Fekthrud - Tumblr Posts

The loquacious Fekthrud

My response to this week's BestiaryPosting challenge, from @maniculum

Initial pencil sketch, then painting over the top with Derwent Inktense paint using a waterbrush, finally Sailor fude nib fountain pen with Rohrer & Klingner Sepia ink for the lines. I was originally planning on putting in more detail with the fountain pen after the paint had dried (given how I found that the fountain pen ink I'm using was less waterfast than I was hoping last week), but it might just be the paper I'm using but the ink did not sit nicely on top of the paint, resulting in the quite thick lines. I also figured I'd quit while I was happy with it, rather than massage it into oblivion with endless tweaks like I was tempted to :D

Had fun with this one, definitely getting better with the waterbrush and paints, and it's been interesting experimenting with layering the paints once the previous layer is dry :)

As ever, reasoning (and a photo of my tools this time) under the cut...

“India alone produces the bird called the Fekthrud, green in colour, with a deep-red neck and a large tongue, broader than those of other birds, with which it utters distinct words; so that if you did not see it, you would think it was a man talking. Characteristically, it greets you by saying in Latin or Greek: ‘Ave' or ‘Kere!' — ‘Hail!' It will learn other words if you teach it.”

- Since this is the first of these creatures that we’ve had described in colour, it made sense to carry on with the painting rather than line drawing. As we’ve already learned, just because something is described in a bestiary as a ‘bird’ doesn’t mean it’s what we would consider one, but given the talk of beaks below, I figured we would roll with it.

We didn't have too much detail about the fekthrud's diet or life habits, so I figured a more unassuming bodyshape would fit (as much as you get a 'generic' bird shape). Given how friendly this little creature seems to be (offering a greeting as you pass), I wanted to draw it hailing someone, hence the outstretched wing (apparently, it's a bit of a performer...)

“The Fekthrud's beak is of such hardness that if it falls from a height onto a rock, it takes the impact on its mouth, using it as a base of uncommon toughness. Its skull is so thick, that if ever you have to admonish it with blows to learn — for it tries hard to speak like men — you should beat it with an iron rod. For when it is young, up to two years of age, it learns what it is told very quickly and keeps it firmly in mind; when it is a little older, it is forgetful and is difficult to teach.”

- So the only other physical traits we know about this creature are the hardness of its beak, and of its skull… Also, wow! Please don’t beat your fekthrud round the head with an iron rod (or anything else) - apparently, bestiary authors were the real jerks all along!

I figured that a beak that strong should probably be more on the broad rather than the pointy side (which would also better accommodate its wide tongue, as previously mentioned).

The thick skull made me think about other animals that have sturdy heads, and maybe it’s just the dinosaur nerd in me, but my mind immediately went to Pachycephalosaurs… Their skull shape heavily informed the shape of the head, albeit with red feathers taking the place of bone spikes and nodules!

Bird-wise, strong beak and skull also makes me think of woodpeckers, so this informed the feet (particularly the claws), and the colouration (including around the eyes) - while I didn’t go all the way with this, if you’re remotely interested in birds please do a search for flameback woodpeckers (endemic to Southeast Asia - including India)!

I've been having a lot of fun having an excuse to experiment with different mediums, and still loving the other interpretations; been nice doing some digging into some different influences (like the afore-mentioned dinosaur - though I love the hornbill influence on @silverhart-makes-art's piece too, definitely not something that would have crossed my mind!).

Bestiaryposting Results: Fekthrud

Happy Liminalmas, everybody! We've got fewer results than usual this week, which I would speculatively credit to a variety of factors:

Weird liminal space at the end of the year

It's Another Bird

Not a ton of fun details

It's easy to guess what the animal is

Anyhow, if you want to see the context for this, the page where I collect these posts is here: https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting. (Hmm -- looks like I forgot to update the page last time around. Maybe that's part of the issue too.) And the entry that people are working from is here:

So, our results, roughly chronologically:

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) has given us these very well-rendered pheasant-like creatures. They've given their Fekthrud a head like a Pachycephalosaurus*, which I think is a great way to interpret the whole business about the hard skull; like, that had not occurred to me when reading the entry, but now that I see it, it makes perfect sense. In general these are excellent birds here, and you can see some brief notes on design decisions in the post linked above. I like the justification that a ground bird makes the most sense if they're adapted for falling on rocks and/or running into stuff head-first.

*Proud of myself for spelling "pachycephalosaurus" correctly without looking -- being a former Dinosaur Kid pays weird niche dividends.

@coolest-capybara (link to post here) continues to impress with her medieval-style drawings. (And to provide alt-text, thank you.) I really like how colorful and generally very pretty she's made her Fekthrud. I also appreciate the decision to show them attacking someone who is trying to take that "iron rod" advice. Very correct response -- get 'em, birds. If you click the link to her post above, you can see some discussion of design decisions.

@cheapsweets (link to post here) has made the excellent decision to pose their Fekthrud like it's giving a speech. (And the generous decision to provide alt text, thank you.) This bird absolutely looks like it's saying "Ave!" -- I can clearly imagine it addressing the Roman Senate. Cheapsweets has also taken inspiration from Pachycephalosaurus, and I love that two of our artists got there independently -- like I said, it's an idea that makes perfect sense once you think of it. The post linked above contains a detailed discussion both of their design decision and of their artistic process, including an image of their tools and materials. Go read it.

@pomrania (link to post here) has decided that, rather than make the actual bone of the Fekthrud's skull thick. it should have a thick cushion of feathers. I don't know much about birds, but I feel like that makes sense: thick and heavy bone might be a weight issue if this thing is supposed to fly, so a feather cushion might be more practical protection. The goofy look with the tongue lolling out is also quite charming. In the post linked above, you can see some brief notes on design and process.

And... that's it for this week. Like I said, not a lot of people did this one. So, the Aberdeen Bestiary version:

Yeah, so, of course this one is the parrot.

The medieval illustrator is actually pretty close, I think. And they've used one of my favorite styles of Generic Medieval Plant, even though it doesn't look like it can support the parrot's weight.

The entry is broadly accurate, except for the bit about the skull and the iron rod. There are parrots in India with the coloration described -- multiple species, actually, as far as I can tell. They do talk, though I can't speak to the tongue anatomy thing.

Moreover, if you were a parrot trainer in India who wanted to impress medieval Europeans with your talking birds -- maybe so you can establish demand for them in a new market -- of course the first thing you'd do is train your parrots to greet people in Latin and Greek. Latin is the obvious catch-all, and Greek is the majority language in Constantinople, which is the trade hub you want to target. So I bet all the parrots from India that medieval Europeans saw really did say "Ave!" and "Kere!" (And we do know that people in the Byzantine Empire had pet parrots, so I guess it worked.)

I've never heard the thing about parrots having a hard skull and beak. I kind of wonder if, at some point, someone saw a parrot being struck by its owner (or the aforementioned hypothetical merchant) and asked if it was really necessary to beat the poor bird like that -- and got a line like "oh, they have really hard skulls, it doesn't hurt them as much as you think"... and then that just stuck.

Anyway, that's it for this week. Hope y'all are enjoying Birds because you're getting another one next week.