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Rambling About YCH Pieces
5 years ago
For those who don’t follow me on Twitter, I’ve been doing this Inktober-inspired sketch challenge for the past two years where I make porn every day in October, and starting last year I made it 100% YCH focussed, turning it into more of a month-long giveaway. (Results can all be viewed in my Scraps) I’m pulling stuff together for this year’s set of pieces, but I wanted to list out some of my reasons/resignations about the whole thing. I keep my fandom interactions pretty low, and I guess it raises some questions why someone who doesn’t take commissions/requests the rest of the year suddenly starts throwing out freebies in a hurry. It’s kind of an obsessive-compulsive thing, I’ll admit— but I’m trying to come to terms with the image it gives off, cuz it all feels sort of overdramatic for me.
For starters, fursonas are what got me into furries. I mostly do this cuz I love the idea of fursonas/avatars and need an excuse to draw people’s characters; it’s a fun way to brush-up against that side of the fandom, but still leaves me with a clear cut off date so I don’t have to deal with constant expectations. It’s self indulgent, but I love looking through all the submissions— matching them to a sketch is a ton of fun! It kinda strikes me how personal it is on some level, having someone give you this representation of some part of themselves, and then I just add some dick to the mix and it’s a good thing? That’s kinda wild.
Now, on the other hand, I feel like I don’t really get what I’m doing. The whole concept of a “YCH Piece” was something I found kind of strange at first, and I still don’t totally get the appeal. As someone who draws and doesn’t put a ton of stock in his own fursona, I can’t totally empathize with the demand for free sona-art, I feel like I’m not really grasping just how much importance people place on it. Because of that, I get kind of paranoid about how many people I’m disappointing. There’s also the fanboy inside of me that just wants to pick a lot of the more popular characters that get submitted, cuz I like em, and they’re often an easier pick than most. I know that’s a really controversial thing for giveaways, I try and hold back that urge most of the time, but when they’re basically approaching me with an excuse to make fan art, it’s hard to resist.
Being a free-art-machine also makes for kind of a bad example, community wise. Furry art is just a hobby for me— I don’t do commissions, Patreon, ko-fi, etc. No money’s involved. I do these YCH for free because I rely on the creative freedom I get from these being no-strings-attached, and easily drawing in lots of submissions. It’s a personal challenge/labor of love for a fandom I don’t totally understand, I get *absolutely* nothing practical out of it besides practice, so please don’t watch me and think this should be the norm from other artists. Basically, don’t expect artists to work for free, just cuz you know someone else who does under very particular circumstances.
Lastly, just have to say— I’m not wild about the quality of the work I put out during these things. I try to improve, but a lot gets sacrificed for speed, and I don’t work fast as well as other artists do. To anyone who got a piece from me and felt maybe just the slightest touch disappointed by how it looked, you’re not being selfish, I FEEL YOU FAM. It *kills* me when I fuck up someone’s character in these. I hope I can do a more solid job this time around, but who knows!
Anyways, for those who’re on the participatory end of YCH things, what’s the main draw of getting porn drawn with your character in it? What specifically do you look for in a porn YCH piece? Ever felt uncomfortable with a YCH piece?
For starters, fursonas are what got me into furries. I mostly do this cuz I love the idea of fursonas/avatars and need an excuse to draw people’s characters; it’s a fun way to brush-up against that side of the fandom, but still leaves me with a clear cut off date so I don’t have to deal with constant expectations. It’s self indulgent, but I love looking through all the submissions— matching them to a sketch is a ton of fun! It kinda strikes me how personal it is on some level, having someone give you this representation of some part of themselves, and then I just add some dick to the mix and it’s a good thing? That’s kinda wild.
Now, on the other hand, I feel like I don’t really get what I’m doing. The whole concept of a “YCH Piece” was something I found kind of strange at first, and I still don’t totally get the appeal. As someone who draws and doesn’t put a ton of stock in his own fursona, I can’t totally empathize with the demand for free sona-art, I feel like I’m not really grasping just how much importance people place on it. Because of that, I get kind of paranoid about how many people I’m disappointing. There’s also the fanboy inside of me that just wants to pick a lot of the more popular characters that get submitted, cuz I like em, and they’re often an easier pick than most. I know that’s a really controversial thing for giveaways, I try and hold back that urge most of the time, but when they’re basically approaching me with an excuse to make fan art, it’s hard to resist.
