I've been posting artwork at renderosity from time to time for years now, but recently noticed that even though my skill has improved the hits on my artwork has reduced. It's not just me but I've noticed other artist that I respect have had drops in their hits. I equate it to what I've started to call the Naked Lady Rule - The only artwork that seems to garner much attention is that which centers around a scantily clad or naked women. When you go to the gallerys opening page of new stuff 2/3 seems to be entries to the pin-up gallery. Even in some of the lesser contest, all the winners tend to follow the Naked Lady rule.
I'm not stating this as a form of sore grapes, it's just an observation. What do you think, I'm right or wrong? What are your observations?
,darthuv

It's something advertisers learned years ago, sex sells. Don't think for a minute that Naked Ladies wouldn't be all over the TV screens in the US if the FCC would allow it, they are in Europe and Japan, even in the comercials. Nothing gets someone's attention faster than a Naked Lady.

......unless it's a Naked Lady with a very sharp sword in her hand.

....Or a rather large gun and a look that says she knows how to use it.

you might be interested in some of the discussions in teh following threads: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=2029471 http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=2026920 http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=1979586 http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=1988580 cara

You are right by this. So far I have avoided to show to much naked skin in my pictures but I feel the trend to do it too. Why ? Because I like it ! But sometimes when I go to the gallery I choose "all new - sci-fi" or "all new - cartoons" because naked skin is boring if you have to much of it.

I am getting the same. Like many, I have no skill or aptitude as a pornographer.

The essence of being a pornographer is that no skill or aptitude is required, only the intention.

'Don't think for a minute that Naked Ladies wouldn't be all over the TV screens in the US if the FCC would allow it, they are in Europe and Japan, even in the comercials' I live in Europe but I'm obviously watching the wrong adverts :P

I live in germany and we have nekkid woman and men in the commercials for shower gel or body lotion or parfume or Burger King (together with a nekkid guy in bed chaining him to the bedpost) or for whatever. And those commercials are not only shown in the evening but during the day too. Hawke, maybe you are living in the wrong european country? ;-)

And don't forget all the naked girls each night on DSF ! (Deutsches Sportfernsehen) They woudn't broadcast these girls if no one would be watching.

'Hawke, maybe you are living in the wrong european country? ;-)' :( I live in the UK - no nekkid ladies here :( Maybe I could trade houses with someone in another country who doesn't like nekkid ladies ;D

darthuv: If you have no nekkid ladies, only young children, people with peacemakers, homosexuals and mentally retarded will view your post ;)

Does it matter how many hits you get?

I am not a child. I do not have a (heart pacemaker?). I am not homosexual. I am not mentally retarded. But I still have other interests than tits and bums.

Well, so do I as there are several more interesting part on the female body! ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) And before anyone mention it. I just realise that both sexes can be homosexual I did of course mean homosexual men. But jokes besides, is it a problem? It's what happens when people are free to choose.

I've done both nudes and others then measured the hits I've gotten and it's not just the nudity that gets it. If you look at the most viewed it's also controversey that gets more than nudity. http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=2650&Start=1&Sectionid=1&filter_genre_id=0&MostWanted=Yes http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=22948&Start=1&Sectionid=1&filter_genre_id=0&MostWanted=Yes http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=68968&Start=1&Sectionid=1&filter_genre_id=0&MostWanted=Yes http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=1098&Start=1&Sectionid=1&filter_genre_id=0&MostWanted=Yes http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=34113&Start=1&Sectionid=1&filter_genre_id=0&MostWanted=Yes Of the top 5 most viewed only 2 have nudity, but 2 have controversy about nudity, 1 has controversy about comments and 1 has a controversy about how it was rendered. Yes sex sells but only so much, if you look at Madonna's career you see that she adopted that tactic fairly early on and passed it on to Britney Spears.

I can agree with Argon. One of my best picture (most comments) has not even a human character on it.

I think my most comments is on my poem "Does Size Really Matter" whihc has no real visuals but lots of innuendo. Some of the images with my writing are a lil more sexy, but I don't think they've gotten more hits or comments than the others... cara

Actually this is getting quite interesting now. When I do an image I usually have an idea and run with it - or more often than not I load something at random, play with it for a couple of hours and see what happens. I don't think at any time I've ever thought 'if I added a naked lady in here I would get lots of hits'. I think most people make an image the same way - if it ends up with a naked lady (or guy for that matter) then thats just how it goes, it's not necessarily a calculated attempt to get lots and lots of hits :)

