pic 1 - For slim, (reasonably) realistic muscle, this pic is just about perfect. Her arm holding that pistol is incredible - maybe my single favorite bicep of all time. Fem's rendering of her pecs is almost tactile. The uniform is a little weird, but sexy none the less. The strategically placed straps are pretty rad. Truly a hot female Rambo and a big inspiration for my War Inc. stories.
pic 2 - This is the only version I ever saw of this drawing which is a shame because it's my favorite picture of Fem's character Jewels. Her size is truly gargantuan but just shy of deformed or chunky like most super-gigantic muscle drawings. I love the veins going up her legs, under the posing suit and continuing along her abs. The nip slip is hilarious and sexy (what's the point of the bikini top, anyway?). Her brother gives it great scale, as do the dozens of bottles of oil. Awesome!
pic 3 - I wanted to include an older drawing because I think Fem did some great ones right from the start. While his later stuff is light-years ahead of this, I still find this one fantastic. She'c cute and ripped, massive and dainty all at once. Great mix of size and definition without going too far (for a FemXman pic). Love the pigtails and tiny breasts.
pic 4 - I remember when I first saw this one I almost flipped my lid. It's such a provocative image - as if the barbell wasn't big enough, Kitty's CHAINED extra weights to it just to get a challenge. I think the legs and chest sell how hard she's working. A great expression too. I've always loved girls pushing themselves to this limit and this drawing captures that concept perfectly.
pic 5 - Carmella is one of my favorite FemXman characters. I love every drawing he did of her, but this one is off the charts. The angle he chose gives a clear sense of her ridiculous thickness and bulk. On top of that, Fem was hitting his stride in terms of detailed definition and vascularity here. She is scary huge, yet still "macho" shaped. It's interesting that many of Fem's girls are submissive given their strength - a theme that runs across much of his art. I prefer it to the cliched domination chick.
pic 6 - My #1 Carmella pic. Holly shit balls is she ripped! This has to be the pinnacle of striations and veins in a muscle drawing. FemXman started putting vascularity in his character's faces here which amazingly he make work! And check out that shoulder to waist ratio! His choice of dresses and rendering is stupidly hot. Carmella's not only flaunting her muscles, but challenging anyone who looks at her to accept the craziest physique in the world. I love it!
pic 7 - One of my favorite early FemXman drawings was "Kitty on top", but this upgrade is even better. It's a common fantasy of mine to have a female BB flex to impossible dimensions at the height of her orgasm and this picture nails it. Fem's character Sarah is totally scary here. Manly really - even beastly. But it's the extremity that makes it awesome. Fem's pictures often pushed the envelope, sometimes past common sense or good taste, but that's why I love 'em. I never quite figured out the eyes though. Are they rolled back in her head? Are they closed?
pic 8 - A great all around picture - solid sense of mass and definition, plus look at that arm! Love the shirt ripping from her explosive pump. But it's her expression that makes this one a winner. FemXman perfectly captured the animal spirt to grow. This is a moment of desperate, savage determination. I also love that her head is being swallowed up by her traps and pecs. Even the butch haircut works for her.
pic 9 - I consider this drawing to be the pinnacle of pure giga-mass (a term coined by Fem). Whoever this chick is, she's so over the top that it's stupid. I don't even know what's going on here. Why is that guy's coat ripped? What's with the microphone? But it doesn't matter, the girl is pretty much the culmination of FemXman's experiments into ludicrous size and detail. It's the fact that she's SO disgustingly humongous that this pic works (she's a cutie too, which helps). I found Fem's later giga-mass pics to be bubbly and malformed, but this one retains a semblance of human anatomy while amping to the absolute max. I don't see too many artists beating this one anytime soon. Fem's really the only one who's ever made muscle at this size work.
pic 10 - This was a later character of Fem's named Amanda, which I fell in love with immediately. He didn't get many pics of her uploaded, but what was there were excellent. Fem's best pictures aren't just girls flexing, but stories unto themselves. I figure the story behind this one is "Shy, glasses-wearing office chick gets huge and wins a male BB contest." That's hot - so hot that I started writing the "No Contest" stories. Great overall shape and cute expression. Glasses + muscles = awesome.
That's it. Let me know what you think on the boards!
15 comments:
The layout ended up pretty whacked-out on this post but I got sick of trying to make it work and decided it was good enough. Damn my lack of computing skillz!
