Thoughtful Art

Wictorec - The Thinker

 

Art by Leo-Art

Leo-Art - Captured Barbarian

 The inhabitants of a remote jungle village have been taken prisoner by the military. One by one they are restrained and interrogated. 

This X-spread is a favourite Leo-Art meme.
The dangling ball is a very clever visual device, concealed but revealing. There's a better example later in this post 

 

Leo-Art - Fighters Club

Two hunky men present themselves for naked inspection in a glamorous bar. They are confronted by an angry man who clearly has considerable control over them. One looks at his companion as if what they are being told they have to do is not what he expected. 

But there's no backing out now. 

 

 

Leo-Art - Dean Milked

 

In this Sci-Fi scenario, 'Dean' finds himself in an equally irreversible situation. Captured by a humanoid alien and suspended in an uncomfortable, reverse bondage he is induced to provide milk for them (a process which greatly interests aliens for some obscure reason). In fact, they seem to expect him to produce a considerable amount of milk. The glowing collar may be providing encouragement, but this may take some time. Hang on Dean!

 

 

Leo-Art - Devil's Castle 1

 In this picture, two adventurers, have been captured by a devil whose wickedness proved to be more than a match for their young confidence. Stripped of his arms and shackled in a cangue (a sort of portable pillory), the cute one is forced to watch his comrade being humiliated. No doubt his turn will come soon enough.

 

You'll notice that this artist has a considerable predilection for rear views.

 

Leo-Art - Devil's Castle 2

 Twas ever so, there's no gain without pain.

 

 

Leo-Art - Beach Fight

A beach bully gets his comeuppance - at least, that's the interpretation if you believe that blonds are innately innocent and good. I prefer to believe that this is a beach bully doing his worst on a hunky, innocent bather whose Speedos were grabbing all the attention on the beach. 

 

Wrestling scenarios are quite hard to do most mediums, the close interactions and unusual body contortions are a challenge to reproduce and even in photographs it's hard to capture clearly what is actually going on in the tangle without losing the sense of genuine struggle. This image is quite an achievement on that level alone, but it is also a terrific drama, showing power, domination and subjugation. 

  

 

Leo-Art - Warriors

As promised, another dangling ball whose bauble-like appearance belies its fiendish purpose (which I hope I don't have to explain). This render is not as pretty or technically skilled as No 1, but the bauble is more convincingly hung. The different viewing angle is also surprisingly sexy, its effect heightened by some clever close cropping. Obviously the clarification of the frontal threat helps too! 

 

Leo-Art - Greenskin's Dungeon

This scenario, with captives turned into beasts to pull their master's wagon is a popular scenario in art and gay photography (see examples below). Leo-Art's take is slightly comic but has great energy and excitement which picks up the drama of the chariot races and stagecoach chases in movies of yore. The slaves must be asking themselves if this contraption has any brakes.

  

In other versions of this scenario, the slaves usually they use their hands to pull the cart or carriage (as in Pony boys by M.Carcel and AMG Pony Whip), Roa used a chest push in Jim's Pony Duty, Etienne used a waist belt to harness his enslaved sailors to a plough, but here another cargue/pillory device serves as a halter, so the boys have to use their shoulders. The desert setting reminds me irresistibly of Chirenon's Captured Airmen, visualising this as their ultimate fate.

I thought it prudent to censor this one, the original was already spoiled by Japanese-style zig-zags.

 

Leo-Art - Varane - Whip

If you like your men well hung, Leo-Art's your man. 

Varane is one of his characters, the olive green loin cloth suggestive of a military man. Leo always shows the feet pointing down which adds to the stretching effect.

 

Leo-Art - Glory Hole 1

This image and the next show that Leo is equally imaginative with more down-to-earth interactions between men. You'd think this has been done dozens of times, but I'm struggling to think of a memorable example. The interaction between the two 'users' adds something extra to the narrative, as if this is a club with different layers of membership. No prizes for guessing who's got Premier.

