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Reflecting on YCH-tober and Twitter Porn
5 years ago
So, another October of YCH giveaway is in the bag. This year, I actually had way more time to put into them, and spent September making up detailed sketches to smooth out the process. I’d say this year went off easier than ever, but at the same time, left me a little let down by what i put out, something I felt last year as well and went into kind of a lengthy hiatus because of it. I’m taking another, hopefully shorter break this year, but this time I’m gonna share my thoughts some. So buckle up if ur curious. This is gonna get long winded, cold, and analytical.
I started making furry porn at the very start of 2018, a little after graduating art school. I’d really never drawn much of any porn before, and literally never drew nor considered myself a furry prior, but as an avid fan of bara porn with a wealth of free time and a shiny new iPad, I decided to give it a whirl. It was honestly stunning when I noticed the third thing I posted got actual traction on twitter— just a silly scratchy comic with some shark dudes, a total brain-fart of a horny-joke, but it gave me a pretty clear image that if I wanted my art to engage with people, this was the way to do it.
I think this is kind of my first hang-up about the stuff I make, is the sorta ‘artistic integrity’ behind making porn and what gets the most interaction. I spend a lot of time trying to psycho-analyze what makes some stuff hit it off better with people than others, and at least content wise, the answer just feels kinda… embarrassingly simple? Like, muscle-bound, big-dick, himbo-dudes paired off with some complimentary personality/body type, in a sweet-heart scenario that targets the feels, it’s a super safe bet for feel-good porn content. At the same time, all my favorite artists just seem so much more inspired than that, and I hate that so often, it seems like they get less noticed because of it. Its been legit uncomfortable watching my twitter follows rise higher than artists who are just wildly more inspiring to me, pulling from their own gay-perspective and reflecting these fantasies and personalities that are horny, sure, but also so captivating and unique to me. My work just doesn’t do that— I really don’t think I’ve put enough into it to get that kind of reaction, it’s all very trope heavy, in-and-out kinda porn, which is intentional, but also kind of a failing, cuz I think it’s the best I can do. And still, I can’t help but crave the validation of making a thing more people like. Sort of a sell-out without the money.
On technical side of art quality, there’s the question of how good I am at drawing furry porn. I think its the scenarios that draw people to my art more than the art quality— Without being too self-deprecating, I’m pretty confident that my art style, experience in drawing furries, and understanding of fundamentals like anatomy and lighting doesn’t really carry the response it gets. I can only get so angsty about it, because I hardly spend any time practicing nowadays, so it’s not that surprising that I’ve kind of qualitatively flat-lined. But, similar to that first shark comic I made that got eyes on it, I think I get a response because I’m an okay porn artist, but the thing I’m actually good at is resonating with the horny fantasies of gay cisgendered furries. Still, I think I saw myself being further along by this point with my technical skills, and that was really the roughest patch of this YCH month— looking through everyone’s ref pics and realizing “Oh no they have great taste in commissions, this is going to be the worst art they’ve ever gotten.” And I mean, it’s free, so who gives a hooey. But I look back on this year’s pieces, which I basically spent twice as much time on as last year’s, they’re really not punching up all that much. Slightly better anatomy thanks to the sketches, slightly more consistent approach to coloring, but still just not doing people’s characters much justice. (Also super disappointing that because I’m so slow, I’m passing on a lot of people with characters that I find really interesting, just too tricky to draw in one day.)
Outside of my own art, though, I have to say that my biggest hang up is really just about twitter being my go to place to get reactions to my porn, and whether or not that’s like… doing more harm than good. When I started, I loved getting the occasional offended normie, seeing some person who’s wandered too far into furry country being horrified by the sight of anthro-pokemon dicks. But the more complicated side I’m seeing over time is that by burying my head in the porn-side of the fandom, I’m kind of missing how many people have a perfectly reasonable aversion to accounts like mine that just make everything horny. I can’t say I fully understand the SFW/NSFW divide of the furry fandom, but I get that it’s not something I should just insert myself into when my WHOLE PRESENCE is so explicitly nsfw. Any post or comment i make outside the nsfw “bubble” comes with all my horny account baggage in tow, and even if I made a SFW account, it would have this shadow of “but how would they respond if they knew what i was REALLY known for.”