Wow, thank you very much for these great pictures, some of which I have never even seen, FemXman is one of the very best female muscle artists out there, and seeing some never before seen stuff of his, its just incredible.
i must say femxman is also one of my favs artist in the world of female muscle, i often think of his style when i draw...
his way to do huuuge traps is unique!
ozzy
I love his art, but his total lack of understanding of how to "sell" female muscle art for actual financial profit (and his subsequent "retirement" from the community and not even throwing us a bone for supporting him way back in the day once his flawless business model fell through) gives me little sympathy for him.
Charging by the picture? Retarded.
Steadfastly refusing to lower your prices when the community makes it very clear they're not going to pay your inflated prices, but WILL pay lowered prices? Retarded.
Not throwing the community a bone by providing some free artwork occasionally, which might convince people to pay for other artwork? Retarded.
Ditching the community that supported you and made you popular, so you can strictly support a pay-site? Retarded.
Not even thinking to make at least some of your artwork "free" when you retire, since now we can't even buy it since you closed your site down? Retarded.
(for clarity, the "you" above is Femxman, not you, Mr.Shhh)
Tigersan and LH-Art understand that the way to "sell" art is to do it via a subscription site with regular updates. Charging $3+ *per picture* is retarded - I don't care who you are, the majority of people aren't willing to pay that. Vincent Van Gogh himself could return from the grave and start offering new pics of his paintings online for $3 apiece and I wouldn't pay it, because it's not worth it. Clearly it wasn't worth it to the majority of other people, either, since he closed his "store" down. I doubt he'd have pulled the plug if he was making bank.
Abyss Planet,
to set you straight. I sold my art the way I did because it gave me control over who got it. I knew where it was and who would post it.
If a person became a problem and started posting my stuff on sites like Forum Saradas lets say, I'd know who it was and stop selling them my art.
What you don't understand is people put more value in your work when they pay for it. That's why my stuff wasn't scattered all over the net. Pay per image you're less inclined to spread it around opposed to having access to a whole site for $20 where there is very little value in it's content.
In no way shape or for did I draw for popularity, I draw because I love it and people did get free art, sorry you got left out. So don't get confused about my intentions.
Now pay attention. Selling it this way was great and it was totally worth it, but I don't have time for it anymore. Between women, hobbies, my job (30 miles or 48km away with no car) and getting my other art off the ground it's simply not a priority.
I'm a single guy living in Toronto and dating a different girl almost every week since I've moved here, sure you didn't really need to know that but it's so you can see my point. On top of that I just had a bouldering comp this weekend so I've been training for that and an upcoming one at the end of the month.
Do you see where I'm going with this? Your opinion is great and your own and the second time I've come across talk like this from you. So please stop talking $#!+.
(for clarity, the "you" above is AbyssPlanet, not you, Mr.Shhh)
Okay now for the real reason I passed by...
Hey Mr. Shhh, what's up?
I came by because I got up this morning and realized I haven't drawn anything of this subject matter in awhile and was thinking of drawing a Jenny pic and that's how I saw "this" posting.
Another time then.
l8r
Vincent
The intention of this post was to discuss the art, not the pros and cons of various business models. Vince's artwork has been a big inspiration to me over the years and I simply wished to express that. Anyone else with an opinion of the artwork itself is welcome to contribute but let's try to stay on topic.
Hey Vince, nice to hear from you! I hope you found my commentary insightful or amusing. Out of curiosity, which of your pictures were your favorites?
I'm not talking shit if I'm expressing an opinion. :)
As for free art, you pretty much stopped posting it over at Amazons, and I was never aware of a deviantart page - at least LHArt, Tigersan, Ozzy, FemForteFan, and any number of other sites/artists who sell their art (either primarily or on the side) would throw viewers a bone and post free stuff on occasion. You... not so much.
Hell, if you were going to stop drawing femuscle art for profit, why even bother closing down the site? Why not leave it open and let viewers in the future buy it, instead of taking your ball and going home?
Or if you're going to close it and no longer make your art available anywhere, why not sell bundle packs for cheap, or discount the art for those people who thought $3/picture was too much, but $1.50/picture might be just right?
My point is, your art is great, but the way you were selling it was stupid. There's a reason the other successful pay-sites don't primarily operate the way you tried to run your blog. If you'd run an actual pay-site, I'd have signed up instantly.