 

Leo-Art - Glory Hole 2

 

Renders provided the first ability to automatically change the viewpoint of the imagery and often resulted in an oversupply where the artist was unable or unwilling to choose the best. That's gone into overdrive with AI, but I thought this variant was worth including as it shows us the faces of the two men and with it a clearer narrative. 

 

 

Leo-Art - Foot Fetish

It's quite unusual to find an artist who embraces the fetish of the foot quite as enthusiastically as this. Even Etienne treated supplicants as respectful samplers of a rare delicacy. The pointing finger of the master seems quite unnecessary in this case, which diminishes the kick he gets out of it himself - unless he likes to ration his sub. 

 

From the artist's point of view, the demands of picturing a foot in this situation are also diminished, most of it is hidden. That may explain Etienne's approach, he simply loved drawing feet.

 

 

Leo-Art - Brian the Soldier

This unusual close-up of the abdomen of a man firing a rifle speaks for itself in both artistic and erotic terms. Renderers often surround their subjects with vast, empty spaces which drains the erotic value. Leo-Art is much more attuned to the art of selective cropping. 

Very nice.

~ 

Leo-Art works closely with BrosFate and their styles are similar, but I'm surprised to find I have only posted Leo-Art's work at mitchmen once before: Another Whipping back in 2021 

Leo-Art posts at pixiv
(with a link there to his Patreon pay site) 

Blogger's Warning

Vincent - Animal Park

 Blogger has advised me that my A-Z of Fetish Artists' post, Vincent, has been put behind a warning, about the content. This happens occasionally when I publish new posts. This one has been sitting unremarked in my blog since 2016, but I made the mistake of updating the labels and that triggered the intervention. Often these warnings are baffling, considering this is an adult blog, but, to be fair, it's not hard to understand why in this case. 

However, I am struggling to understand what how this warning works in practice. It's my understanding that the whole blog is behind a sign-in wall, although I get the impression that blogger switches it on and off at whim. I can't tell because I'm signed in all the time.

I'd like to hear from readers what it is like, trying to access this blog, and this post, Vincent, in particular. 

Do you have to sign in to access the blog? 

Do you have to sign in again to access this article? 

Please let me know via the 'comments' facility at the foot of the pot - and enjoy Vincent  

Art by StromoXXX

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Etienne's - The Plumber

 This article features an Etienne image that seems to be the predecessor of his 'Bath Nite' storyette. 

Etienne - The Plumber

 

This is the most complete copy I have of the picture, others have outer detail cropped off. However, it is marred by a scratch/crease line across the background character, which the others aren't. 

 

This picture doesn't have a title, even in the Kris Catalogue, where it is simply labelled as 'E56'. It's clearly not another 'Bath Nite', however. This plumber seems to have been called in to deal with some major pipework problems, but he too has managed to drench himself. He's taken off his clothes and hung them on the line above while he sorts out the problem, entirely naked.

 

Enter the owner, or maybe it's his foreman. He stands, looking very dissatisfied, with hands on hips, which seems to confirm the plumber has made a hash of things. The plumber seems to think the new arrival is more interested in his nakedness than his work, and doesn't seem the least bit concerned about it!

 

Like the final image in Bath Nite, this picture has something of a split personality. The man in the background seems to have been added in as an afterthought and not very well integrated. He's not actually looking at the plumber, but at us, like a posing model. In addition, there's a sort of halo around his entire body, making it seem as if he doesn't 'belong'. His feet seem to be hovering above the ground, whereas the plumber is grounded very convincingly. However, this image was taken from a contemporary magazine 'Fizeek Art Quarterly', so it must be authentic (?) 

 

The explanation may lie in another version, which I discovered not long ago at the 'Tim in Vermont' website (now defunct, sadly).

 

 

Etienne - The Plumber (coloured)

Here there are two on-lookers, and they obscure the staircase detail in a way that makes you look back and question that element of the black and white version too. Is this the original image then?

