Time for group art-beta, I think.
Feb. 1st, 2010 08:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
So. The current Ship Wars prompt is porn. PORNZ. Which I cannot write to save my life (I tried, I did, and yeah that was weird and now I want Spock/Pike, but that's another story).
Then I started thinking about IDIC - Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations - which seems to me a) potentially porny, and b) a damn good philosophy.
And
melithiel said I should do strange alien porn.
The upshot of all this is that I'm in the middle of making strange alien porn out of clay. Eventually, I'd like to get some nice photographs of these clay things with IDIC somewhere on them. There's no purpose to this, other than my own amusement, but. BUT. Here's where you come in, dear friends: I'm stuck. I need, for lack of a better word, art-betas. I've been putting some of this on
team_crackship but figured I'd alternate here and there to avoid spamming.
These are works in progress. What I'm looking for, from you, is feedback both general & specific. General, as in, are they porny, do they work, is there anything off about them. Specific, as in, some of them have particular questions.
Blanket warning: this is PORN and therefore NSFW. It has clay people with BITS and also things that are STRANGE. But I hope it's, well, pretty, for porn.
Preview!

IDIC #1: Tentacle Guy
Medium: water-based red clay, oil-based white clay
Status: closest to being finished. The clay's still wet and can be played with.
The basic situation: a torso with some tentacles.

I've been playing with lighting and shadows:

And with the effect of having the clay really wet:

I like those pictures. Problems start arising when I try to get the IDIC in. I'd really REALLY like to have the whole phrase spelled out, so that it'd be comprehensible even to people who don't know Star Trek. But I'm having issues.
For instance, here's a shot with just the letters. I like the color & texture of the brown paper, but. I dunno.

Specific for tentacle guy:
1. Any good ideas for backgrounds, or for getting the IDIC in?
IDIC #2: Andorian/MaybeRomulan
Medium: red & white water-based clay
Status: Mid-modeling. Having some issues.
Here's the basic thing:

And from above:

The grey dude will get some antennae:

At the moment I'm a little pissed off with these guys, because - I dunno. Something's just off about it. I'm not entirely sure where I'm going.
Specific for Andorian:
1. I don't really know. Something's weird.
2. Brown dude. What should I do with his arms? They could just end, like they do. They could go out to the sides. There was a suggestion of putting one on Andorian's head, but I think there's something compositionally finicky about that.
3. Brown dude again. Leave him as generic humanoid, or try to specify a race? He could get tattoos and be a Sad-Romulan (the tattoos are for mourning, right?).
IDIC #3: Flowerpants
Medium: white water-based clay
Status: Chillin.
Okay, here's her story. There's an Alfred Bester book - I don't remember the title; the one with the soul shop and the guy and Glory the snake girl - and when Glory and the guy have their sex scene there's something about her "opening like a flower". Or something. I read this thing when I was maybe twelve, but that image stuck.
Later I read a fic where Gaila's green for reasons of photosynthesis. Flowerpants is clearly not green, but I suppose she could be Orion. Anyway.
She probably won't end up with tentacles, but I had some handy so I put them on her.

Specific for Flowerpants:
1. Is she too weird? Because I kind of like her.
2. Her, um, flower needs some work, because the clay is awfully sticky at that scale. If I were to make the flower out of whitish modeling clay, would it no longer look like a part of her?
3. Who or what should she be partnered with, if anybody? I'm not up for anything super elaborate. Maybe a tattooed Romulan hand somewhere?
IDIC #4: I don't even know.
I'd really like to have a fourth IDIC thing, because, you know, four words. It's a nice number. Images can be arranged in a little grid. BUT. Not sure what I could use.
I'd thought maybe Madeline-the-alien, but she ended up looking like some strange Keenser thing. Especially when wet:

Then I tried to make her kiss Kelvin-medic-alien:


But a) those look silly, and b) Madeline's on the Enterprise, not the Kelvin, so um. Dammit.
Then I gave up and everybody had an orgy on my desk:

And also Spock caught a terrible space disease and his own leg started growing out of his head:

