We Draw Furry Porn: 6 Things We've Learned On The Job
Some of the people reading this have no idea what "furry porn" even is. Some of the people reading this have furry porn open in another browser tab and their shirt is concealing several furry porn tattoos. Well, to catch everyone up: It's a genre of artwork that depicts humanoid animals performing sex acts that would in many cases be physically impossible in our universe. The audience is a group of people who in real life often assume an animal persona, often in costume, and sometimes for sexual purposes. Here's a tame one in which both partners still have their jockstraps on:
If you think about it, it's not much more implausible than pizza delivery guys constantly getting laid.
There is a lot of this on the Internet. A lot. And that immediately raises the question: Who in the hell draws this stuff? We decided to find out. We talked to six artists, who told us what it's like to make a living filling this niche.
You Negotiate Ejaculation
Most furry porn is done on commission. The client emails the artist a description of what they want to see, often along with reference material ("can you make it look like Matisse's 'Blue Nude,' but as my cow persona with a boner?"). Then the artist arts it up and the client gets a chance to request revisions. It's the adult elements where people tend to get picky.
People are paying good money (commissions run from 10 bucks to several hundred dollars, depending on the complexity) for art that's providing them pleasure, so it makes sense that they want every detail to be perfect. But porn is first and foremost still a business, so you end up having very professional, polite, and emotionless conversations about making a camel's nipples bigger or having a squirrel ejaculate further. Arania, an artist who specializes in human-to-animal transformations, described the most common sticking points:
" are some of the most common and easiest to edit, fortunately. Some customers are very particular about the body build: 'Can you make her torso a little thicker?' Or, 'Can you make the arms more heavily muscled?' I also get requests for tweaks of the facial expressions, like a character's mouth open in a shout instead of closed. Some people also really enjoy the clothes-tearing aspect of a transformation, so I get, 'Can I see some more clothes ripping here, more scraps of bursting clothes?'"
"Bigger pokeballs, please."
So that's your workday, hours of drawing and revising wolf boners so the veins really pop. Most of the artists we talked to found these kinds of requests weird at first, but they soon became routine. So while you might check your email and think, "Oh, great, Steve wants the budget spreadsheet revised again," their mornings start with, "Oh, great, Steve wants his alpaca cumming even harder. Fiiine, but this is the last change he gets, otherwise my goat orgy is going to be late."
You can thicken the dog cocks in a hot tub gangbang only so much before it loses all meaning.
Everyone made it clear that most of their clients are great. The average person understands that artists need to get paid and move on and, as Arania pointed out, even people anonymously commissioning furry porn over the Internet can be a little self-conscious and don't want to make waves. But another artist we talked to, Kabier, has definitely run into troublemakers: "One of the worst experiences I had was them telling me I forgot a yellow marking the size of a penny on their character's nose, and that they wouldn't upload it to their gallery unless I added it."
Chewy has also run into things like this. That's the third artist we talked to; we didn't interview Chewbacca. "I have definitely witnessed or heard about my fair share of picky customers who do things like ask the artist to enlarge the size of a dick again and again only to then ask them to shrink it back down."
It's fine to get your money's worth, but at a certain point the biggest dick is you.
It's Gone From A Niche To An Industry
By now we're guessing some readers are scratching their heads and thinking, "What the hell is wrong with these kids today? Back in my day we jerked off to Sears catalogs and then felt guilty for a week, and that's the way we liked it!" Furry porn, and the furry community in general, grew up with the Internet, and while it may still be relatively small, it's capable of throwing some serious cash around. Every artist agreed it would have been impossible to make a living doing this as recently as 10 years ago. But today they constantly have multiple projects going and portfolios with hundreds of completed works, and they find themselves in ever-increasing demand.
Arania drew to help pay for college, but by the time she graduated she realized she could make a better living drawing animal tumescence than doing the thing she went to college for (hey, someday maybe you'll be able to get a degree in this!). The fourth artist we talked to, Saucy, also found it more stable than pursuing a traditional career. "Before doing it full-time, I actually worked for a video game company, then an animation studio. But video game production wasn't secure enough, and animation was much too stressful. It's become a more popular thing, too. And more trends are popping up left and right."
Trends aren't the only things popping up.
Those trends include Patreon, a crowdfunding platform that can add a few hundred bucks to your monthly income in exchange for giving your supporters exclusive content; auctions where the winner gets to have their character inserted into a specific scene; and livestreams where people watch you bring dinosaur sex to life. It's all about building your brand as an artist. You're not just selling porn; you're selling yourself. Your style and personality, that is.
The furry community also has its own eBay. Here's an erotic video card game that raised $40,000, and here's an adult My Little Pony comic book that brought in $62,000. Most of the artists we talked to didn't wake up one morning and decide they were in the mood to draw wolves fucking but instead branched out from PG art when they realized it was good business. As Chewy explains, "People tend to be more critical of safe-for-work stuff and expect a higher level of skill. Whereas folks can be more forgiving of technical errors in erotic stuff so long as it presents the content they find arousing."
