope to resume shipping there soon, I'll keep everyone updated!

I also encourage everyone to check out @vikkicomics's work if you're after more military aesthetics, action and realistically written multi layered complex characters in a genre usually plagued by shallow stereotypes.

#fritzpocalypse