It's obviously quite different from the image galleries thumbs and the writer's gallery thumbs but as of like 9:30 this morning I had 77 items in my gallery with totals of 913 comments and 6272 views. That's an average 11.8 comments/image and 81.5 views/image. However; my biggest hits were: 338 on my entry for the Chivalry Lives contest and my thumb was a pair of PVC boots; 292 on "Does Size Really Matter?" which has a thumb that repeats the title; 273 on "Goodbye Christopher, Superman is dead" which has a thumb of Chris Reeve as Superman; 231 on "Scars" which has a thumb of my naked back, showing my heart operation scars, and 213 on "Stolen Moments" which has a thumb showing cleavage and clothed breasts. My poem which has been the featured Writer's image for the month has 67 views and 9 comments - but there are no ppl in the thumb or image. BUt going from this, I still wouldn't say that nudity or suggestion of nudity ALWAYS gets the top hits... but, again, bear in mind I'm talking about the Writer's Gallery in this reply. cara

The most hit image in my gallery has...er...a piccy of animedoll's ass as the thumb :D (Just shy of 1000 hits :D) Can't blame people though - she does have a nice ass ^_^

LOL!!!! cara

Oh, it's not an unwritten rule. Didn't you see the TOS change? Better be careful, or you'll drop below your T&A quota. ;)

I was on a business trip to France with an, shall we say, agressively American coworker. As we were walking around town, we kept seeing this add on street corner marques that was just a naked woman standing there, shown from slightly below waist up. Finally he got too curious, turned to our host, and asked "What is that an ad for? Obviously it's not clothes." :)

so what WAS it an ad for? don't leave us hanging ;> cara

Oops, sorry. It was for breast cancer awareness. Us Americans only get pink ribbons, you see. ;)

ahhh. Well, anything that draws ppl to be aware of the issue of breast cancer is worthwhile (my Mom died of met. bone cancer from the breast in November). cara

Maybe the nudity in my images isn't all it could then, since the ones I did for the Naked Angel Tarot have the least amout of views in my gallery. But the 1 I did as a joke on my typography teacher (No Font for You!) has some of the highest. It has to be something more than just nudity that gets the hits

I've never left anything up in my gallery with un-clthd peopel, the missus would be..upset..;) Actually, the one 'poser' pic with the most 'hits' was done in Bryce..;)
I remember landing in Milan once, and riding on the bus, when we passed a billboard with a woman en-desh-abile (pardon the innuendos and misspellings, but work has a scanning system on the firewall..;)..woke me up..;)

That's why there are so many of them. What I find of interest is how many naked ladies are created by ladies. Ladies are beautiful, so what better subject matter can there be. Nothing makes a field of plain grass, or mountain scene, or roman temple more eye catching than placing a naked or half naked lady into it. It becomes even more interesting when augmented morphs come into play. An image of a plain sword is much sharper when held by a naked lady. Armor is nothing more than a shapely tin can unless filled by a naked lady. Naked men don't seem to pose themselves near as much in the gallery here, not sure why, but it be nice to see some variance in the word naked from both sides. Naked ladies have more parts per million than the limited male that only has a few things to sport, there are much more options in the facial expressions and hair alone, nevermind the boob wheel turns. Naked ladies appeal and sell much more. The banner ads reflect this too.

... as several people here seem to think. I don't mean you, darthuv - you've just observed the obvious and inevitable, that naked female bodies are endlessly interesting to a LOT of people. Including me :o) Funny, I must be a stupid, immature, pimply, lonely kid with no clue since I like beautiful and/or naked women endlessly. LOL! (48, happily married, been there, done that, but still a mammal and a male until I die) Get a life people. :] Fish

If you are so worried about how many hits your image gets, post elswhere and quit complaining. Number of hits DOES NOT equate to quality.

"Number of hits DOES NOT equate to quality" Quite true! cara

The struggle between Beastly Urges and Intellect goes on.

Attached Link: Live the adventure of the Neverending Battle!

Isn't that the nature of the evolution of the ego? Just have to balance the former with the latter. History is replete with example of the dangers of too much repression and also of hedonistic excesses. But there seems to be a lot more factors involved in the amount of views than just nudity as cagewench pointed out in post #5 and I observed in post #17. If you have so many with nudity than what else distinguishes them different amount of views they get?

"The struggle between Beastly Urges and Intellect goes on. " If you think about nekkid women, which side is winning?

I would consider the fact that the hits are coming from people who either mostly producing nudie pics themselves or people who don't even use poser but want to see 3D chicks. I've noticed that my hits have leveled off, but I'm not sure if that has to do with the number of nudie pics or the fact that I left a genre I was known for (noir)...

One of my attempts was this "Hotgirls" image set in one of 3DLands's factories.

My most recent gallery posting was of a nude female jellyfish nebula. I tried to make the tendrils undulate like an underwater/outer space pinup's tendrils might undulate, but the image didn't get tons of hits. Maybe that's because I forgot to use the nudity tag? Or maybe I should have done glowing postwork pseudo-airbrushed hair instad of using Poser 5 dynamic hair, I'm not sure. Next time I'll Photoshop a centerfold staple into the center of my nekkid jellyfish nebula pinup. That'll probably help. Or maybe I should crop a close-up of the undulating tendrils for my thumbnail...

All I got to say is that I likes to see 'da boobies and butts 'cause dem poser girls drive me nutts! Or to put it more simply: If you want my hit, the thumb needs a tit!