 

 I must admit, I have my doubts about the integrity of this image, too. Etienne often seems to have painted many of his original images, so the colour element is not surprising. He also depicted explicit details, with sanitised copies for general publication, so that's fine too. This picture contains a considerable amount of detail on the right side, which is not present in the black and white version. All of which stakes a claim to it being more authentic. 

 

In the black and white image, the spectator seemed the least convincing detail. The two seen here fit in more convincingly in purely technical terms, but don't create much of a narrative, which you would expect from an Etienne picture. Perhaps they are the cowboys who caused the problem and had to call in the plumber. But they are not even looking at him. Apart from this, the styling of their faces is more life-like than the plumber's and his 'appendage' for that matter has all the hallmarks of an 'add-on'. 

 

 I think the underlying colour imagery here probably is original by Etienne, but I suspect the spectators are a later alteration, possibly by Etienne himself, who was known to revise older imagery (see Sailors Beware!) but was not always scrupulously correct about consistency. 

 

The arrangement of the two spectators here actually makes a striking parallel to the poses of the men in the (supposedly later) Bath Nite 6. It's tempting to see this as a cross-over revision.

 

All this begs the question, what did the original version of this picture actually look like? The best answer is the illustration in the Kris Catalogue and I have to say it looks identical to the black and white image above, although it's not possible to be sure about facial expressions and eye-lines. It also has the extra width of the coloured image. 

 

~ 

 

Other Etienne posts at mitchmen

Etienne - Bath Nite

UPDATE Sat 22nd Feb

I have updated this article with two 'missing' pictures found at the 'Exclusively Etienne' Google Group. Thanks to them for the valuable resource. 

 

Plumbers come and go in Gay iconography. We tend to assign a rough masculinity to all manual workmen by default, but plumbers routinely gain admittance to our most private areas, prompting all sorts of erotic possibilities. The nature of their job and its association with spanners, pipes and fluid flow makes for plenty of innuendo and jolly puns. 

 

These days, gay interest seems to lie primarily in the voyeuristic spectacle they offer, whilst fiddling under the sink...

 

Plumber by jk

 Etienne's mid-60s storyette, 'Bath Nite', ca 1965, takes the 'home invasion' ingredient much further. The Kris catalogue shows 6 pictures in the set, all but 1 of them have come down to us in reasonably clear quality.

 

 

Etienne - Bath Nite 1 - Trouble In The Shower

 In this picture, a muscle hunk discovers he has got a blockage in his shower pipes. The switch is set to 'On', but all he gets is a drip.

 

 Most of us hate a wet shower curtain clinging to our bodies, but here it handily covers his naughty bits. 

 

The hunk's, slightly odd but suggestive, open legged pose seen here occurs in other Etienne images too. I wonder if it's connected with his experience as a ballet dancer.

 

 

Etienne - Bath Nite 2 - Professional Assistance

The plumber arrives, responding to the hunk's call for help. The workman cuts quite a roguish figure in his rakish cap and coat casually slung over his shoulder, a confident, showy devil*. His skimpy, tight-fitting polo shirt, reveals a tattoo on his bare arm and bulging jeans confirm his butch credentials. No wonder the hunk has dropped his towel! He looks round at him with an appraising eye, limply pointing out the dripping (and suggestive) shower head! 

  

*I suppose you might read more boastfulness into his trading name 'A1 (or top class) Plumber', but it was a standard way of getting a business to the top of telephone listings in pre-Internet days. 

 

The dense, ill-defined shading of this copy may be because the original was painted (i.e. in colour) and not drawn. 

 

Etienne - Bath Nite 3 - Slight Miscalculation

A minor tweak of a spanner (it seems) is all it takes to unexpectedly unleash a jet of water, drenching the plumber and knocking him to the floor. For some reason, his belt has come unbuckled and partly detached from his pants, which also look undone at the fly. Has there just been some hanky-panky distracting him from his task? The hunk's smile might suggest so. 