When you're touching yourself to Twilight Sparkle spoon-feeding herself the seed of whoever's fucking her, the blending in her tail streaks being slightly off won't stop you.
That's not to say the people we talked to are bad artists. But if you're struggling to sell your art, adding a cock or eight won't hurt your chances.
You Really Do Have To Be Prepared For Anything
We're not here to judge what gets your engine running -- that's between you and whoever owns the orifices you want to insert those eggplants into. But from a purely technical standpoint, an email that says, "I'd like you to draw me transforming into a giant butterfly that fucks Ashton Kutcher. I call it The Butterfly Erect," presents artistic challenges you don't find when you're just drawing happy little trees. Arania told us about some of the more unorthodox things she's had to draw:
"Two people turning into a two-headed monster, or tentacle aliens with very little that resembles human anatomy. It can be tricky to figure out how to go from a human to something that doesn't even have a skeleton. I've also dealt with some inanimate transformations, like into a tree." So porn can sometimes involve a lot of very specific research, like the opposite of when you slacked off on your college papers and just watched porn. "There are VERY specific character designs that involve a bunch of different animals or mixing in plants or multiple wings, etc., that require a lot of reference images."
There isn't a lot of preexisting material to crib from in the "man transforms into a giant flying Pokemon" genre.
And there are boundaries, of a sort. Saucy does their most offbeat work under a separate name. "Most of the weirder things, I don't associate to my usual handle. Because while I don't mind drawing really extreme content, the reaction of people is a turn-off. And whether I like it or not, reviews are important. As far as what I'll openly admit to having drawn, there's a comic I've drawn that includes subjects such as 'heavy cum inflation,' 'hyper,' transformation, and 'all the way through' penetration. Let's say that was a challenge." Don't know what any of those terms means or what those images look like? Feel free to Google them! We're pretty sure running them here would require censoring so much of the image it would just be a black square.
In its place, have a chained-up male tiger whose head is the torso of a sexy gagged tigress. It's family-friendly, because nipple tape.
Why use different names for different work if you're already anonymous? Simple business strategy: People who like their porn tamer are going to be scared off if they see the crazy stuff, while people who do want to see a tiger impale a hamster on his enormous dong will think someone who draws a bunch of boring old dolphin-on-snake missionary sex won't be up for the challenge.
And sometimes, as Shiuk explains, you just hit a line you won't cross ... though it's more about technique than morality: "I don't really care to learn how to draw the internals of a human body; I do my best to stay away from strong guro imagery."
Their post-murder sex lives, however, are still fair game.
You May Wind Up Living A Secret Life
Telling loved ones you draw furry porn for a living can range from tricky to impossible, depending on your situation. Kabier works with her boyfriend, and while she doesn't go to her parents and say, "Hey, check out my latest wolf blowjob!" they know and they're supportive. Arania's parents know she draws for a living, and while she suspects they're aware she does "adult" work, it's never discussed. They're happy she's happy, end of story. Saucy's in a similar situation. "Seeing as my parents aren't all that open to pornography, we never talk about it. I am aware that they know of my work, but it's best not to mention it."
Others, like Chewy's parents, have no idea, which can make conversations about how they're paying the bills awkward. "My mom knows I 'draw furry art' and has seen one or two pictures of my clean stuff, but they don't know that I primarily draw porn for a living. It is awkward. I generally just avoid that kind of conversation. I tell people that I do 'digital character design,' which is still true."
"Yep, just a totally normal wolf detective, mom. No triple penetration in this guy's future, no ma'am."
Shiuk flat-out knows his family wouldn't approve ("I come from a heavily religious family; I'm sure they wouldn't"). While Christian furries are absolutely a thing, we suppose the wolf living with the lamb didn't imply anal sex. And if happily making furry porn with your boyfriend is one end of the spectrum, Uba is on the other end. "I am a senior animator at a respectable animation studio. I'll take on a few commissions on the side to get that furry art fix. To be honest, it's exhausting. It's not easy maintaining two identities. None of my friends or co-workers know. They know what 'furry' is and openly mock it, and I'm OK with that. It's just a little disappointing not being able to show my closest art friends a piece I'm proud of and spent a good chunk of time working on."
Even his wife doesn't know. "I took a chance and started working on a weekend. I was really in the groove, working on a massive orgy. I don't usually close my door to avoid suspicion, and I thought my wife was downstairs. She walked in right when I was in the middle of inking a character's sizable tool. I quickly triggered my Alt + Tab muscle memory like I've done countless times. But I tend to have a reference handy as I work. So that took me right to this giant dick. My brain went into panic mode. I punch the mouse straight towards the monitor, clumsily grab at it, slam it back down, and quickly jerk the cursor to my second monitor where absolutely no pictures of dick were present. It seemed like it took me forever, but it must have only been a few seconds because she appeared none the wiser. My head was probably obscuring most of the offending monitor, or she was on her phone."