An even bigger concern I’ve got, is a sort of un-founded theory that, with all its traffic, Twitter’s probably got a thinner divide than most sites for its users over / under 18. Even with your content being marked mature, you’ve got a way higher likelihood that your stuff is gonna end up attracting minors, and that’s probably my biggest motivator for having just ZERO community interaction outside this one month of YCH pieces— and even then, I shudder to think I might be giving art to some stealthy thirteen year old because realistically, we all know there’s nothing stopping them. (Save for my 200+ blocked accounts with ages listed in their profiles…) There’s a lot of things to like about the opportunities twitter provides by being this hub for just ALL types of content, god knows a lot of full-time artists depend on it, far be it from me to suggest that they shouldn’t have the traffic they have— but with the constant recurring drama of “X artist was talking/rping/sexting with Y minor”, I wonder how many of those connections could’ve been all together avoided on a site that wasn’t just a total melting pot.
Tbh, this was most likely my last year doing the October YCH thing, for all the reasons stated. I told myself the same thing last year, so who knows! But all in all, though it’s a fun exercise, I think the low-quality of work is what really makes the work load not worth it, paired with this uncertainty of who I’m gifting art to/what kinda shit I’m stirring up by doing it in the first place. Sorry if the twitter bit comes off as a hot-take, I’m really not advising anyone change their behavior in any particular way, it’s just something I’m trying to be mindful of going forward since my initial approach was just to go in swinging dicks with reckless musky abandon.
Got a lot of ideas piled up for the future, whenever i get back to posting. Expect the further cruising adventures of a frisky Lopunny— my hope is just that when I get around to it, the effort to improve is more genuine, and shows up in more tangible ways.
I started making furry porn at the very start of 2018, a little after graduating art school. I’d really never drawn much of any porn before, and literally never drew nor considered myself a furry prior, but as an avid fan of bara porn with a wealth of free time and a shiny new iPad, I decided to give it a whirl. It was honestly stunning when I noticed the third thing I posted got actual traction on twitter— just a silly scratchy comic with some shark dudes, a total brain-fart of a horny-joke, but it gave me a pretty clear image that if I wanted my art to engage with people, this was the way to do it.
I think this is kind of my first hang-up about the stuff I make, is the sorta ‘artistic integrity’ behind making porn and what gets the most interaction. I spend a lot of time trying to psycho-analyze what makes some stuff hit it off better with people than others, and at least content wise, the answer just feels kinda… embarrassingly simple? Like, muscle-bound, big-dick, himbo-dudes paired off with some complimentary personality/body type, in a sweet-heart scenario that targets the feels, it’s a super safe bet for feel-good porn content. At the same time, all my favorite artists just seem so much more inspired than that, and I hate that so often, it seems like they get less noticed because of it. Its been legit uncomfortable watching my twitter follows rise higher than artists who are just wildly more inspiring to me, pulling from their own gay-perspective and reflecting these fantasies and personalities that are horny, sure, but also so captivating and unique to me. My work just doesn’t do that— I really don’t think I’ve put enough into it to get that kind of reaction, it’s all very trope heavy, in-and-out kinda porn, which is intentional, but also kind of a failing, cuz I think it’s the best I can do. And still, I can’t help but crave the validation of making a thing more people like. Sort of a sell-out without the money.
On technical side of art quality, there’s the question of how good I am at drawing furry porn. I think its the scenarios that draw people to my art more than the art quality— Without being too self-deprecating, I’m pretty confident that my art style, experience in drawing furries, and understanding of fundamentals like anatomy and lighting doesn’t really carry the response it gets. I can only get so angsty about it, because I hardly spend any time practicing nowadays, so it’s not that surprising that I’ve kind of qualitatively flat-lined. But, similar to that first shark comic I made that got eyes on it, I think I get a response because I’m an okay porn artist, but the thing I’m actually good at is resonating with the horny fantasies of gay cisgendered furries. Still, I think I saw myself being further along by this point with my technical skills, and that was really the roughest patch of this YCH month— looking through everyone’s ref pics and realizing “Oh no they have great taste in commissions, this is going to be the worst art they’ve ever gotten.” And I mean, it’s free, so who gives a hooey. But I look back on this year’s pieces, which I basically spent twice as much time on as last year’s, they’re really not punching up all that much. Slightly better anatomy thanks to the sketches, slightly more consistent approach to coloring, but still just not doing people’s characters much justice. (Also super disappointing that because I’m so slow, I’m passing on a lot of people with characters that I find really interesting, just too tricky to draw in one day.)
