Hello there. I'm baaaaaack! Time for a new blog entry. Ah, my blog: the place where I share things that probably nobody cares about :) Naaa, in all honesty, I write this blog because it allows me to learn more about myself. Writing about things, instead of just thinking about them, is definitely a fortifying process. Even if those mentioned things are thoughts that have been in my head forever, it requires an extra effort to put them on paper... or in this case, on a digital text file.

But enough of that technical/non technical nonsense, I'm here to talk about things a bit more down to earth... after all, who am I to pretend that I know what I'm doing? Being that said, I wanted to share some information regarding one of my signature treats when it comes to my pin-up artwork: sidekicks (or characters) accompanying the main girl, with huge eyes and a big tongue sticking out. You might have seen them, as most of my work, up until last year, featured them. The reason why I decided to write about this, is because many people in the past asked me what was the deal with those little guys in my pin-ups, drooling over the featured model.

So, first of all, where did I get the idea? Not surprisingly, I got it from old cartoons, mostly from the "Red Hot Riding Hood" cartoon and its sequels by MGM Studios. You might remember this animation, where the wolf drools and goes crazy for Little Red Riding Hood, who in this story is more of a burlesque girl than an innocent victim in the woods. That cartoon spawned a few variations of the same story and even inspired a few feature films years and years after. My favorite example of this, is "The Mask", where the main character, Stanley Ipkiss (Jim Carrey) goes bananas for the beautiful femme fatale of the story, Tina Carlyle (Cameron Diaz). This movie in fact opened my eyes to how I wanted to portray the beautiful women in my images, refreshing my memory about "Red Hot Riding Hood" from my childhood. In specific, I loved how the wolf would go crazy for Red Riding Hood, and how this would be expressed by his long tongue all the way out, and his eye balls would almost jump out of their sockets.

The first image where I featured this kind of imagery, was in my Halloween piece from 2007, where I drew a pumpkin drooling over a sexy witch (inspired on the beautiful Alsana Sin). But it wasn't until 2009 when I drew a sexy french maid (inspired on gorgeous Olivia Rose) with a cute flower drooling over the floor, that this concept became more and more common, until it was featured in almost all my cartoons, up until last year. By the end of 2016 I stopped featuring these lovable little guys with drooling tongues and popping eyes... but that's a story for another blog entry.

So, why did I decide to feature secondary little characters (or as I call them, props), along with the beautiful girls of my pin-ups? The main reason was to introduce a comedy element, a comic relief by some sort. When I started doing cartoon pin-ups, I decided to make them contrast with my realistic pin-ups. The cartoons aimed to a funnier, lighter (although still sexy) feeling. So, after a while, I wanted these cartoons to be even funnier... without taking away the sexiness. The answer? Funny sidekicks!

Not long after introducing these props, I noticed that people would be more drawn to my images. In most cases, the comedy element made them laugh, which in turn brought down their defense towards erotic artwork. As many people know, humor is a great way to ease off tensions and get somebody more willing to trust. In the case of my artwork, it really helped, it added an extra quality to my work. My pin-ups went from being sexy and funny to very sexy and very funny. And when I say very sexy I'm not kidding, I got away with more and more risqué stuff, because the funny sidekicks made people less wary of the adult themed artwork.

I have to mention one last characteristic of these props: I truly believe that they represent myself and the average viewer of my artwork. I see this funny sidekicks as a way to feature a male character... or to be fair, not just males but anybody who would be mesmerized by the female model's beauty, since a lot of the fans of my artwork are females themselves. Introducing these kind of funny sidekicks, even though they are obviously horny and all excited to be around the model, they don't seem like a menacing presence. If anything, they seem almost innocent. It's all about how the cartoon is presented. These props are always seemingly happy to be there, happy to just see, not necessarily there to touch. So, again, in a way, that'd be the easiest and most acceptable way to feature my good ol' self inside my pin-ups, without taking anything away from the beautiful models. In a way, in my own way I am similar to a director that likes to make a cameo appearance in their movies... what a self conceited jerk I am! :) By the way, are these lovable props, sidekicks, characters, etc., coming back to my artwork? You can bet your ass they are!

With all that said, remember next time you see one of my cartoons featuring these funny characters, that you're seeing me there as well. Or who knows, you might be seeing yourself instead. :)

Thank you for reading this and for supporting my artwork. I look forward to keep writing and sharing more of what's inside my head. Have a great weekend and see you next time!
~Pops.