At least she didn't walk in on the first draft, when the rock-hard horse dicks weren't in proper perspective. That could've been real hard to explain.
Yes, Some Customers Can Be Weird
Most commissioners are just everyday people and, as Chewy explains, that can actually be problematic. "Some people get bashful and will tiptoe around trying to say things like, 'Draw him cumming on the other guy's butthole,' but the artist really appreciates it when you can just be upfront. It makes us feel a lot more stable about a commission knowing we are drawing what they want, rather than guessing."
The last thing an artist wants is to draw too little cream dripping onto the pirate lemur's balls and ruin erections forever.
But then, you run across the occasional creepy type. "Sometimes people get too graphic and personal, usually in comments or in livestream chats." That weirdo fringe scared Saucy out of the job for a while, which isn't easy when you've already decided to draw porn for a living. "It wasn't all that good of an experience at first. I found the comments too vulgar, even for the content I'd draw. I took a break from the fandom. I guess I wasn't ready yet."
Not that anything could prepare you for meeting the creepier fans in person. "Some people decide to give too many personal details and have a hard time separating reality and fiction. There are always people who won't take into consideration the fact that most people might not be interested in knowing what they themselves would do to a character. I've learned to roll my eyes at such comments online, but hearing them out loud is another experience. Hearing strangers' stories of how they'd have sex with something you've drawn is a pretty uncomfortable situation."
Sorry, but no one wants to hear about you adding your pink tentacle to the already double-stuffed bat lady.
But maybe weirdest of all, as Arania discovered, are the people who try to save you from your sinful ways. "Some anonymous person mailed me a book about a teacher's conversion to Christianity signed 'A sincere well-wisher' with a note that was -- surprisingly polite, all things considered -- talking about wanting a happy ending with my artwork and maybe I can experience a transformation all my own with a switch to Christianity. ... But he also knew my work by name."
"Happy ending" does have more than one meaning in this context.
There Is A Science To All Of This
Four of the artists we talked to are women, but everyone estimated that their clients are mostly dudes in their 20s and 30s. College students make up the biggest chunk, and Chewy doesn't think that's a coincidence. "College kids, the Internet, social media, and people discovering identities all go together here. It's a counter-culture, and a lot of the pornography you might see in the furry fandom is a reaction to the same old straight vanilla sex you get in the mainstream. , possibly just because there's already a saturation of straight stuff in mainstream porn/art."
All Dogs Go To Butt Stuff Heaven.
Yeah, limited data suggests there's a lot of homosexual and bisexual furries, and young adults exploring their sexual identity simply have more options now. And drawing porn for a living gives you insights into that sexuality. As Shiuk explains, "You can tell from what's really important to them, as they generally tend to over-explain or are much more knowledgeable about the subject matter than you could think possible."
That's why some commissioners can be so picky -- their characters are stand-ins for themselves. "It allows them to experience their kinks and fetishes vicariously," says Uba. "And it's probably safe to say the client feels an even stronger connection when they see their persona enjoying the same fetishes they enjoy. I do wish-fulfillment for the client."
"You do you" can be made literal in the drawn world.
Sure, your alter-ego may be a deer, but it's a deer with the muscular body and perfectly proportioned genitals nature didn't feel fit to gift you. The tail and horns are just a fun bonus, because if you're going to ask someone to portray you as a fantasized sexual dynamo, you might as well go all out and not stick with your boring human body you already know well.
"I find clients often want the characters to appear as though they're enjoying themselves immensely (so a lot of 'O' faces). I also find they enjoy a fair bit of exaggeration. Copious amounts of fluids and larger than life endowments, increasing the size of certain things. Clients are also very specific about markings on their furry personas (like fur and scale patterns, color, horns, etc.). These markings are a way for the character, and by extension the client, to express themselves."
If that expression is through guitar-sized dicks, so be it.
Finally, Shiuk noted that a lot of his commissions are people wishing to "commemorate a moment with a friend." So furry porn is often just a variation on a sex tape, except with an impressive and flexible tail in place of that weird mole you hate being reminded of. And if that sounds like something only a deeply disturbed mind could enjoy, please remember that's the exact fantasy behind Avatar, and it made $2.8 billion.
"Can you please have them CG render some cum for the Blu-ray, Mr. Cameron?"
"How'd you get in my office?"
Special thanks to Inked Fur for arranging several interviews. You can check out Arania's work here, Chewy's here, Kabier's here, Saucy's here, Shiuk's here, and Uba's here. Mark has a website.
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