Poor Spock.
Specific for unknown IDIC 4:
1. Any ideas? I like Kelvin-medic's head. Any ideas as to what I could do with her?
2. Or, without Kelvin-medic. Ideas for a fourth piece (grouping, numbers, types of people)?
So that's all I have. Any suggestions or ideas or comments are welcome.
Then I started thinking about IDIC - Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations - which seems to me a) potentially porny, and b) a damn good philosophy.
And
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
The upshot of all this is that I'm in the middle of making strange alien porn out of clay. Eventually, I'd like to get some nice photographs of these clay things with IDIC somewhere on them. There's no purpose to this, other than my own amusement, but. BUT. Here's where you come in, dear friends: I'm stuck. I need, for lack of a better word, art-betas. I've been putting some of this on
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
These are works in progress. What I'm looking for, from you, is feedback both general & specific. General, as in, are they porny, do they work, is there anything off about them. Specific, as in, some of them have particular questions.
Blanket warning: this is PORN and therefore NSFW. It has clay people with BITS and also things that are STRANGE. But I hope it's, well, pretty, for porn.
Preview!
IDIC #1: Tentacle Guy
Medium: water-based red clay, oil-based white clay
Status: closest to being finished. The clay's still wet and can be played with.
The basic situation: a torso with some tentacles.
I've been playing with lighting and shadows:
And with the effect of having the clay really wet:
I like those pictures. Problems start arising when I try to get the IDIC in. I'd really REALLY like to have the whole phrase spelled out, so that it'd be comprehensible even to people who don't know Star Trek. But I'm having issues.
For instance, here's a shot with just the letters. I like the color & texture of the brown paper, but. I dunno.
Specific for tentacle guy:
1. Any good ideas for backgrounds, or for getting the IDIC in?
IDIC #2: Andorian/MaybeRomulan
Medium: red & white water-based clay
Status: Mid-modeling. Having some issues.
Here's the basic thing:
And from above:
The grey dude will get some antennae:
At the moment I'm a little pissed off with these guys, because - I dunno. Something's just off about it. I'm not entirely sure where I'm going.
Specific for Andorian:
1. I don't really know. Something's weird.
2. Brown dude. What should I do with his arms? They could just end, like they do. They could go out to the sides. There was a suggestion of putting one on Andorian's head, but I think there's something compositionally finicky about that.
3. Brown dude again. Leave him as generic humanoid, or try to specify a race? He could get tattoos and be a Sad-Romulan (the tattoos are for mourning, right?).
IDIC #3: Flowerpants
Medium: white water-based clay
Status: Chillin.
Okay, here's her story. There's an Alfred Bester book - I don't remember the title; the one with the soul shop and the guy and Glory the snake girl - and when Glory and the guy have their sex scene there's something about her "opening like a flower". Or something. I read this thing when I was maybe twelve, but that image stuck.
Later I read a fic where Gaila's green for reasons of photosynthesis. Flowerpants is clearly not green, but I suppose she could be Orion. Anyway.
She probably won't end up with tentacles, but I had some handy so I put them on her.
Specific for Flowerpants:
1. Is she too weird? Because I kind of like her.
2. Her, um, flower needs some work, because the clay is awfully sticky at that scale. If I were to make the flower out of whitish modeling clay, would it no longer look like a part of her?
3. Who or what should she be partnered with, if anybody? I'm not up for anything super elaborate. Maybe a tattooed Romulan hand somewhere?
IDIC #4: I don't even know.
I'd really like to have a fourth IDIC thing, because, you know, four words. It's a nice number. Images can be arranged in a little grid. BUT. Not sure what I could use.
I'd thought maybe Madeline-the-alien, but she ended up looking like some strange Keenser thing. Especially when wet:
Then I tried to make her kiss Kelvin-medic-alien:
But a) those look silly, and b) Madeline's on the Enterprise, not the Kelvin, so um. Dammit.
Then I gave up and everybody had an orgy on my desk:
And also Spock caught a terrible space disease and his own leg started growing out of his head:
Poor Spock.
Specific for unknown IDIC 4:
1. Any ideas? I like Kelvin-medic's head. Any ideas as to what I could do with her?
2. Or, without Kelvin-medic. Ideas for a fourth piece (grouping, numbers, types of people)?
So that's all I have. Any suggestions or ideas or comments are welcome.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-02 02:42 am (UTC)#1 is... uh... somewhat pornographic. Which I suppose is the point. I'm impressed with it.
In other news, in #2 I think the brown guy's arms going off to the side is fine. If you want to put more effort into it, have him gripping some bedsheets :)
I'm rather fond of #3, but perhaps that's because you don't do that many female sculpts, and I'd like to see more. And no, not just because I want to see more naked women. If you decided to do the flower in a different clay color and don't like how it looks, you could always put a think coat of paint on afterwards...
Not sure about #4. I like the Madeline mask-like bit, but the other three fit together very well without it and the other face. Maybe keep them as separate pieces?
no subject
Date: 2010-02-02 02:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-02 02:50 am (UTC)I like Flowerpants, too. I might keep her around when all this is done.
Originally the plan was, 1 guy/guy, 1 girl/girl, 1 guy/girl, and 1 weird or multiple. I don't think the plan is working out.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-02 02:55 am (UTC)I still have the Cupcake-you. He's in a box with Spock & Bones...HM IDEAS.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 12:17 am (UTC)#2: I think I like this one best from above.
