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How do hentai artists do it?

Posted: 2006-02-20 09:41pm
by Rye
A genuine question here, how do they manage to stay focused on a job that requires them to imagine in minute detail an extremely arousing scene, and maintain a standard of quality throughout it? Some hentai art I've scene goes beyond my skills, and must be painstakingly done.

So, how do they do it?

Posted: 2006-02-20 09:45pm
by Gil Hamilton
Because drawing hentai itself really isn't all that sexual an experience. Drawing is drawing, man, and hentai is a just a category.

Plus, there is the possibility that you've got a deadline and a fascist boss who wants to know where the hell you are with those images that are due to be turned over to the inker before they can be colored, lettered, and processed.

Posted: 2006-02-20 09:50pm
by Pick
I should note, actually, that hentai and yaoi artists tend to be exceptionally good. You have to be, in those genres. Badly-drawn sex isn't arousing --it's painful. I respect them wholeheartedly (except for some of the really crazy fetish stuff.)

As for drawing pornography, I know (a frighteningly large amount of) girls who draw yaoi, and they say that drawing it completely gets them off. As a result, they like to do it because (as I recall one of the American doujinshi circles noted) it's sexually arousing throughout the entire drawing experience, hence can be an extremely prolonged period of, well, horniness.

Posted: 2006-02-20 09:58pm
by Gil Hamilton
Really? I don't find drawing hentai or any sort of pornography to be all that sexual an experience. I'll have to ask a buddy of mine who makes side money doing it, but I never got the impression from him that it was all that big an arousing thing.


EDIT: Then again, now that I think on it, the girls in the shounen-ai scene that I know are weird cats when it comes to their porn. I can definitely see them getting off when actually producing it. Yaoi and shounen-ai discussions tend to fry my noodle and I don't tend to really hear them as a result, in much the same way the clipper chip in my brain cuts off when my girl friends talk about medical facts revolving around their nethers. :lol:

Posted: 2006-02-20 10:12pm
by Rye
I just ask because I just had a go at it and I couldn't stay focused, i'd draw one primitive picture with what I wanted to see in it, then just go straight to another, almost as fast as possible.

I would say that while drawing it, it was a constant turn-on, plus there's the "what if I get caught" aspect of it. The weird thing is, I can easily draw more "glamourous" sexy pictures on the fly, like fetishised super heroines or whathaveyou, but when drawing something that's pornographic, it takes significantly larger amounts of effort.

Posted: 2006-02-20 11:13pm
by felineki
Pick wrote:I should note, actually, that hentai and yaoi artists tend to be exceptionally good. You have to be, in those genres.
Of course. The human figure is one of the most complex and nuanced subjects one can ever attempt to draw (I know from experience, from all of my recent failures at drawing, ha... *karate chops tablet in half*), and since this sort of art is, by definition, going to put a lot of emphasis on human (or human-ish, at least) bodies, it necessitates great amounts of skill with such.

Posted: 2006-02-20 11:47pm
by White Haven
Plus, when you get into some of the more fetishy content, you can end up with scenes in which you REALLY have to know how every bit of the body can and should bend and move and such, to make things even more difficult.

Posted: 2006-02-20 11:51pm
by Pick
... plus there's the "what if I get caught" aspect of it.
Hide it well. I could not ever be more serious.

Not, of course, that I am doing any more than sharing general knowledge of an abstract concept, am I right? :o

Just kidding. Really. Everyone's drawn smut has at some point. :lol:

Posted: 2006-02-21 12:12am
by Crossroads Inc.
Pick wrote:Everyone's drawn smut has at some point. :lol:
*Raises hand*
And it was fun to do!

Posted: 2006-02-21 12:19am
by Pick
Crossroads Inc. wrote:
Pick wrote:Everyone's drawn smut has at some point. :lol:
*Raises hand*
And it was fun to do!
It really is; that's the worst thing :P.

Posted: 2006-02-21 05:42am
by Oni Koneko Damien
My best advice is: Don't do it while you're by yourself. I personally find myself getting turned on by my own hentai, which is why I draw it at work, at school, or other social situations. That way, I have damn good incentive to just sit there and keep drawing, rather that drop the pencil and immediately work to relieve some internal pressure.

Posted: 2006-02-21 09:33am
by Crossroads Inc.
Yeah... But what if you get caught?

I'm also curious what forms of smut where talking about. Tasteful nudes? Or hardcore naughtyness? I've drawn a gammit of pics, from lanky Bishonen getting it on, to being commisioned to draw furri for a friend I knew (the 'research' for that one was something i'll never forget)

Posted: 2006-02-21 09:50am
by Shroom Man 777
There was this beautiful pic of a tanned redhead in a mall's changing room, she was getting hammered by this guy, and she had red stockings...mmmm...and that look of her face...mmm..I just don't know where I found it...

Ah...anyway, I have tried drawing hentai, but I suck at drawing, so I ended up laughing my ass off and showing my disfigured work to my classmates, who also laughed their assess off. Then I erased the work, since I drew it on my textbook... :lol:

Posted: 2006-02-21 10:14am
by kheegster
Umm...what are 'shounen-ai', 'yaoi' and 'doushinji'? Dare I ask?

Posted: 2006-02-21 10:26am
by General Zod
kheegan wrote:Umm...what are 'shounen-ai', 'yaoi' and 'doushinji'? Dare I ask?
Shounen ai = light girl on girl stuff. Yaoi = boy on boy. Doujinshi = fan mangas. They aren't always hentai, but a good deal of them are.

