Consider supporting me through Patreon so I can continue to make tutorials like this for everyone!
Sketches
Consider supporting me through Patreon so I can continue to make tutorials like this for everyone!
I’m so tired. Just take her. It’s all yours.
Shout out to BlushMallet they inspired this animation.
At first glance the ‘rifles’ above appear to be shortened obrez-style SMLEs, they are in fact trench mortar Initiators. The rifle’s action was used as the firing mechanism for the British 9.45 inch muzzle loading trench mortar. While they look similar to the cut down or obrez Mosin–Nagants which have had their stocks and barrels cut down the SMLE’s were never intended for combat use.
The M.L 9.45 inch Trench Mortar was an adaptation of the French Mortier de 240 mm CT. A breechloading longer barreled version, the Mortier de 240 mm LT, was also developed and was also used by the US (see image #5) while Italy used both the CT and LT variants. The French first deployed the mortars in late 1915 while the British first fielded them in 1916. The Austro-Hungarians captured examples of the Mortier de 240 mm CT from the Italians and manufactured a clone designating it the 24 cm Minenwerfer M.16.
One notable difference between the French and British mortars was that the French utilised a brass cased
propellant
cartridge with an integral primer, on top of which the bomb was loaded, while the British favoured a cordite charge in a canvas bag. This meant the British had to add an external firing mechanism, one advantage this had was that the weapon could be quickly fired again if there was a misfire.

Side view of US 9.45 inch mortar, Ordnance Department handbook c.1917 (source)
M.L 9.45 inch Trench Mortar could fire a 150 pound high explosive shell out to an effective range of 2,400 yards. They were hard hitting weapons capable of destroying light entrenchments and bombarding stronger emplacements. To load and sight the weapon it was rocked back in its carriage - requiring a removeable firing mechanism. This was achieved by the adaptation of Britain’s standard service rifle, the Short Magazine Lee-Enfield. The stock was cut down and the barrel was cut back to within an inch or so of the breech. The exposed barrel was then threaded to fit into the base of the mortar. Once the mortar was loaded the Initiator would then be screwed in and loaded with a blank cartridge to fire the mortar. A lanyard was attached to the trigger with the string running back through a loop added to the stock.

Artist’s impression of a British 2 inch Mortar with a Mortar Initiator (source)
Interestingly a variation of different Lee-Enfield rifles were cannibalised with examples including early MkI and later MkIII* SMLEs. The example shown above is an even earlier Magazine Lee–Enfield dating from 1896 and even has its rear volley sight still attached (see image #2).
M.L 9.45 inch Trench Mortar went through a number of variants with the initial Mark I having a 51 inch long barrel first being fielded in June 1916. During the course of the following year three more variants (the MkII through IV) were developed with the MkIII having a 69 inch barrel.
Sources:
If you enjoy the content please consider supporting Historical Firearms through Patreon!
Mostly I seem to draw dragons and horse anthros, but I feel I need to get out of my comfort zone and draw other species too. So, here is a bunny girl a friend told me to do, might be my first bunny.
and last but not least…. a metta ft that palette im a slut for
edit: its uh. transparent 4 some reason
A question I get asked a lot is, “How come you haven’t gotten sued?” Another thing I see a lot of is artists worrying about getting sued (for example, in relation to comic companies cracking down on fan prints at conventions). I also see a lot of terrible mash-ups whose makers by all rights *should* be sued. So for all these reasons I thought I’d put together everything I know on the subject.
Parodies and mash-ups are nothing
new

People have been re-appropriating
culture since the days of Mr. T, perhaps even longer. They’ve been
getting away with it because parody (using elements of a work to
comment on or satirize the work) is a legally recognized form of
protected speech, at least in the United States.
Not all mash-ups are parodies
Check out this ad I’ve seen in my
Instagram feed:

