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The Sex Blog Of Record
Sunday, November 27th, 2011 -- by Bacchus
Now that Dr. Faustus has completed (at least, I believe it’s complete) his epic series on making your own porn, I thought it might be worth trying to correct some of the structural flaws in the blogging format, which is that episodic material is presented to new readers in reverse-order and to existing readers it appears over long periods of time. Thus it’s often worth assembling a link package to tie everything up into one neat package. Accordingly, all seven links:
Sunday, November 20th, 2011 -- by Dr. Faustus
I’ll cap off this series of posts on making your own with a little practical, if perhaps boringly technical, advice about tools you can use to make your experience as creator go well.
On things everyone ought to get a little familiar with is WordPress, exceptional blogging software, some version of which powers both ErosBlog and EroticMadScience. Most hosting companies make WordPress installation available directly from your control panel, so if you set up your own domain it will be sitting there waiting for you as soon as you’re up and running. In thirty years of working with computers I’ve had few technology experiences as agreeable as being a WordPress user: it installs in seconds and if you want, you can be up and publishing to the world in minutes. You can customize it and make a really good-looking site in hours, so if you follow Bacchus’s First Rule of the Internet and start making your own on your own site, I’d say this is definitely the way to go.
An option now available in WordPress that makes it an especially good tool for creators is that not only can you use it to publish to the universe, you can also create private, password-protected multi-site blogs by using a few simple plugins. These make splendid collaboration tools: you can, if you want, create a blog that is just for you and a single artist, which might sound silly but actually allows you to see a commission develop over a series of posts from initial script and visual references through pencil sketches and other drafts (which can be accepted or critiqued in comments) to delivery of finished product: the whole thing laid out right in historical order on a page, which is both useful as a means for both you and your collaborators to learn and creates something that can be quite gratifying to look back upon as well.
For writing tools that go beyond the capabilities included in WordPress or ordinary word processors you might want to look into a product called Celtx, which I’ve been using for a few years now. Celtx is media production software which you can use to create beautifully and correctly formatted and organized screenplays, stage plays, storyboards, and comic book scripts. You can download the basic version and use it by yourself — this version is available for free. It can also be used as a collaboration tool if you subscribe to something called Celtx Studio. The studio is subscription-only, but it does allow you (and people you’re working with) to work on common projects anywhere there’s an Internet connection.
Just think what she could have accomplished if she had had Celtx!
If you want to make your own e-books, look into a tool called Calibre. This is powerful and free e-book software which not only allows you to keep track of your e-books on your own computer, but it has a conversion utility which enables you to take, say, the beautiful archive of comic books pages you’ve created and turn them into a compact file useful for other people, like a .mobi file for people to read on their Amazon Kindles (or other e-book readers — it handles many), or a single neat PDF for them to read on their desktops.
For managing images, whether re-sizing, cropping, watermarking, etc., I strongly recommend an image tool called GIMP. This usually comes pre-installed in most Linux distributions I’ve seen, and there’s also at the very least a version available for Windows as well. It is very much the publisher’s friend, and like so many good things in life, it is also available for free.
Finally, while we’re talking about free, those of you who have ever been over to EroticMadScience might have noticed that it is liberally bespangled with little icons that look like this:
These are Creative Commons Licenses. You might or might not be interested in them, but if you see your work as being a form of hedonic philanthropy especially, please consider using them. They in effect give you a way of allowing other people to share and enjoy your work, with requirements for attribution and permission for commercial use or the creation of derivative works (or not) at your option. If you want your work to spread far and wide, and want people to feel comfortable that they are in the right in doing so, the Creative Commons license gives you an excellent tool for doing that.
So now you have tools: go forth and make something!
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Sunday, November 6th, 2011 -- by Dr. Faustus
Having written four somewhat theoretical posts on why it’s a great idea to get busy making your own erotic art, I would like to turn to some more practical matters. Let’s begin with finding creative partners, particularly creators you can commission.
Some people are truly multi-talented and can see a project through from concept to finished piece all on their own. If you’re one of these I congratulate you, but I regret that I am not one of them. I have ideas, and I can write some, but I can’t draw worth a damn: even my stick figures look wooden and unconvincing. (And yes, there can be vivid stick figures — see xkcd.) If want visual representations and not just words, then I need artist partners. I’ll write here from the perspective of a writer looking for artists, although I think much of what I have to say here will apply, mutatis mutandis, to artists looking for writers or indeed anyone looking for collaborators.
So if you’re in the position I was about two years ago, you might be asking yourself, “I have ideas and scripts and some money to spend, but how on earth do I go about finding artists?”