Outside of my own art, though, I have to say that my biggest hang up is really just about twitter being my go to place to get reactions to my porn, and whether or not that’s like… doing more harm than good. When I started, I loved getting the occasional offended normie, seeing some person who’s wandered too far into furry country being horrified by the sight of anthro-pokemon dicks. But the more complicated side I’m seeing over time is that by burying my head in the porn-side of the fandom, I’m kind of missing how many people have a perfectly reasonable aversion to accounts like mine that just make everything horny. I can’t say I fully understand the SFW/NSFW divide of the furry fandom, but I get that it’s not something I should just insert myself into when my WHOLE PRESENCE is so explicitly nsfw. Any post or comment i make outside the nsfw “bubble” comes with all my horny account baggage in tow, and even if I made a SFW account, it would have this shadow of “but how would they respond if they knew what i was REALLY known for.”
An even bigger concern I’ve got, is a sort of un-founded theory that, with all its traffic, Twitter’s probably got a thinner divide than most sites for its users over / under 18. Even with your content being marked mature, you’ve got a way higher likelihood that your stuff is gonna end up attracting minors, and that’s probably my biggest motivator for having just ZERO community interaction outside this one month of YCH pieces— and even then, I shudder to think I might be giving art to some stealthy thirteen year old because realistically, we all know there’s nothing stopping them. (Save for my 200+ blocked accounts with ages listed in their profiles…) There’s a lot of things to like about the opportunities twitter provides by being this hub for just ALL types of content, god knows a lot of full-time artists depend on it, far be it from me to suggest that they shouldn’t have the traffic they have— but with the constant recurring drama of “X artist was talking/rping/sexting with Y minor”, I wonder how many of those connections could’ve been all together avoided on a site that wasn’t just a total melting pot.
Tbh, this was most likely my last year doing the October YCH thing, for all the reasons stated. I told myself the same thing last year, so who knows! But all in all, though it’s a fun exercise, I think the low-quality of work is what really makes the work load not worth it, paired with this uncertainty of who I’m gifting art to/what kinda shit I’m stirring up by doing it in the first place. Sorry if the twitter bit comes off as a hot-take, I’m really not advising anyone change their behavior in any particular way, it’s just something I’m trying to be mindful of going forward since my initial approach was just to go in swinging dicks with reckless musky abandon.
Got a lot of ideas piled up for the future, whenever i get back to posting. Expect the further cruising adventures of a frisky Lopunny— my hope is just that when I get around to it, the effort to improve is more genuine, and shows up in more tangible ways.
But im excited for anything in future by ya.
I had hopes for The YCHtober but im Glad they went to hotter people hehe cause my Boy is complicated (i think?)
Haha but We all appricate you Journal on this stuff Plup Keep rocking on
First of all let me say that I thought it was incredibly what you did with YCH october. I had to pinch myself and re-read your journal a bunch of times to realize you were doing this for free! As a furry artist myself with a lot of years under his hood, I shudder nowadays when I think of piling such an enormous amount of work on myself and not get a penny out of it. It's a natural reaction I assume, since drawing furry porn is my main source of income, but also I am super wary about people just demanding ridiculous requests & taking advantage of artists that do stuff for free. So for me, money has always been this invisible barrier that seperates the genuine fans from the exploiters.
