Mitchell’s A-Z of Fetish Artists - Etienne Part 2

The first picture in this group is another early image from a set of pictures depicting Military Cadets. Etienne produced a number of collections of standalone pictures with military or sporting themes.

Etienne - Cadets on Parade

 In this sample image the quality of the faces and the uniform detail speaks for itself and the combination of semi nudity and military discipline is very sexy and original. But there's also a subtly-disguised piercing reference that transforms the initial impression of straightforward incongruous nudity into something much more erotic for fetish fans! 

But the bulky legs do jar a bit.

Etienne - Night Patrol

I don’t wish to detract at all from Etienne’s abilities. I rank him at the pinnacle of gay art. My first sight of an Etienne picture was the teenage Romeo caught at it by Cops (above) and for me this remains an outstanding picture and one of his most erotic images. The stunning beauty of the boy and the rendering of the skin texture and clothing is sensual in itself. His powerlessness faced with the menace of the cops is very sexy. The leg proportions are chunky but spot on. 

In the series that follows the lad is put through his paces and earns a reprieve from his traffic violation. The quality of the figure drawing and composition falters at times and the result is not quite as exciting as it promised to be. This inconsistency is remarked upon by Felix Falkon in his book ‘Gay Art’. Any artist is liable to suffer from it but if every Etienne picture had been of the standard above what a master we would have had! Follow this link for Night Patrol in full

More Etienne in my next post

Mitchell’s A-Z of Fetish Artists - Etienne

Lets start with names. Etienne and Stephen are the same artist, real name Dom Orejudos. I believe he used the Etienne name for his paintings and Stephen for his comics but the Etienne name is the more widely used and more distinctive label. He published his work in the 60’s, 70's and 80’s.

Etienne is normally up there with Tom of Finland as one of the all time greats but I know that for some people he misses the mark erotically. His body of available work is so large that it’s difficult to know where to start. He his probably best known for his comics and story telling series rather than individual images (in contrast to Tom whose Kake stories are well known but rarely feature in his top ten as it were).

Etienne - Road Kings 2

The early Road Kings series (above) is painted and was produced at a time when explicit sex and organs could not be shown, hence the slightly incongruous underwear. It still manages to show nudity and bondage disguised as high spirited fun, alluding to anal sex, spanking and golden showers without depicting anything explicitly.

The result of this ingenuity, however, is far from tame. The sexual menace of the biker gang assessing the surfer at their first encounter (above) is fantastic and the faces of the two main bikers are beautifully rendered. However, whilst the situation is hot, there is something fuzzy, almost unfinished about the rendering of the bodies and legs which somehow diminishes the sexuality and the impact of the image.

This picture also shows an interesting feature of Etienne’s drawing - the characters often have quite short legs. If you look at a photograph of a male model the distance from crotch to knee is usually about the same as the distance upwards from crotch to the bottom of the pecs. The two gentlemen below illustrate this point.
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Etienne’s proportions are quite different - even allowing for the ‘unbundled tackle‘ beneath the underwear. Check out the surfers proportions. Most artists start out by painting themselves so this is quite likely a reflection of Etienne’s short stature but I can’t help wondering if this is one of the things that ‘blocks’ his art for some.

More Etienne in the next post

Mitchell’s A-Z of Fetish Artists - Ebisen or Ebisubashi

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Mitchell’s A-Z of Fetish Artists - Etheridge

Etheridge is responsible for many of the humorous cartoons which accompany magazine stores. Cartoons have their limitations as a fetish vehicle but sometimes hit the spot. There is often fantasy involved - superheroes, aliens etc, but spiced up by stripping, male bondage and threatened amputations of endowments.

Not a serious contender but I sometimes pick up useful ideas from these pictures. There are some nice male images at his blogspot
http://anti-heroes.net/home.php
http://jcetheredge.blogspot.com/

Mitchell’s A-Z of Fetish Artists - Esposito

Esposito is one of the ‘old school’ of artists and is quite well known for his pulp fiction covers,

like the detail below.

He employs a variety of styles ranging from softly naturalistic representations to highly stylistic images almost like woodcuts combining hard lines and strong patterns.

He sometimes draws freely on Tom of Finland for inspiration in both his figure drawing (as above) and his compositions which may include complete Tom images as details - sometimes even reworking complete Tom pictures.

However, he does have his own distinctive style as in ‘The Coach’ (below).

The tent is a bit racy for this blog but it is one of those memorable images and shows the power of drawings compared with photos. The fetishism here is mild but Esposito has produced harder stuff - even snuff stuff

Mitchell’s A-Z of Fetish Artists - Eric

Eric is one of those artists with a tiny published output but the images have such wide appeal that they are posted regularly in internet groups. His trademark image is of a young man tied to a frame with legs spread wide. He has a muscular body and a thick neck but his face creates the impression of a country yokel with unruly blond hair, protruding ears and an expression of wide eyed confusion on his face. This combination of innocent youth and testosterone is potent. Numerous alternative versions of this picture show him clad in jeans, military vest or loin cloth but I suspect they are probably not authentic. I have also seen many examples where Eric's boy has been placed alongside characters from Franco's pictures who act as his tormentor. This makes it very difficult to separate genuine Eric images from adulterated ones but demonstrates the appeal of the imagery.

I believe the illustration above to be genuine and it shows the testosterone laden innocent nicely. Just a hint of bondage. You can also see that the cartoon-like exaggerations disguise a technical style which is quite accomplished. As we discussed with Cavelo, it's not that easy to depict heavy, well defined musculature convincingly. In my view, Eric's inventive work is a small but valued contribution to Fetish Art

Mitchell’s A-Z of Fetish Artists - David Eastman

David Eastman also depicts captivity but his art is at the other end of the fetish scale from El Churcho. He depicts rough looking characters - long haired bikers and pugnacious, short haired muscle men. They ain’t pretty but they conjure up a strong masculine sexuality. They are usually engaged in rough activities too - wielding painful whips or dishing out spankings or wet humiliations.

There are hints of smiles - sometimes on the victim’s face (see first illustration) - but these are not playful - these are knowing smiles of triumph. The viewer is in no doubt that serious S&M struggles are going on. The second picture shown is just a detail from one of his best pictures in my collection. The characters look as though they are discussing their next move for the captive. It shows his sophisticated shading technique and use of a low viewpoint to create dramatic effect. The placing of the figures and use of architectural detail is clever. No mere scribbler this!