Here are some things that worked for me:
Hitting the books. There are a lot of publications having to do with erotic art, and if you’re like me you’ll have some on your shelves. Newer ones will generally include web contact information for the artists, or for agents who work on their behalf. One of the first commissions I ever placed was with Glass House Graphics, when I found a piece I very much liked by one of their artists in a volume of erotic fantasy art. They directed me to the Brazilian artist Hugo da Cunha Araújo, whom they represented and who created the striking, sexed-up image of the Maria/Maschinenmensch transformation from Metropolis that now graces every page over at Erotic Mad Science.
This method of finding artists can produce some really terrific art, although it is likely to put you in touch with high-priced professionals, so you need to be prepared for large commissions if you pursue it.
Hang out where the artists do. There are a number of spots on the Internet where a lot of artistic talent congregates, and you can find people you like there. And what’s better, these sites frequently offer ways (usually requiring registration, which isn’t ideal but which is at least normally free) to leave comments, get known, and get in touch. The one that I’ve had be best luck with has probably been a huge site called DeviantArt. I think I first encountered Lon Ryden, who draws the Tales of Gnosis College for me, over there, and also Lucy Fidelis, Roe Mesquita, Bokuman, and the alluring Dark Vanessa there. Another site I’ve much enjoyed — one the specializes in CG art, is Renderotica (registration required for almost everything, unfortunately), where I first found Niceman (who did a CG illustration that has been featured twice at Tiny Nibbles), KristinF, and Russkere. But these are only suggestions. Pretty much every forum devoted to whatever kink you are interested in will attract artists, so hang out and find out who they are. Look for stuff that appeals to you and take notes.
Just search. No matter how weird you are there stuff that’s appealing, and probably Google Image Search or its equivalents) can find it for you. For example, I’m pretty damn weird. I’ve had this strange fantasy about a mad scientist making a girl orgasmically dissolve into liquid in his laboratory (top that, kinksters!, but please don’t try it in real life). Eventually I got it illustrated for me thanks to both Niceman and, later, Lon. But rolling back the clock a bit, let’s ask how I might find someone to do this sort of art if I didn’t know anyone. I mean, it’s a really weird interest — could I be all alone here?
Well, let’s try a Google Image Search on “liquid girl.” What comes up? Keeping in mind that results might have changed between the moment of my writing, the very first result leads me to this. Exquisite! And right at DeviantArt, too, so I can contact the creator easily. And at DeviantArt also this. And then there’s this — with a phone number right at the bottom of the page. Let’s try “melting girl.” Well, there’s easily more fun to be had. Obviously there are a lot of artists I could have been tracking down in addition to the excellent ones I’ve already met.
Whatever you are, you are not alone.
But okay, you’ve searched around, and you’ve found artists who you think are awesome. What now? How do you approach them? That will be the subject of next week’s post.
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Sunday, October 30th, 2011 -- by Dr. Faustus
Here are two poisonous but common myths in the culture I live in:
(1) People who like erotic representations are really a bunch of pathetic losers masturbating in their mother’s basements, and
(2) Only a tiny number of people are actually kinky, even in their minds.
And these myths serve those who want to beat down others who are not like them sexually, or, more insidiously, others who are like them sexually but unwilling to live lives as hypocrites. We all know that there are too many such people: busybodies and bigots. Why someone should want to behave in such a vile way to one’s fellow human beings is a a mystery to me, but we are confronted with the brute fact of their existence, and the brutal fact that they can do immense harm.
But in a larger cultural context that at least formally honors human liberty and equality (thank you, Enlightenment!), the proposition that you should be allowed to beat down other people for no other reason than that their sexuality pisses you off is not going to sell. “Because my religion tells me I must” might get marginally more traction, but not much more. In a religiously pluralist society, claims like that understandably make people nervous. But what you can sell is the claim that somehow you’re doing people a favor by suppressing their revealed sexual preferences.
And how do you do that? By advancing the claim that their sexuality is somehow inauthentic. By claiming that other people are helpless, passive vessels into which bad wine been poured. They’re brainwashed. They have false consciousness. They’ve gotten bad lessons from the media/the patriarchy/corporate capitalism/Satan. They’re addicted. If only we took Pete Pajama’s porn away from him he’d get out of his mama’s basement and fine a real girlfriend for a change. They’re sick. They need therapy. We know they’re sick because there are millions of us and only a few of them so if they disagree with our consensus reality, we know they must be wrong, right?
You know the litany.
The point here is that if you’re a creator you are presenting to yourself to the world as no longer passive. Being able to create involves being inherently active: you select your materials, you choose, you shape. You have no choice but to reach into yourself and engage with the world. In the place of the passive loser, you put a Promethean self.
And of course, you can no longer be represented as lonely, because your very act of creation is likely to involve creative partners, and you are reaching out to the world, making friends and making fans. Making art of any kind is a social act, because it involves an audience.
And not only are you reaching out, you are encouraging others. Lots of people have interesting ideas and intriguing fantasies but are intimidated about expressing them. If you create, you encourage others on the margin, who will encourage others and others.
