This year my resolution was to draw more and try to push my art to the next level. But I wasn’t going to go the conventional route of doing some sketching every day and practicing anatomy. That’s boring and I find it hard to be consistent with that. Instead, I’ve always learned best when I set myself an ambitious project and learn the skills I need to as I go. No practicing, no test runs, just throwing myself into the deep end; sink or swim.

This was definitely a trust-the-process experience. There were many times I wanted to give up on this piece, but I’m glad I persevered.

The inspiration for this came from the curiosity to see if there was a way to combine the sensibilities of classical art with porn, and erotic fan art. I find most porn and erotic art ugly because it is so base, with little regard to lighting or composition. To me, the technical beauty of the image is essential to the pleasure of the image, be it aesthetic or erotic.

I’ve never drawn erotic art before, so off I went to Porn Hub for anatomy reference. What I saw was quite miserable, it’s all so cold, and mechanical, and vulgar. To remedy this, I combined that with my knowledge of Romantic art and Greek sculptures to bring in the warmth, and gentleness, and humanity. Sex should be a wonderful, loving thing, I wanted to capture that. I felt there was such a connection between my Dark Urge character Durga, Lae’zel, and Gale, which is why I chose them as subject matter.

When I began this project months ago, I had no idea I was going to be rendering it in watercolour. I just drew the initial sketch in my regular sketchpad. Once I had completed it, I felt watercolour was right, but I had no idea if this paper could handle it. It held up surprisingly well, but the process of painting was slow because I had to wait until it was fully dried between layers, it took days. Each step of this process I kept thinking “Oh no, I’ve fucked up. I should quit and start over again”. The paper ended up quite shrivelled, but I persisted. I found I could even ink on top of the painted paper. It was actually looking far better than I anticipated, despite being a crinkled mess. I had no idea how the illustration would handle being smoothed with an iron, if the paint and ink would remain unchanged by the heat. I just went for it and it turned out completely fine.

This project has definitely furthered my art and taught me not to panic more than sketching anatomy would have.