Ask An Artist – Adult Oriented Art

Whenever times are tough, one of your friends will inevitably say, “Well, I’ll just do porn and make a ton of money!” I’ve joked about it before as have a number of my artist friends. But how do they really feel about drawing adult oriented work? I asked four amazing artists if they took adult oriented commissions and this is what they had to say.

Yuko Ota

One only need to glance at a few pages of Yuko’s art in Johnny Wander co-written by Ananth Panagariya to recognize true comic genius. I love her expressions and the way she draws hands. Keep an eye out for her. I have a feeling her comics career is just starting.

I generally don’t take commissions at all, and when I do I make sure it’ll be something I find worth my while, or at the very least personally fulfilling. Taking the better part of a day to draw some dude’s characters gettin’ it on doesn’t really do it for me. Plus, I can barely draw my own characters nude, let alone in compromising positions. I’m a total wimp.

And then there’s also the fact if I work for 10 hours on a piece, I’d like to be able to put it into my professional portfolio … and also, my mom googles my name sometimes.

Garth Graham

You can find Garth at artist alley tables, convention guest panels, and at his webcomic, Finder’s Keepers. Garth makes a living as an independent artist doing commission work and selling his own works at conventions and online.  He’s living proof that you can do it your own damn way no matter what anyone else might say!

As far as drawing adult themed artwork on commission, I see nothing against it. Nothing inherently wrong with nudity or sex, there just isn’t. There are limitations, however. I won’t draw anything illegal, e.g. no kiddie porn. ‘Cause that’s just wrong. I won’t draw people who aren’t enjoying themselves, either. Kinda defeats the purpose, in my mind. And I won’t draw anything out of character. I feel it’s disrespectful to the characters themselves to draw them doing things they wouldn’t do just because someone thinks it’s hot. Granted, no one has actually commissioned me for any adult. Sexy yes, explicit no. My view may change, ha!

Mohammad “Hawk” F. Haque

I met Hawk at his first Otakon back when Applegeeks was just starting out. Even at that time, I could tell he was destined for awesomeness. Now with Volume 1 of Applegeeks coming out this May and Volume 2 already up for pre-order, Hawk’s career is taking off.

I don’t do commissions in general, mainly because I can’t draw for other people, the motivation isn’t there. If I wanted to draw nudity, I would draw it for people I know. I might be weird, but drawing nude, sex acts for strangers seemed weird to me.

Dustin Nguyen

I’m not just saying this because he agreed to do this, but Dustin is one of my favorite artists. While some comic artists might rest on their laurels once they’ve landed a book like Detective Comics, Dustin continues to challenge himself always looking to improve his work. I love his cover work. He’s never afraid to blend traditional and digital techniques to create with truly breathtaking work.

I don’t, but mostly because I can’t use naked art as much as I can use normal art. I don’t have a big enough audience to sell or promote it to ( and this means prints, sketchbooks, reprinted materials etc.) so if it were done, it’d be appealing to just that ONE buyer and not really a mass audience. And that’s not enough to make me want to do it. And this isn’t completely a financial thing, but also a question of usable portfolio art. every thing I do, I’d like to include as part of my portfolio for the next thing, and something that’s as limiting in audience as that- it’s pretty much a waste of my time.

I’d like to thank all the artists who participated in this week’s Ask An Artist! So, what do you all think of doing adult oriented artwork?