Is this.. funny? Trying to make some
point? BB-8 is like asteroid B612 because… they’re both round? If
you have nothing to say, what you’re making isn’t a parody. Here,
two things that have meaning have been mashed together in order to
create a new thing that somehow has less meaning than either of the
original two things.
All parodies are original
This may sound counter-intuitive. How
can something that uses existing images and iconography be original?
“Original” in a copyright sense refers to the uniqueness of an
idea. Are you combining existing things in a way that creates new
meaning? Meaning that is different from the intention of the original
thing? Congratulations, you have an original idea.
“Original work” also makes no
distinction between “hand-drawn” or “hand-written” and a
copy. An idea is either yours, or it isn’t. If it’s yours, you can
reproduce and sell it as many times as you want.
Copyright protects ideas, Trademark
protects how ideas are packaged and sold
Copyright applies to the content, trademark is for the wrapper. Sometimes these two things line up evenly, and sometimes they don’t. I’ll use something I made as an example: many years ago I adapted an episode of “Law & Order” into coloring book format. I took copyrighted material, and turned it into commentary by placing it in a new form and context. Totally legit and legal!

However, if I were to put an official
“Law & Order” logo on the book and place it in stores, I’d be
running into trouble. Consumers could arguably be confusing my speech
(commentary on “Law & Order”) with the speech of Dick
Wolf/NBC/Universal (“Law & Order”). I would be
violating their trademark.
You can actually buy the Law &
Order coloring book; it’s included as part of my legit art book. But
notice how this cover was carefully designed by the publisher not to stomp on anyone’s trademarks:

There isn’t a single dominant image.
There’s a Batman and a Care Bear, but no one would look at this and
think it was a Batman book or a Care Bear book.
A Cease & Desist carries no
legal weight…
It’s true! It’s not a document that
gets filed with any court. It’s the legal equivalent of your neighbor
knocking on your door telling you to turn the music down before they
call the cops.
… but anyone can send a Cease &
Desist at any time, over anything
This is also true. Your silly mash-up
could be 100% legally defensible and you could still get a C&D.
It’s up to you if you want to ignore it, or fight it, or follow it
(but I would totally recommend consulting a lawyer before you decide
which of those things to do).
If you do end up in
a courtroom, that’s when you can finally use Fair Use as an affirmative defense. Fair Use is not, I’m sorry to say, a forcefield that magically protects artists from lawsuits. Rather it’s a specific response to someone
accusing you of violating their copyright, i.e., “You copied me!”
“Yes I did, but it was a fair use [parody, commentary, etc.]”
Shepard Fairey famously biffed this when he pretended (lied to the
court) that he didn’t copy that AP photo for his Obama poster, when all he needed to say
was, “Heck yeah I used the photo, but I also changed its meaning.
It was a fair use.”

The “five changes” thing is
bullshit
You may have heard something along the
lines of, “If you make five changes to an image, it’s a no longer a
copy.” It doesn’t matter how many changes are made, or whether
those changes are big or small. What matters is the transformative
effect of those changes. Do they change the purpose or function
of the original? The function of the original photo that
Fairey copied is informational: it depicts a person in a certain place,
at a certain time, doing a certain thing, for the purposes of news
reporting. One would not necessarily look at that original and think
“hope,” but that’s what Fairey did. And by adding text and changing colors, he made sure that
everyone else who looked at his image thought “hope” as well. He
added his own viewpoint and transformed the function of the image
from reporting to propaganda.
That’s really what this all comes down
to: don’t just regurgitate what you see, but put yourself into your
work. That’s true of all art, whether you’re painting a seascape or a
Batman.
how to be a winner
This is so important
bruh 👏🏾😂.
Home girl boutta schmooze her way through college
That discussion board one actually works. Got an A in that portion of my Senior Sem doing that. This is gold.
This is her calling. You can DEFINITELY use the same hacks at your job with a few tweaks here & there!
Literally this is how I’ve survived 3.75 years of college. This is gold. This is truth.
Passing college like a Slytherin………I love it