Quote - It seems that the Poserverse is indeed a small pool. Just seeing the same names at the various sites is an indication. Was poking around over at Animotions and Renderotica and it felt pretty vacant (especially Animotions, the forum was kinda depressing). As far as communication goes I only really engage in interactions here at Renderosity, for whatever that's worth... at the other sites I go by a different user name in any case.

Along this line of thought I'm always intrigued when people publicly quit posting on a forum for various reasons, by this I mean those that announce that they will no longer be attending the festivities for various reasons. Kind of like a strange suicide note, don'tcha think? Also, there seems to be less power user commentary here than there used to be... or maybe this is my imagination?

As far as erotic art goes, I've pretty much drifted away from interest in that but when I was younger used to draw erotic/pornographic comixs so maybe that subject matter interest has just run its course. Ironic that now that I'm playing around with Poser, a software that lends itself so well to such subject matter, I no longer have the compulsion to create such imagery. I think too that the digital information age and the ready availability of this subject matter in it's myriad forms has normalized it to the extent that it no longer has the potency or mystique that it once did, there's no longer the need to create these fantasies as something just as good or better can be found in the realm of the "real" (or a closer to it layer of simulation)...

or maybe I'm just becoming a boring old dude now.

 

Apologizing to DireLilith for grinching her thread but the problem is I think boredom. If you aren't growing as a visual communicator (intentionally called instead of ARTIST) you and your work (or is it your work AND YOU!?) get stale and once the thrill is gone there seems no reason to continuecreating it. Once the challenge is gone so is the fun. Also, were you doing the erotic art comics for a living?

if you weren't, the incentive that a huge fan base or  distribution network legitimizing your comic creation efforts, has a tendency of feeding the creative frenzy. There are many artist that have been creating that art form longer than me and are still quite loved, viewd and collected by their constituents and adoring fan base. I have a huge collection of published works by Manara, Crepax, Corben, Serpieri and many others (some of which, older, only recently passed away) who are still quit active in the genre.

The internet being the greatest repository of pictures the world has ever experienced has pretty much killed my feeding frenzy for buying/collecting fanzines, printed comics or books. Always hungry for inspiration just to keep my juices from drying up and making me feel creatively baron, I use it instead which is far less costly and space saving. The collection has no value of course, but then neither will my huge printed library have any value once I am dead especially if whoever inherits it has neither any desire in the content or interest in pricing it all out for its' intrinsic collectable value. There are some really valuable pieces there but when we're dead that value is moot.

I try t avoid getting inspiration from the Poser sites in general mainly because the work there seems inbred and stale...like noone creating it has grown.....or sacarine. Got tired of elves and faeries long ago and it seems with all Poser merchants have to offer you see nothing but CU portraits of the figures.  The images are glitzier and the figures richer but you expect to see that as the models get more realistic and the lighting of the applications better. But lets face it Poser is really not used alone by many real 3D artists. The figures, makeup, hair, props, poses and even the lighting are all plug-and-render for the most part. Seems noone uses the character morph dials much judging from the sameness of the figures rendered. Man I spend hours spinning those damn dials to create new figures and rarely even come up with a final finished render. Just to mnd numbing and time sucking fun!

I have always tried creating my stuff as I used to do as a professional photographer, by being a purist whenever possible. I tried using all the principle elements in the Poser stage whenever possible and working the elements and posing and crappy lighting to the best of my admittedly limited skills set allowed and sometimes, even after all these years since P4 dropped into my life, I still surprise myself when I come out with something different.

There is a fine line between porno and erotica. I don't do porno. It's boring as were the old porno images and films of yesteryear with the stupid forced humor, crappy actors, chincy sets and spit-shallow story lines. But you get the films from say the New York Erotic Film Festival or any of the many other high brow erotica purveyors and showcases and you can see the difference quickly. Erotica I am glad to see, like photography did, is finally coming of its own and getting more and more accepted.

Renderotica, aside from the majority on the free gallery section is comprised of Poser beginners and/or erotic art newbies learning the trade so to speak. My work I think (and I have been told via PM by some of the MODS and other creators and viewers there), stands out a bit, it's different and even classier. I think the reason for that is I find the erotic moment not the "plundering, dirty and wet act" (as it has been described to me by many who hate erotica in general) itself but the moments immediately before or after that very personal view.Leaving a bit open for interpretation or wonder always, in my opinion, makes an image more intriguing and therefore erotic when you leave out a bit and not include it all. Of course some of members there hate my stuff for the same reason but that's cool I am glad they cn't use for their quick fix!  LOL

The good artists who have been at Renderotica for a long time are displaying the really good stuff in the paid gallery which seems like a different world, both quality and content wise. Debra and friend sold the site to someone else and I believe still owns and runs Animotions (which at its onset had some good stuff for the Superhero comic art fans in Poser. It's lost a lot of juice as everyone has moved on and P4 figures were no longer supported correctly in the new versions of the application.

I have been into reading, writing, viewing, collecting and creating Erotica and Erotic Art since I was in third grade and having just turned 60 I can say without embarrassment I still enjoy much of it. There is a lot of poop being created and posted but once in a while you do find some brilliant stuff just not as much as you would like to see in the Poser community. I really wish I had never stopped photographing and drawing/painting. Damn Poser killed all that for me and having lost it in the past 20 years I just can't seem to find the MUSE for those methods of art creation (which is why I can no longer call what I do ART or myself an Artist).   :(