If we do our jobs right, in the end there will be millions of us creators, linked to each other by billions of strands of friendship, influence, and affinity. And that’s a lot harder for bigots to beat down that a lonely, disconnected individual.
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Sunday, October 23rd, 2011 -- by Dr. Faustus
As I write these words, one respectable estimate puts the number of Internet users at two billion globally. That’s a lot of people, and if you make art, some of them will find you,. With numbers like that, there’s philanthropic magic in the math.
About anything you might create, you might think, “Well, it’s a strange thing and maybe not that many people are into it, and of those, not that many people will find it.” And maybe both of those propositions are true. Suppose your thing will only appeal to or give pleasure to one person out of a hundred. And suppose you’re not that easy to find, even if you optimize search terms for people who want to see the sort of thing you’re into, so only one person in 500 who wants to find your art will find it over the entire life of your site or posting or whatever where you present it.
Well, if you assume two billion Internet users worldwide and do the math, what do you find? That there are 40,000 people in the world whose day you’ll brighten up, at least a little. You could almost fill Wrigley Field with smiling folks (which is more than can be said for the baseball team that plays there these days).
Suppose that creating a single work of art costs $200.00, whether in artist’s commission fees, the monetized opportunity cost of your time, or what have you. (And you can do something pretty nice for $200, in my experience.) Divide that $200 by 40,000 people and it works out to half a cent per person. How many other forms of pleasure can you buy for that little? In philanthropic terms that sounds like a tremendous bargain to me.
And it’s yours for the taking…
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Sunday, October 9th, 2011 -- by Dr. Faustus
Beginning about a year ago over at EroticMadScience.com I published a series of posts about creating erotic art called “on making your own“, in which I urged people to do just that. I now have a year’s more experience, having written and published an entire graphic novel (as well as a fair amount of additional bespoke art) and I have decided to revisit the subject for a more general audience here at ErosBlog. The first few posts will be about the good that making your own does for you and for others. And then I hope to follow up with a series of posts with more practical advice for those of you who want to make your own.
So why should you try to make your own erotic art? Fun, friends, and philanthropy.
This post is about fun, just by yourself.
We all have busy lives, I am sure. But try this exercise. Block off some time for yourself. Sit down with whatever means of writing you feel most comfortable with whether it’s pencil and paper or your computer or even your manual typewriter if that’s what helps set the mood for you.
Now think of something that really turned you on. Go on, there’s something there. If you’re like most people there are dozens or hundreds of things there, but just think about that one thing for now. Now try to write it down. Don’t worry about whether what you’re writing down is “good.” Don’t worry about whether it’s absurd. Or “immoral.” And don’t worry about what anyone will think. Not your partner, not your parents, not your children, not your friends. No one. For right now, this only about you. Don’t worry about whether what you’re writing will “last” — that’s not the point. Have a paper shredder or secure delete program right at hand if it will help you relax. Just let whatever it is unspool in your head like film running through a projector and try to describe in your own words what you are seeing and hearing, or feeling, tasting, or smelling if your mind runs that way.
There, you did it. And how do you feel?
I’ll tell you how I felt the first time I tried, which was rock-hard (I’m a dude, so that’s not an uncommon response) and aroused beyond all measure, as much or more so as I ever was during any act of either solo or partnered sex I ever had. (If you’re curious as to what strange fantasy pushed me to these heights, it was a variant on the scenario eventually illustrated here.) Your reaction might not be quite so extreme as mine, but I’m willing to be that there’s something there, and that you may well be on the brink of some rather serious enjoyment right now.
If you wish to retire to your chambers for a little while now, please be my guest. Pleasure is not so common in life that we can afford to just throw any of it away.
The point here is that the more you were able to let go and write, the more fun you doubtless had. And the more you practice doing it, the easier it will become. The act of writing will be an adventure of transformation and discovery as you find new ways of finding pleasure in your own imagination. As Susie Bright, who has more experience with this sort of thing than I’m ever likely to have, put it in How to Write a Dirty Story:
Writing sex scenes will make you excruciatingly aware of your own body. As you compose your work, you will search your memories to find the most sensitive and lasting observations. You’ll remember what you’ve seen and felt in the most acute way. The strength of your imagination is what makes the fiction come to life; and if you’re writing at your best, you’re going to internalize those stories — when you’re writing them, they feel real.
Now who wouldn’t want a piece of that? A few years ago I wrote here at ErosBlog about Robert Nozick’s famous “experience machine” thought experiment, expressing a bit of skepticism about Nozick’s firm conclusion that we would not want to plug into the amazing science-fictional machine that could give us any experience we wanted. Well, there’s some good news for those of you who might want to plug in to the experience machine for a least a little while. You don’t have to wait for superscientists to make one. You already have one within you. It’s just a matter of working your imagination sufficiently to access it.
And that, I hope everyone will agree, is a lot of fun.
But there’s far more fun to be had with friends than alone, and that will be the subject of my next post.
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