That being said, the whole "artistic integrity" bit resonated very strongly with me. As I said, I've been doing this for a while. I started drawing furry stuff back in 2008 & been doing this professionally since 2015. And lately, my mood has been swinging back and forth from a sense of fatigue to beating myself up because of self doubt that I'm creating only the same kind of content over and over again. The part you mentioned about the works of other artists feeling more inspired is also what I have been experiencing. Plus the fact that "selling out", i.e. trying to find a bland and appealing scenario for your porn pic, has been on my mind. I've tried my best to slowly pull myself away from these thoughts, because they are seriously harming my motivation and inspiration. As an artist, I have the privilege to be able to draw whatever comes to my mind and yet when I try to think of ideas for my own characters, I draw a blank.
The reason for that is: I have spent so much time pondering about what people would like to see, I have begun to lose my identity in my own art. And I need to remind myself that it's still there, I just need to remember that people follow my works because of what I have been doing in the past & draw what I want to draw. If that happens to be big muscle himbos doing it, then so be it.
I don't need to satisfy this invisible critic that turns his nose up at my work and spouts "Draw some other body type for a change for fucks sake! You're not a real artist if you can't do some variety!" Because if someone like that were to actually approach me and criticize me, I wouldn't listen to them. So I shouldn't listen to the voices that tell me what I'm doing is not worth it, because it's always the same.
As far as reactions go: Personally I'd prefer it if you would post all your YCH stuff in your general gallery and not in scraps. I'm not a big fan of twitter for furry art to be honest, because everything gets buried so quickly and cluttered with other tweets and reactions that it is hard to keep track of and even harder to really appreciate some artwork. The number of followers & reactions someone gets can wildly vary and some of the works I have put a lot of effort in didn't even get the minimum amount of exposure I would get on a website like FA. Plus, the whole toxic attitude and cancel culture over there is something I have real issues with. The whole "Cancel X because he did Y to Z" with unfounded allegations, no proof and pure slacktivism has reached a point where anybody can accuse someone of anything and it will gain traction no matter what. That's seriously scary for me.
So I get your concern about possible minors and I agre that Twitter should allow for more effective protection measures and filtering. I think however that as a furry porn artist, it is not your responsibility to worry about who could see your work. You are only able to use the tools you have at your disposal and sadly Twitter isn't every effective with these.
Lastly, your style & your pictures. Personally, I love your work. The Lopunny series was some of the best work I have seen in terms of just sheer hotness (and I'm not even a fan of Pokemon! :P) so I wouldn't worry about improving your own style or doubting your own content. It's great, your style is great and you continue to improve. I sometimes worry about not getting better myself, but then I look back two or three years and I am shocked at how much I have improved. So I think it's all a matter of perception.
I hope this was a little insightful and maybe even a bit helpful. I have a huge amount of respect for you and your work and hope that you will continue to produce such great content and find joy in drawing furry pictures - be it porn or not. As long as you have fun what you are doing, you should continue doing it! :3
And yeah, the 'invisible critic' sure is brutal, but I still cling to it maybe as some sort of self-moderation? Because the thing is, my general experience posting furry porn is that there's fuck-all in the ways of well-meaning critique. It's 95% glowing horny compliments that I appreciate, but can't grow much from, and 5% angry trolls who just want me to be doing something else all together. I guess it just comes with the yiff-territory, but well-reasoned critique from outside sources, however positive/negative, is hella rare, so I'm always trying to absorb/process that in some way.
I guess it's about striking a balance between personal artistic growth/self indulgent fun? As you pointed out, it's a very self-imposed thing-- as porn artists, if people like what we do, there's practically nobody concerned with out 'artistic integrity' or whether we're keeping our content fresh and new. I'd definitely argue that a mark of a lot of good, professional full-time furry artists is coming to terms with that and just being an ultra consistent art-making machine. As long as people are buying and needs are being met, no need to shake things up!
I've seen instances in the past where artists have received critique and found it to be unwelcome for various reasons. Sometimes it's because certain character features/proportions are the choice of the commissioner rather than the artist; other times it might be because the artist prefers a more stylised aesthetic in their work and isn't looking for ways to bring it more into line with expectations.
