Nikolaus paused to stare wearily at his reflection in the empty shop window. The inside of his jackboots were soggy. He had a sneaking suspicion that there was a leak in his gasmask. The water in his water bottle tasted of mud. The leftovers of last night's soup in his mess tin also tasted of mud. His legs were tired. His tail was sore. His Mauser 98k rifle had seen too much action.

And to top it all off, he had no bread for his soup.


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EDIT: ~Amethys kindly helped me out with the correct writing on the shop window. It should now say 'fresh local specialty bread' with no mistakes. Also touched up a bit of line definition here and there.

Nikolaus is wearing the German Wehrmacht Heer private (Schütze) uniform, circa 1944. I'm not a Nazi sympatist, I just like their uniforms. That's it.

I drew this to get myself out of a temporary fanart drawing block. Interesting how little doodles can just suddenly take flight and become something much more refined.. I think this one has become my masterpiece of the week. It's rare for me to actually like one of my own original character pics enough to want to print it out.

If you look at this picture in its entire context, there's more than just the furry little rat in it. I did not put 'cute' in as one of the keywords for this painting.

Painter 6 & Photoshop 6.


Nikolaus is my own character and is © me, wredwrat.