THE PINUP PHASE - by luckytime

What is it? How do you spot it?

Many artists go through a phase where they will primarily draw girls/women for various reasons. Some eventually make it out of the pinup phase and go on to develop in other areas. Others will continue to draw pinups, making it the main focus of their study, and only occasionally dabble in other areas. INTERSTINGLY the pinup phase is not exclusive to just males, there exist many female artists who mainly draw other females. With so many things in this world to draw, a pinup phase is easy to spot since the artist will come back to females again and again.

Take note that the drawings do not necessarily need to be provocative or sexual in nature for it to constitute a pinup phase. Simply drawing a female contributes to the overall phase an artist is in.

There are many niches that artists fill. Some artists primarily draw environments, or animals, or fat bodies (no joke), but the reason I don't classify these as phases is because they aren't prevalent in the artistic community. As I said, MANY artists go through a pinup phase, the rest are usually doing something divergent.

Why females?

Like I said there are various reasons for focusing on the female body, and some of them tie into why humans create art to begin with. Yes part of it is sexual of course. But when you think about what those artists are aiming to create, something that's pleasing to the eye, it makes perfect sense to draw females as they are almost universally considered more pleasing than males. It then follows that a pinup phase is the logical outcome of an artist who is only human... but also partly due to laziness. Let me explain.

Being human, some of our ideologies are constant across the board. One of these is that men's bodies should be ideally muscular, while females ought to be less toned and more round... which also happens to be easier to draw. It doesn't take nearly as much knowledge of anatomy to draw a pleasing female as it does for a male. Artists in the pinup phase may find difficulty switching over to males or translating what they know about females into male attributes.

Is it good? Is it bad!?

Let me clarify that there is absolutely nothing wrong with being in a pinup phase, or even staying in one. The goal of this write-up isn't to shame those I deem unworthy or some shit like that. It's just to shed some light on this subject and get people thinking more about it.

Yes, there are upsides to the pinup phase. Namely, it's FUN!

Fun is a hard word to pin down but as a general rule, anything that's fun allows you to learn the quickest. Since we're more inclined to repeat things we find fun, we get experienced in them very quickly. Experiecne leads to success and success is a reward that we seek, and so the cycle starts over. Calling this a "phase" admittedly has a negative conotation, implying that it's something to get past, but since there's no guidebook on how to live your life this immediately becomes irrelevant. In this way the pinup phase can also serve as the gateway to a new passion for art and a lifelong hobby.

I can't finish this post without warning about the dangerous side of predominantly drawing girls/women. I explained that artists in this phase may have difficulty switching over to males. This is not only because male bodies are genetically different from females, but also have been culturally idealized to be more intricate. They often require an extensive knowledge of muscular anatomy due to the expectation of being leaner. Because of this, artists in the pinup phase often get stuck drawing the same type of body over and over, or one type of face or expression. It is important to recognize when you start receiving diminishing returns and move on to new subject matter. Yes, it's true that the most fun things are the easiest to learn, but that doesn't mean that something dull can't be learned, or isn't important to learn. If you want to specialize in a niche that's fine, but keep in mind that pinups are a niche that many other artists are competing to fill as well, and you'll need to be extra-special or have another hook to stand out.

This post was not sponsored by Lazarus: Form Recovery, even though it saved my ass when I accidentally closed the tab halfway through. This thing is basically a necessity... go get it.

This post was also not sponsored by SpellCheck.net even though I used it because Newgrounds DOESN'T HAVE ITS OWN SPELLCHECKER.