I can't edit or delete my own posts, so I guess I'll just say that I've got my opinion on how FemXman's blog was handled and I'm sticking to it, but it doesn't change the fact that his art is great and I like it a lot. :)
In Vince's defense, he did plenty of free preview videos. You can still find a few on youtube. He also made ALL of his older art available for free in several zip files.
AbyssPlanet, how about some constructive thoughts about the art itself?
To be fair, making the older art free doesn't mean much when it's not representative of his later art style - you yourself mentioned a few times in your blog post that his art style changed over time. Him offering up his old stuff for free as opposed to occasional new stuff is like Stephen King offering up his high school/college writings for free - the subject matter is probably the same, but the style and quality vary so much from the stuff he's written in the last 20 years that it isn't exactly representative. :)
Compare this to, say, Tigersan, who posts up brand-spanking-new free stuff on his DeviantArt page on a nearly daily basis, or Ozzy who has posted up a handful of free stuff from time to time, or LHart which does a "samples" gallery with every monthly update so non-members can get a taste of exactly what got included with an update.
To my recollection, FemXman's blog got one singular post of free "new" stuff late in its entire life. It certainly was a welcome change, I just wish it had happened more often. :)
And my point was that paying per-picture still strikes me as silly and self-defeating. If I'm going to give up my hard-earned money (no matter how much of it) for a single picture, I'm going to want to be absolutely, entirely sure that I like it BEFORE I buy it, and the tiny thumbnails aren't representative of the full-size pictures.
At least with a "membership" site, I might not like everything in every single update, but simply via the "shotgun" approach I get my money's worth because I like enough of it to justify my membership fee. Not to mention the simple value/content equation - Tigersan's site charges $15 a month (roughly) and updates with about 20 pictures per once-a-week update. LH-Art charges something like $20 a month, but does huge updates with lots of content. Even non-art sites like Awefilms, FemFlex, HerBiceps, etc, do daily updates with a large amount of content - compared to sites like that, paying $3+ per picture isn't worth it at all, no matter the quality of the art (which, as I mentioned, is impossible to tell based on the thumbnails).
As for the artwork itself, I'm a fan of the giga-mass -- the one you chose as picture #2 in your list is among some of my favorite for him, and it goes to show that some of his artwork works better in color - with his coloring and shading, it's a lot easier to tell the veins/striations/definition apart than with just the black-and-white linework alone.
OKAY. WE GET IT ALREADY. You didn't like his payment scheme. I think that message is received loud and clear. LET'S MOVE ON.
My apologies for the massive derail, then - I'll leave the topic alone.
Although I actually did talk about his artwork itself at the end of the post. :)
It is with great sadness that I see yet another one of the stellar artists of this genre drop off the active scene. FemXMan, aka Vincent Rose, is truly one of the greatest, along with Zebodoy, Bekkanko, Wreck Shop and more. Mr. Shhh, your tribute is well desrved for a master of his craft.
As for the whole argument over the "business model", the sad truth is that I have watched almost all of the greatest femuscle artists retire their websites from lack of financial support. Our community, Abyss Planet, appears to be broke, stingy, or otherwise unable/unwilling to give their best artists the financial support they need to continue producing those superb works of art.
It takes time, dedication and supplies to develop their artistry to the levels thay have. It takes a toll on their personal lives and other than a pure, personal zeal for the femuscle genre, a steady stream of income is required to support their efforts.
On the flip side, I have to agree that the presentation of the website, the thumbnails, made it very difficult to determine the actual nature of the actual final artwork. That, and I was never really sure exactly how to order a specific piece of art, or a set of images, from the site. A dead issue, as the time has past for such discussion.
Vincent, You are definitely one of the brightest stars in the firmament of femuscle art, and art in general, I might add. I wish you the best in your future endeavors and hope you will find yourself in a financial position to renew your active involvement in our shared passion for extreme female muscle.
Mr. Shhh, I thank you for your excellent stories and dedication to the genre. You are one of our stellar wordsmiths, a master weaver of tales and explorer into the furthest reaches of extreme femuscularity.
As a side note, if there is any way to still purchase some of FemXMan's art, please leave a post here with instructions.
Thanks for the recap Mr Shhh. Can you e-mail me? I don't think I have an e-mail address for you. :(
Fett
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