Being a free-art-machine also makes for kind of a bad example, community wise. Furry art is just a hobby for me— I don’t do commissions, Patreon, ko-fi, etc. No money’s involved. I do these YCH for free because I rely on the creative freedom I get from these being no-strings-attached, and easily drawing in lots of submissions. It’s a personal challenge/labor of love for a fandom I don’t totally understand, I get *absolutely* nothing practical out of it besides practice, so please don’t watch me and think this should be the norm from other artists. Basically, don’t expect artists to work for free, just cuz you know someone else who does under very particular circumstances.
Lastly, just have to say— I’m not wild about the quality of the work I put out during these things. I try to improve, but a lot gets sacrificed for speed, and I don’t work fast as well as other artists do. To anyone who got a piece from me and felt maybe just the slightest touch disappointed by how it looked, you’re not being selfish, I FEEL YOU FAM. It *kills* me when I fuck up someone’s character in these. I hope I can do a more solid job this time around, but who knows!
Anyways, for those who’re on the participatory end of YCH things, what’s the main draw of getting porn drawn with your character in it? What specifically do you look for in a porn YCH piece? Ever felt uncomfortable with a YCH piece?
I also would say that, you should also do these for yourself in the end! So if inspiration hits and have a SFW YCH idea to go with it, go with it.
And lastly, I also believe that people applies to those because they also like your work, and excited to see so their fursona look in your style.
You do great stuff dude! Don't feel sad or dissapointed about not delivering something! Nobody is paying you and people applied too because they want to.
They will be very pleased with the final product regardless, I assure you!
As for YCHs, I don't do them too often. Like the twitter 'hey post a ref of your character' ones like you do can be kind of fun, particularly if the pic is something I like such as a particular kink or just seems cute/fun/funny/sexy/etc, just something I enjoy. If it's porn specifically, something that seems like my character would fit in, like something particularly submissive my fox would do or something dommy my tiger would do, basically 'could I see them doing a scene like that'.
It can be a little uncomfortable when it's multi-character, mostly because there's always the concern of 'well, what if the other character ends up being something I'm not into or don't care for' But that's sort of the roll of the dice, particularly when they're free but it's def a concern for like, YCH auctions where money gets involved. That's generally why I like commissioning my own ideas, but if a YCH just catches me the right way I'll go in on it.
Other things I look for in the the rare chance I do get a YCH are if they'd fit my character's personality, with me rather being picky about it as well. I actually ignore a lot of those 'enter for free art giveaways' a lot of the time because it's free, meaning if I were being demanding about what kind of pic my character would be in then I'd seem a bit ungrateful for it.
And if it's a YCH with multiple characters, if they're not all my/my close friends characters, I just downright ignore them flat out if they're adult/lovey dovey with someone's random character. There's a lot of characters online I don't personally like the look of as well (People make their characters in their own tastes, so I just avoid them if I don't like them). I've even backed out of a YCH before because the artist changed a YCH from gay to male/anything (A herm in this case) and I didn't want to take part of that in the slightest, had block them since they were demanding me to pay them for something I didn't want when they changed the rules.
The fandom can be a jungle sometimes, especially when you offer free artwork. I've seen the best kind and worst kind of people come together whenever there is something free to grab. So I always tried to stay away from it and only focus on commissions, so I'd knew that even if the drawing experience was catastrophic and painful for me, I'd still get money out of it.
Don't stress yourself and feel like you "owe" it to people to do this anymore than you feel comfortable. Trying to please everybody is a path I have tried walking on for a long time and it has left its scars. You'll always disappoint people, because that's just the way it is. I've seen furries comment on my commissions, being very distraught about the fact that they will "never be able to afford a commission" from me. And that just tears me apart, but at the same time, I need to make ends meet myself and I have to live with the fact, that money for food and bills doesn't grow on trees.
So yeah, do what you feel is best. Enjoy yourself during that time and have fun with it. :3
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/36857364/
This is spot-on! It's like a legit manual, haha. Thanks a bunch for the wisdom!
When I'm looking into a porn YCH, I look to see if thw characters share the spotlight; I personally don't want my character to play second fiddle, and I wouldn't want anyone to play second fiddle to mine. XD
I've only ever been uncomfortable with a YCH piece when it's clear the artist wasn't interested in the subject matter.
You mentioned picking popular characters for these. I'm not saying DON'T pick them, but, especially since we've made the migration to Twitter, a lot of unknown furs have been plain ignored in light of the popular ones. I'm not gonna sit here and lie that me saying this isn't motivated by any degree of selfishness, but it does hurt when I get looked over in artist's choice comes and giveaways in favor of characters everyone see and know, and I know I'm not the only one.
If I crossed a line, I'm sorry. It's not my place to tell you who and how to pick, but I figure I should at least try to speak up on it.