Ten years ago to the day, I uploaded my first piece of NSFW pony art. I was young, inexperienced, and drawing with a mouse and keyboard. But very soon I discovered a great joy in doing it, and would spend the following years honing my skills, discovering amazing artists to inspire me, and just generally fall in love with this community.
In those ten years, a lot has obviously happened in my personal life as well. I started out stocking shelves and throwing newspapers, and ended up eventually breaking into the graphic design industry. I’ve been through relationships, felt love and heartache. As FiM was winding down, and I had already drawn these characters so many times, I had even assumed at one point that ponies too would just be another (admittingly lengthy) chapter of my life.
I know it’s cliche, but the fact of the matter is that all the talk and speculation in the world can’t replace real experience, and going through that tends to highlight the things that are most important to us – to discover who we really are. Here’s what I’ve discovered: I love garlic, it enhances almost any dish. I can’t tell the difference between top shelf whisky, and the plastic bottle that collects dust three shelves below it. And aside from the obvious close friends and family, that there is nothing more important to me than this community. I love ponies. I always will.
One thing that has changed over the years however, is how I’ve felt inclined to express my love for them. As a horny young adult, it was obvious to me: draw them getting fucked and covered in increasingly detailed cum over the years. I mean to be clear I was a SFW artist before I branched out like that, and there were still plenty of pony art / games / fics I enjoyed that had nothing to do with porn – but while especially considering that NSFW art had given me a name in the fandom like none of my other work ever had, I was happy to follow my carnal pleasures wherever they led me.
I’ve drawn a lot of porn. And I think a side effect of that was that I started to feel like… I was running out of road. I know which characters and pairings I like the most, and which kinks tick my boxes. If you’ve been following me for a while now, you probably know this information too. At a certain point, it began to feel a bit like I was remaking the same three images over and over again, and that really began to take a toll on my inspiration. And I’m sure my dwindling drive in this regard has been apparent; where more than a dozen pieces of NSFW art from me was once average in a year, in recent times, I could hardly make it past a couple.
And while during that time I made multiple attempts to regain such an intense passion as I once had – most notably perhaps in my fan fics (which if we’re talking about Resurgence or Plight of the Traveler at least, I am still very much proud of) – it wouldn’t be until 2021 that I began conceptualizing a project that would finally fully reignite my creative engine… that being of course, my pony video game, Tales From the Herd.
Now that development on the game has reached full swing, and I’ve been dragging around an already nearly depleted desire to draw NSFW not at all helped by various smaller factors like the advent of generative AI programs, I am officially calling this my “retirement”. It has genuinely been fun, but I wouldn’t expect to see any more adult content from me.
Having said that, I do want to clear the air on something important: I am in no way condemning NSFW art. On the contrary, I think it’s a great way to experiment with and discover your sexuality while sharpening art skills, in a safe and non-harmful way that the porn industry often fails to be. I still watch plenty of NSFW artists, and I will not be making any takedown requests of my old art. I think there is ground for making moral arguments against the depiction and fetishization of certain acts, but, I still 100% believe that it is not inherently “wrong” to draw adult cartoon characters gettin’ it on. And that includes them being robots, plumbers, anthropomorphic rabbits, Turian, or of course: ponies.
Now, I know I’ve already been blabbing about it for like the past 2 years, but if you want to continue supporting me as an artist, please check out Tales From the Herd. A lot of progress has been made, and it’s the proudest I’ve ever been of something I’ve created. If you like ponies – albeit, in a completely SFW context – I think you’ll be interested in the game. It’s available on Steam to wishlist now.
And with that, all I really have left to say is: thank you. Whether you’ve been following me from the beginning, and intimately know Red’s entire lore and backstory, have commissioned me, or even if you had only ever seen my art once and simply wrote a comment like “hot”; I genuinely appreciate all of it. I felt like a little mini rockstar at times, and I’m not so sure I would have kept up with art if not for all of the support. So seriously, thank you.
Zv’n