#3: She's not too weird. I have definitely read sci-fi with plant women with...flowers. Maybe she would be more interesting with more leaves somewhere? Maybe it would be cute to put her with a sun creature, so she could...photosynthesize?
#4: Kelvin medic/Kirk's mom. Hurt/comfort porn!
IDIC: You've got four pictures, right? Put one word in each picture.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 06:03 am (UTC)Okay, here's an attempt at this critique stuff; I'm not an artist but I did get a grad degree in art history, so surely that qualifies me for SOMETHING.
#1: is my favorite. Is it supposed to remain anonymous? Because for some reason i think it'd be extremely hot if that were Spock. IDEK. (I guess it is, b/c you're putting in IDIC?) But overall, the piece works very well in the fluid articulation of the torso and the tentacles; you can almost /see/ the tentacles and person writhing together. Very sensual. One thing I would suggest is maybe turning the person's head to the side to give it even more of a sense of movement. And, as someone else said, (although I dunno what the final color palette will be) maybe tinting the tentacles.
As for working IDIC in...hm. If you're trying to work it into the tableau naturally... maybe have it written on a padd? so it's like, the guy was working on his padd and maybe looking up the acronym and then was suddenly ambushed by tentacle monster. XD
#2: Hm. Posture is perhaps the culprit? It's a very subtle thing, but I'm thinking the back needs more arch, the back pressed more into the floor. Once the hands are finished I think it'll stop looking so off to you. LOL. As for hand position--one hand grabbing at the shoulder/head and the other thrown over his head? The Andorian could probably have one hand on the guy's cock while he's sucking it and the other on the guy's thigh to keep his legs spread.
#3: Does it matter if the flower part is made out of another kind of clay? Are you painting these? You could even paint her flower a diff color, for contrast (eg, bright orange flower against green skin--she has orange/red hair anyways, doesn't she?)
#4: She doesn't look like Keenser to me, she looks like...I guess that alien woman's name is Madeline? keenser is a lot more...reptilian in a crocodile sort of way.
So yeah. So far I'm loving all four. Are they supposed to be all one set? One observation/suggestion I'd make for the 3 NSFW ones, or if you're adding to the collection is, all three charas are on their backs in similar positions, so perhaps that'll make it harder for you to make each sculpture very distinctly different (esp between #1, and #3, of which difference is mainly gender). Perhaps if you're making more figures later, they can be on their hands/knees, or on their knees, something like that?
Hope this helped.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 11:22 pm (UTC)I hadn't planned on painting them, both because I like the way wet clay reflects light and because half of the stuff is modeling clay and won't ever dry. And because of school and time and stuff.
Tentacle guy could certainly be Spock, but I've been avoiding showing people's hair, because I'm not sure about the color/texture thing. Clay hair looks funny. I should probably give him a proper head and face and things - right now he (and everyone else, really) are just jawlines with noses.
You have an excellent point about everybody being on their backs. Flowergirl can be made to sit up more, and I'll try that. She'll also get something other than tentacles, to further differentiate her from #1. I'm leaning towards scrapping Madeline & Kelvinmedic entirely and making something else, just because the faces don't seem to fit when everybody else is torsos.
So yeah, thanks again so much for feedback! I'm enough of an artist that I can make stuff, but not enough that I have a great sense of composition and so on. It's amazingly helpful to be able to post stuff and have people look at it.
(This is sort of on hold until the weekend, because I have schoolwork to do instead, but I'll make another post when things are moving along.)
no subject
Date: 2010-02-08 09:09 pm (UTC)Thoughts: (1) of all people's hair, Spock's could probably be done in clay and not look unnatural, since it's kind of a little hair-helmet already. Although (2) I don't think it's totally necessary because you could just identify him with pointy ears. Maybe the hint of a slanted eyebrow, but I don't think it has to be fancy. For some reason I thought the torso was Spock as soon as I saw it, but that might be because a good friend of mine has a Spock/tentacle obsession.
I love the antennae, btw!
no subject
Date: 2010-02-08 09:59 pm (UTC)Poor tentacle-dude. His neck's a little weak and his head keeps falling off. The ears I can definitely make pointy, though, and I'll see about giving him some sort of hair.
Andorian hair is another worry. All the Andorians I've seen have floppy or feathery white stuff, but I'm leaning towards leaving this one bald.
He has brown-maybe-Romulan to keep his head warm?Thanks for the feedback! This project is really benefiting from eyes that are not mine. :D
no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 08:48 pm (UTC)Did you update this?
I can't decide whether I love pic three or four more!
Gorgeous!!!!
Did you continue to work on the Andorian?
I luuuuuuvvvv the Andorian!
no subject
Date: 2010-02-03 11:24 pm (UTC)I worked on Andorian some, yeah. I think
They're on hold until the weekend so I can get schoolwork done. :P
no subject
Date: 2010-02-04 08:03 pm (UTC)Do you have an oven?!
Or are you going to bring them somewhere to bake them?
Because I want you to take a picture of the dude's face when you hand it over for baking :D :D :D :D
no subject
Date: 2010-02-05 02:52 am (UTC)Nah, if I like them enough to want to keep, I'll just let them airdry. Don't even know where there's a kiln around here.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-08 02:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-08 02:59 am (UTC)I was working on her a little today and I think you have a good point there. I might try mixing that gray clay with some other stuff, or maybe letting her surface skin dry and keeping the flower wet. Hmmm.