I did one pic, just for giggles..of the largest pair of mamm's anyone had seen..just for a few days..got almost as many hits for it as my sci-fi stuff..;) I dunno..there's another, nameless (riight) site that specializes in that sorta thang..;) for those that like them, they're fine..but to everything it's time and place..

I did a NVIATWAS except I had her as a chalk-outline (with nipples) after being killed by the Dragon. The Dragon was being hauled off to jail. TNA gets boring after a while, no offense to moonbiter. I have tended to skip over the pinups when I'm in the galleries. Quite honestly, I have started visiting the galleries here less and less. There are a few peak periods when the exceptional artists are receiving the most attention, but most of the time these TNA pieces are what appeals to the viewers. My suggestion is to spend as much time developing your image so that it is not skipped by even those who are sick of boobs. Catchy titles and thumbnails help. Plus every once in a while tell someone you used something they made for your image...

BTW, my post wasn't to say there isn't any genuinely deceit nudes/pin-ups in the gallery. A great deal of them do have the lighting, pose, and composition of really good art. The problem is that they tend to blend in with some of the others which are not as well done. Also, it doesn't hurt to go into the galleries once in a while and comment on the images that you like and be supportive of those who are trying to do more than meer nudie pics. Its a bit tedious as there is just so many images posted. Right now I'm on the 24th page of the poser gallery and it just has images from the past 2 days.

Message edited on: 12/20/2004 22:42

Well that was fun to read all the comments. Now to form a coherent reply. First, It is true that whenever you make a gernalization you tend to leave other factors out. The one picture I have, that has gotten far more hits than anything else was a controversial work:

http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=86724&Start=37&Artist= darthuv&ByArtist=Yes

The composition artistically is pretty simple, but it was just raw unfilter emotion from the shock of Sept. 11th that fueled it's creation. So, true I accept controversey can trump the Naked Lady rule .

Second, I not saying, "I don't want 'those' people to post here". I'm a pretty easygoing live and let live kind of guy. I just get bothered sometimes when it feels like the the pin-up people are taking over instead of all of us in harmony together as a community. And it's not that I've never use nudity myself in my work, but I do draw a line between nude and naked (don't know the difference, compare a greek statue to Hustlers magazine and should become clear). In fact my only work that has won a place in a contest here does sort of fit the Naked Lady rule, she's not naked but scantily clad.
http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=535316&Start=1&Artist= darthuv&ByArtist=Yes

I try to stay away from the naked stuff because I am a practicing Christian (Yes, those do still exist in the world).

Third, the comments that states hit don't equate to good art. True. So, why does it matter to me? Well, here's where I admit I'm guilty. I like my works to get attention. I like to get praise. I like to win contest. I like to be honored through my creations. I've created it, sent it out in to the world, now I want the world to noticed it for good. I've written a visual story, and I want it read. I post for other people to see. And if few hear my creations voice I get disappointed. This maybe partly from ego, but do you feel your artwork has a life of it's own if no one looks at it?
,darthuv

Well, its not exactly hard to figure out why there are tones of nudes on this site. Most computer users are male. Most web surfers are male as well. BTW, per a recent survey, women visit and pay for porn sites more than men. When I lived in germany I was 5 years old. I remember whatchiung a childrens program that had a scene of a totally nude mon breast feeding her baby. I like living in the country I was born in but I have to say that this country is very much the prude by comaprision. pjanak

"I try to stay away from the naked stuff because I am a practicing Christian (Yes, those do still exist in the world)." And if God had meant us to go around naked, we'd have been BORN that way ...

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=2043922

Well maybe God thought we needed a lot more practice *wink* And the reason Europe doesn't have as many prudes is they were smart enough to ship the Puritans to America, more is the pity. As was said in another thread ***"The fact that Poser has opened up a world of possibilities for more people to express themselves is wonderful. The artistic purists will always be disappointed that "their" art form has been diluted, that the overall level of talent has declined, etc. My only suggestion is for them to try to accept and even perhaps embrace the notion that now many more people can enjoy the sense of joy and fulfillment that art has brought them, each in their own way. On the surface it may seem that there is less originality but to each person, their creation is original, it comes from their individual attempt to express something, even if they consciously set out to emulate something they admire."*** Artists has been doing nudes for centuries and the appeal never seems the wane so I'd expect that in any medium that comes along it would always be a major theme. The skill and the way they're represented is always going to vary so some will be done better than others.

darthuv asked: "do you feel your artwork has a life of it's own if no one looks at it?" I'd say "yes". But I write primarily for myself. If no one sees what I write, it doesn't negate the fact that I wrote it. Poetry-wise, it's cheap therapy... I write it out and it has less of a hold on me. That being said, I also write and share my work so that other people who may feel the same or similar to the way that I do, whether or not they've had the same life experiences, can realize that they are not alone in this world and that other people do understand. Kind of the same way I view my livejournal and choose to leave certain entries public... cara