You've been extraordinarily generous in doing your October giveaways, so I'd hazard a guess that the general tone was one of encouragement simply because everyone wished to express the goodwill you were due. After all, if something is done for free, you generally wouldn't expect the comments of the recipient to be anything other than grateful - and I think that etiquette holds for other commenters too.
With all of that said, I think you still have a point and that useful critique would be in short supply even if requested. The number of people who feel qualified to offer critique is even smaller than those who'd leave a comment in the first place - which in turn is already only a small fraction of those who see each piece.
I have in the past seen a few artists mention that they run telegram groups for the purpose of critiquing others' work (and vice versa). From memory, Caraid was one. I forget the others though it might be possible to find them if you ask around.
I'd agree that scenarios are your strong suit! I've often seen people mentioning how they want to commission something but are short on ideas, so managing to come up varied themes/situations - each with appeal - for a full 31 pieces has merit in itself.
Incidentally, your Pool Party comic was a really good example of this. The way the reveal on the 3rd panel of the 1st page subverted the viewer's expectations was superbly done. c:
I'd personally say that thinking up ideas for pieces like that - and how to present them - is a real skill in itself. So even if you're of the view that your technical skills have plenty of room for improvement, I'd say you're doing well on the ideas front.
It is undoubtedly true that social media metrics are a poor approximation of the merit of a piece. Yeah, there are definitely certain aspects - pretty much the ones you've listed - which result in greater attention from more people.
It can be very difficult to want to do anything other than what's currently popular because of the addictive nature of the big numbers. For someone running a business whose income is dependant on getting enough traffic, there's plenty of incentive to stick with the same material. For someone who's strictly a hobbyist, there's not that same concern, though that still doesn't make it easy to buck trends. Even if you know you outdid yourself on a piece, the numbers not being there can still be a letdown.
That's more of an indictment of how subtly powerful social media is at influencing us rather than a personal failing, as difficult to accept as that might be.
Anyway, I think I've exhausted any useful points I might've had but I hope there's some kinda useful takeaway from the above at least. With the amount you've contributed I felt like you deserved a proper response.
Thanks again for sharing your work, and it's good to hear you've plenty of ideas in store. I'll look forward to seeing 'em in whatever form that takes, whether it's a free giveaway or something else entirely!
And yeah, the Pool Party comic and the whole subversion thing was a brilliant idea indeed! Do hope to see any of those characters from that again at some point.
Critique is certainly something that is difficult to handle. Personally, I can definitely say that receiving criticism for something you have no control over, like the idea or character design of a commission, is one the most frustrating things I have to deal with. It really puts a damper on my motivation when I work on a picture and I know in advance how certain people will react.
Telegram groups for critique & art discussion can certainly be a good idea. A safe space for artists that have a better insight into the work process and can therefore better relate to how criticism can impact oneself is certainly something I wish I had access to when I started out.
I will say, for the bit about artists you like more and feel deserve more spotlight than you're getting for what kind of stuff you're putting out: Signal boost! So the big benefit of a growing and larger platform for your own work is it gives you more power to help give attention to folks you think need/deserve it. Retweet! Recommend! Like use your platform to direct traffic to the folks you think should get more support.
Also, as for 'what goes viral and what flops', there are some common things that have more likely to take off than others but also keep in mind, other factors include when you're posting things (you want more eyeballs -> aim for high traffic times like weekend afternoons) and like above, who ends up signal boosting you. The more folks with bigger audiences signal boost you the more likely folks following -them- will RT it and boost it along. So sometimes it's less content or quality per se as it is just who sees it at the right time.
It's been two years since you posted that, but I think your art has come a long way from being in-and-out. I think it has its own kind of charm too. The recent Obstagoon piece where the Zangoose thought he was abandoned actually made me find the first page and read through. I admittedly interact with the community on and off, but I thought the way you portrayed it felt really authentic. It feels like shit getting left like that and I think you portrayed it perfectly.
I definitely think that a sfw account would let you interact with the community and explore deeper theming in art too, if that's something you're interested in doing.
Though this journal is 2 years old so you might have moved on or past from these thoughts entirely. I figured I'd just comment to say something in case LMAO.