 

The plumber looks more jock-like and handsome here - vulnerable too, like a regular guy. It's the hunk's turn to look roguish as he closes the door. Has he contrived this unfortunate accident - or is he just an opportunist?

 

Notice that the size difference between the two men is disguising a simulated contact between the plumbers boot and the hunk's thigh, exactly at crotch level. There's a reciprocal arrangement involving the plumber's (wide open) crotch and hunk's knee being at the same height. 

  

Etienne - Bath Nite 4 - Beyond Repair

I've had to resort to enlarging the catalogue thumbnail here. It looks as if the clumsy plumber has wrought more serious damage to the shower than it appears in the previous picture. There seems to be a hole in the wall with dripping pipework where the shower head was before. There's also a pile of rubble? at the hunk's feet as he stoops to pick up the shower head and its (hitherto unseen) feed pipe. 

The plumber in the foreground wrings out his jeans, looking very wet or very embarrassed - or both. His muscular arms and the perky cap (back in place on his head), add a nice tweak to his manly embarrassment. However, the shape seen in his wet underwear might suggest that it's the not just his mistake, but the sight of the hunk's bare backside, that is causing his consternation. He's taken off his boots to facilitate the removal of his jeans, so he obviously not that flustered! That enables Etienne to include a typical detail of oversized feet in slack socks.

 

Etienne - Bath Nite 5 - Off With The Wet

At this point, the plumber has lost his underpants altogether, they are hanging on the line behind, together with his jeans. His last sock is in the process of being peeled off his foot, by the hunk, who is holding it up in a very servant-like way.

 

 The still-dripping plumber looks as if he's going to take off his polo shirt and is clearly not the least embarrassed about his exposed crotch, because his legs are wide open. Nice legs they are too (Etienne's ballet heritage again). Plus generously sized feet.

The plumber's roguish, toughness seems to have reasserted itself here, his cap is symbolically back on his head. He appears to be resting his right foot on one of his own boots, pushing it into the hunk's crotch. The response of the hunk is obscured by a wet sock, but there's something else going on just behind the boot and sock, which I can't make out... Irrespective of this, there's plainly an erotic interaction going on.

 

Etienne - Bath Nite 6 - The Solution

In the end, the hunk gets his shower, thanks to the magnanimous, muscular plumber sprinkling him from a (very camp!) watering can. The tattoo on his arm reveals him to be called Bud, which mellows his hypermasculine aura in an attractive way. 

The hunk lounges contentedly, his legs unashamedly open (ballet style again) and in a position to receive a playful splashing onto his groin - and much else, I dare say!  He is clearly conscious that Bud's dick is lurking just behind his head and within touching distance of his clasped hands. There's a dark shadow to the left of Bud's 'treasure trail' which may be screening a glimpse of something naughty. 

This sexy, bath tub pose is probably inspired by (if not copied from) a 60s beefcake picture in the AMG set of Wally Schillicut bathing*. Etienne has drawn the image well, but the departure from the free flowing, 'drawn from the imagination' style of the rest of the picture, and indeed the rest of the set, jars a little.  

*More of Wally Schillicut and other vintage hunks in bathtubs 

(link pending)

~ 

The 'Bath Nite' entry in Kris Catalogue No 2

 

 ~

This plumbing story has a predecessor image, also by Etienne, from about 3 years earlier, in 1962. It's clearly the prototype for 'Bath Nite' but tells a slightly different story. 

View Etienne's 'The Plumber'

Other Etienne posts at mitchmen
 

Teddy of Paris - A Comeback?

Teddy of Paris - Overpowered 

  

The much admired 90s artist, Teddy of Paris, has been in touch to say he's planning to start creating artwork again. I'm sure all his fans will join me in wishing him well and looking forward to seeing the fruits of his labours. Read the full message in the comments attached to my article on his work:- 

A-Z of Fetish Artists - Teddy of Paris 

My image above comes from Teddy's Bridegroom's Cherry Collection (Out of print)

See also:  

Teddy of Paris - Initiation 

Teddy of Paris - Passion du Fruit