What makes a man attractive
Oct. 27th, 2024 08:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingI’m thinking seriously about not posting art on social media anymore. Not because of AI image scraping or anything like that, but rather to hide my shame. I think I’m going to be silly and draw a lot of Ganondorf fan art just for shits and giggles, but what I’d really like to do is to learn how to draw attractive men.
This is a problem for me, as my own personal criteria for what makes a man “attractive” is that he’s articulate and a little strange but ultimately kind. This sort of thing is fun to write but not so easy to visualize. So I’m going to need to work from models and figure out what makes the men drawn by established artists “attractive.”
I say this respectfully, but a lot of contemporary fandom artists are on the autism spectrum, and what they find attractive is unique to them. I’m talking about furries, cartoon characters, anime, etc. I think this kind of stylization is far easier to appreciate with female characters, like when you see one of those doe-eyed chibis with giant boobs, but it definitely applies to male characters too. And more power to these artists, who are living their best and choicest lives. But that’s not what I’m aiming for.
There’s also a type of sexualized male character drawn by gay male artists that I find intriguing, but that’s also off the table. I respect these artists immensely, of course, but I’m not into Batman.
Straight women tend to like two types of men. One is the gentle boy band idol, and the other is the stern and clean-cut space marine fantasy that Freud was not 100% wrong about. Also not for me.
So: no cartoons, no leather daddies, no straight-girl daddies, and no twinks.
This begs the question: What exactly do you mean by “attractive,” then? And that is precisely what I’d like to try to figure out.
If my answer turns out to be Pyramid Head from Silent Hill, then so be it, but I’d like to arrive at that conclusion empirically so I can understand what it means. Wish me luck, I guess.
By the way, if you’re curious about what type of women I find attractive, the answer is all women.
Honestly maybe I should throw in the towel and draw beautiful women surrounded by plants exactly as the Good Lord put me on this earth to do, but what is life without challenge.
This is a problem for me, as my own personal criteria for what makes a man “attractive” is that he’s articulate and a little strange but ultimately kind. This sort of thing is fun to write but not so easy to visualize. So I’m going to need to work from models and figure out what makes the men drawn by established artists “attractive.”
I say this respectfully, but a lot of contemporary fandom artists are on the autism spectrum, and what they find attractive is unique to them. I’m talking about furries, cartoon characters, anime, etc. I think this kind of stylization is far easier to appreciate with female characters, like when you see one of those doe-eyed chibis with giant boobs, but it definitely applies to male characters too. And more power to these artists, who are living their best and choicest lives. But that’s not what I’m aiming for.
There’s also a type of sexualized male character drawn by gay male artists that I find intriguing, but that’s also off the table. I respect these artists immensely, of course, but I’m not into Batman.
Straight women tend to like two types of men. One is the gentle boy band idol, and the other is the stern and clean-cut space marine fantasy that Freud was not 100% wrong about. Also not for me.
So: no cartoons, no leather daddies, no straight-girl daddies, and no twinks.
This begs the question: What exactly do you mean by “attractive,” then? And that is precisely what I’d like to try to figure out.
If my answer turns out to be Pyramid Head from Silent Hill, then so be it, but I’d like to arrive at that conclusion empirically so I can understand what it means. Wish me luck, I guess.
By the way, if you’re curious about what type of women I find attractive, the answer is all women.
Honestly maybe I should throw in the towel and draw beautiful women surrounded by plants exactly as the Good Lord put me on this earth to do, but what is life without challenge.
