PORN!!

(MINOR EDIT AT THE END)

So I had an interesting conversation with someone recently, concerning control over art and illustration. Personally I think that it's vital for an artist (espescially a commercial artist) to possess ultimate control over their art, and espescially as much a measure of control over how your art is percieved by the audience.

In the end, it doesn't matter what YOU, as the artist, feel about your work. It isn't important what you wanted to convey if what you wanted to convey isn't being interpreted by a complete stranger looking at your work without the benefit of explanation or interpretation by an outside element... if they don't "get" what you wanted to say, then you have failed.

"Oh," you say. "but everyone interprets things in their own way. I can't control how people see my work, or what they get from it."

To which I reply, "BULLSHIT".

The fact is that you can and you must retain a measure of control over how a drawing is understood by people. If I want to draw a picture of a thief who's just tripped a complicated trap and is staring at the face of whirring toothed doom, then it's incumbent upon me to make sure that everyone who looks at the final drawing sees exactly that. If someone doesn't see that, then I have failed as an illustrator.

It doesn't mean that the work can't be appreciated just the same, and it doesn't mean that people won't like it, but you as the artist have failed to communicate through your work... you're just throwing out imagery and saying, "look what I can do!" Your work is, in a quite literal sense, not "speaking" to people, and as such it relies heavily on the individual who's looking at it for any measure of "success". You might as well play the lottery, or Russian Roulette.

This ties into something I've caught more than a few aspiring artists doing as we all stumble about trying to figure out this great invisible shapeless thing we call "Art". I find a lot of students espescially who are concentrating entirely on painting or illustrating something using reference in an almost slavish fashion... "the picture has a shadow here, so here is where I put the shadow", which is actually the WORST thing you can do with references... it's not about what the reference shows, it's about what the reference is.

Look closely at the way I'm drawing... well, anything. Faces are a good example. I don't actually draw perfectly anatomically correct faces. Instead what I do is draw lines that say "face" to all of us, because we share the common reference of what a "face" is (two dots and a line can be enough to do it). You might call that my "style", but here's something neat I figured out recently:

Style is just a word for the shortcuts we use to define what we're trying to illustrate.  You learn these shortcuts in a variety of ways, most commonly by interpreting the techniques of other artists but also by simply exploring methods with tools and seeking new ways to convey meaning through illustration. However you illustrate eyes or mouths or noses or ears, when you put them all together it says "face". How you do it in your own unique way is what we call a "style".

Beyond that, you control your style by taking in more elements of common interpretation as defined by your society. We have a common interpretation of "beauty" (symmetry in form and delicate features, for instance, is almost universally considered "beautiful"), so by perfecting you ability to illustrate faces with delicate features and correct symmetry, even when displayed at odd angles, you become more skilled at drawing "beautiful" people.

Mastering that ability, that control... well, that's part of what learning to be an artist is all about. Of course, if you don't learn with a goal in mind... well then you're just flailing about in the dark. Figure out what it is that you want to see, what you're trying to say... and work towards ensuring that others see and hear the same thing.

For more on this subject, I recommend McCloud's Understanding Comics, specifically (I believe) chapter 3. He says a lot of this more effectively that I do, and with pictures no less.



* * *



In other news, I'm thinking about drawing some porn.



No, seriously... I know a great illustrator who's recently published erotic, sexually explicit work, and I've been asking him basically how that's going for him... how it pays, how it affects your future work, and so forth. And then I started posing the question to a lot of people I know... family, friends, my fellow artists and comics fans over at Penciljack and so forth. It's made for some pretty entertaining conversations.

If you're shocked or bothered by the fact that I, as a fully adult American male, enjoy explicit sexual content in a fraction of my entertainments, then it's probably best that you're hearing about it now... I'd hate to freak you out later. Why the cheescake in my Gallery hasn't clued you in at least a little before now, I don't know. You should see the stuff on the top shelf of my library. It's naughty.

But I'm interesting in what the overall response would be amongst you... you guys reading this now pretty much represent what I would call my "fans"... you're a cross-section of all sorts of people from all sorts of places who all seem to like my work, and so your opinions really matter to me. I'm going to put up a Poll asking what you guys think about this, and whether or not you feel it's a bad decision.

The thing is, though, while I enjoy the erotic work of other artists, I've had some concerns about adding similar work to my own personal library of creations. It's not that I'd be ashamed of it... personally, I think that it's healthy to be interested in sex and be entertained by sexual content. I think it's creepy and a little disturbing when that content becomes degrading or abusive to the people involved, but I also recognize that "degrading" is a sliding, relativistic concept.

There's a lot of porn out there that's pretty bad, espescially the type that objectifies woman as "sluts" or "bitches", but I never liked that sort of thing... frankly, it makes me feel creepy and kinda disgusted, and that interferes heavily with any sense of entertainment. But I don't think that sex itself is inherently degrading or disgusting... I think most people would agree that, if it's done right, it can be a lot of fun. And I think that same fun can be illustrated in an entertaining way, and given the opportunity I think it might be something I'd like to do.

I'm not interested in rape, or abuse, or bondage (well, maybe light and playful bondage of the "furry handcuffs" sort, but not that stuff with leather masks and ball gags and chains and switches... too much for li'l ol' me, thanks), or any material in which someone is forced to do something against their will. I think I'll be avoiding incest and bestiality as well, just because peronally I think that they represent social taboos that should not be crossed (and besides, it's icky). And loli work is completly out... not only is it disgusting, but it gets you thrown in jail. Essentially, I believe I'd approach this in the same way I think everything should be approached... I won't draw something I wouldn't want to read myself, and I won't create something that I would be ashamed of if my mother got a copy.

And yes, if you're curious, I did talk to my mom about it. She's pretty cool like that. I won't be sending her a copy, though.

I haven't decided whether or not to do it, ultimately... And I may adopt a different pen-name if I do. I guess it'll really come down to how badly I fear that people might react to the mere fact of a history in explicitly sexual content may impress publishers and editors in the future, and what doors it may permanently shut (if any). Given that we now live in the Information Age, it seems unlikely that even if I use a pen-name I can really hide that I've done the work... all it will take is one person to recognize my style and put two and two together, and then next thing you know I'm either going to have to confess or lie outright. And it would be nice to be able to promote the work to you guys... if any of you would want to see it.

As it is, I wouldn't be publishing that work here on DeviantArt anyhow... at least not the really explicit stuff. Perhaps you might see some of the tamer illustrations, promo images and such. We do have "Mature Warning" labels for a reason. If the stuff I draw starts getting a little racier, well then you might know why. But you need not fear that my work here is going to take a major turn for the perverse.

I'm genuinely curious to know... would you be entertained or disgusted or disappointed or what? I'll likely be adding a Poll for this question, just for some simple statistics, but feel free to express your thoughts in more detail right here.

-EDIT-

Just to clarify... I have no intentions to add this sort of work to my public Gallery here at DeviantArt, or to any other gallery online for that matter. If anything, I'd do the work for a publisher, and it would be something you'd have to actively seek out and purchase if you wanted to see it.

I'm not interested in making a career change, or a major shift in the content of why you guys see here on DA. But at the same time, I recognize that we live in the age of the Internet, in a world where most anyone's history can be laid bare. I don't plan to force anything upon anyone, or attempt to convince anyone to read work they'd be uncomfortable with.