Posted: 2006-02-21 11:30am
by Seggybop
General Zod wrote:
kheegan wrote:Umm...what are 'shounen-ai', 'yaoi' and 'doushinji'? Dare I ask?
Shounen ai = light girl on girl stuff. Yaoi = boy on boy. Doujinshi = fan mangas. They aren't always hentai, but a good deal of them are.
shounen ai is male. "boy love"

Posted: 2006-02-21 11:31am
by General Zod
Seggybop wrote:
General Zod wrote:
kheegan wrote:Umm...what are 'shounen-ai', 'yaoi' and 'doushinji'? Dare I ask?
Shounen ai = light girl on girl stuff. Yaoi = boy on boy. Doujinshi = fan mangas. They aren't always hentai, but a good deal of them are.
shounen ai is male. "boy love"
Ah, somehow misread that as Shoujo ai.

Posted: 2006-02-21 12:05pm
by Crossroads Inc.
I htought "Otokonoko" was 'boy love'
Dang Freaky Japanese fetishes

Posted: 2006-02-21 01:04pm
by Gil Hamilton
kheegan wrote:Umm...what are 'shounen-ai', 'yaoi' and 'doushinji'? Dare I ask?
Shounen-ai = specifically refers to male gay romance. Not necessarily sex though, but it is "boy meets boy". It's opposite is "shoujo-ai", which is lesbian romance. This stuff doesn't tend to be all they scary, but it can be pretty fluffy.

Yaoi = male gale porn. Also known as "slash". If you listen to fangirls chattering about "pairings" et cetera, chances are they are matching up characters in a series, such as Harry Potter for instance since that's popular right now, for the buttsex. It's oppose is "yuri", which is muffdiving lesbian stuff. I'd steer clear of the fandoms of both if you don't know what the terms mean.

Doushinji - "Fan made manga". There are some quality ones out there, but like fanfictions, the signal to noise ratio is very low. There is some fucking scary shit out there.
Crossroads Inc. wrote:I htought "Otokonoko" was 'boy love'
Dang Freaky Japanese fetishes
"Shounen-ai" literally translates to "boy love" or "male love".

"Otokonoko", I'm being informed by a more credible authority on the Japanese language than myself, just means "boy". Like "Watashi wa otokonoko desu" means "I am a boy".

I think the distinction is the same as "male" and "guy" are in English. I'm told "shounen" kind of implies guyness. Like the publication "Shonen Jump" is a guys anime mag.

This is just the imformation I'm getting from down the pipe, so take it with a grain of salt.

Posted: 2006-02-21 03:01pm
by Trytostaydead
Maybe they have a eer, "special" room to relieve themself and then get back to slaving away?

Posted: 2006-02-21 03:32pm
by Darth Raptor
I used to be a mediocre artist, but my skill atrophied. I can't ask my brother to draw naughty things and I don't have the money for commissions.

To be able to draw my own porn is one of my primary objectives in life. I'll be taking classes next year, and I have the whole summer to practice. Back in the day I would have a hard time staying er, focused while drawing smut. Although I WAS an adolescent, and at that age a lukewarm bowl of oatmeal would turn me on.

Posted: 2006-02-22 01:06am
by Pick
Gil Hamilton wrote: Yaoi = male gale porn. Also known as "slash". If you listen to fangirls chattering about "pairings" et cetera, chances are they are matching up characters in a series, such as Harry Potter for instance since that's popular right now, for the buttsex. It's oppose is "yuri", which is muffdiving lesbian stuff. I'd steer clear of the fandoms of both if you don't know what the terms mean.

Doushinji - "Fan made manga". There are some quality ones out there, but like fanfictions, the signal to noise ratio is very low. There is some fucking scary shit out there.
Yaoi is NOT the same as slash. Slash is homosexual relationships between preconcieved characters. Some people even consider femalexfemale characters to be slashing. It's not "chances are" --slash is -only- characters that previously existed. As for what yaoi is, it is malexmale relationships. Yaoi as opposed to shounen-ai means that there is sex, but it doesn't tell you how hardcore. "Jadou", for instance, is considered yaoi but doesn't actually show dick, whereas Romantic Egoist is nothing but porn, porn, porn.


Doujinshi is actually manga without a publisher's backing. There are plenty of original doujinshi out there made by professional artists. I have made it a point to collect Higuri Yuu's original doujinshi, though they're expensive and hard to find. Most doujinshi (especially that which is sold to people in the US) is fan-work. Much of it is not pornographic by nature, in fact, for a lot of series the bulk of the doujinshi fandom is composed of gag books.

Posted: 2006-02-22 01:21am
by Shinova
Doujinshii doesn't have to be obscure either.

Tsukihime, for example, was originally a doujin work, but it's extremely famous and turned their creators from on the verge of selling their organs to millionaires. It's a pretty inspiring rags to riches story.

Posted: 2006-02-22 05:48am
by VT-16
kheegan wrote:Umm...what are 'shounen-ai', 'yaoi' and 'doushinji'? Dare I ask?
I'm always reminded of this whenever I hear that question :P

http+://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2005/20050411l.jpg

(Remove + to watch)

Posted: 2006-02-22 05:54am
by Spanky The Dolphin
Shinova wrote:Doujinshii doesn't have to be obscure either.

Tsukihime, for example, was originally a doujin work, but it's extremely famous and turned their creators from on the verge of selling their organs to millionaires. It's a pretty inspiring rags to riches story.
Too bad the anime is drab and boring to tears. :P