We all know this post. We all know this complaint. NSFW artists have faced it the entire time we've spent drawing.
Aside from being hugely denigrating towards a very legitimate craft, there are multiple fallacies involved in the argument.
Let's start off with the most obvious, the very real phenomena of getting visible traction on social media sites. Namely, to say that, LIKES/RTS DO NOT TRANSLATE TO FINANCIAL STABILITY. Working your ass off does. NSFW artists who make it their livelihood churn out an absurd amount of work to stay relevant, constantly have to work outside of comfort zones, and face steep competition.
Next, the argument presumes that all NSFW is created equal. It's not. For example: mlm, that is to say, men loving men, will earn you much more traction than wlw, women loving women, and mlm involving trans bodies will earn you much less traction than the cis standard. Additionally, your audience for any of those things is NEVER guaranteed.
It places porn an erotica on the same footing, which is also enormously wrongheaded. Porn has an almost singular focus on secondary sex characteristics, and will rush straight to the point at every given opportunity; erotica is holistic, and doesn't even really have to show genitalia in order to hit its mark, if it's written and framed correctly.
To be clear: both of these things take an enormous amount of skill. It is not something you just learn to do overnight. Good, illustrated porn requires an understanding of action, anatomy, perspective, and all sorts of other technical skills that are often beyond even very adept artists.
With erotica, technical prowess is less of a focus. It's more on character art, scene setting, and story (be it implied by imagery or written in). I don't need to explain the level of expertise this requires, not the least of which is being a good writer, which is fully beyond a lot of peoples' grasp. It's a whole different skill, and being good at erotica is tough for even industry professionals. Many are embarrassingly bad at it.
The other bullet points, I outlined in a Twitter rant, but here they are:
NSFW artists face logistical hurdles SFW artists don't. Namely: we don't know when the site we're posting on will ban NSFW content.
We can be randomly banned/shadowbanned from a site whose rules are not especially clear (Tumblr), and whose filters are garbage. We can also have our work deboosted and effectively removed from circulation because we didn't label a nipple appropriately (Tumblr still thinks a female-presenting nipple is 100% sexual).
We can have our funding cut at random, for seemingly arbitrary reasons.
We face a host of degrading comments and overfamiliar clients.
NSFW artists working commissions have to take on work they're not personally very interested in. This takes way more work and fortitude than anyone is willing to admit.
We are constantly subjected to arrogant shitbags saying they can just jump in and make bank, because Site Number Went Up that one time.
Bottom line is the 'I should just do furry porn I guess' joke is not a joke. It's not funny. It's just you showing your ass, and insulting your friends/colleagues, who do very hard work for very little reward.
This is a method I started using when NFTs were on the rise - thieves would have to put actual work into getting rid of the mark - and one that I am now grateful for with the arrival of AI. Why? Because anyone who tries to train an AI on my work will end up with random, disruptive color blobs.
I can't say for sure it'll stop theft entirely, but it WILL make your images annoying for databases to incorporate, and add an extra layer of inconvenience for thieves. So as far as I'm concerned, that's a win/win.
I'll be showing the steps in CSP, but it should all be pretty easy to replicate in Photoshop.
Now: let's use the above image as our new signature file. I set mine to be 2500 x 1000 pixels when I'm just starting out.
Note that your text should not have a lot of anti-aliasing, so using a paint brush to start isn't going to work well with this method. Just use the standard G-Pen if you're doing this by hand, or, just use the text tool and whichever font you prefer.
Once that's done, take your magic wand tool, and select all the black. Here are the magic wand settings I'm using to make the selections:
All selected?
Good.
Now, find a brush with a scattering/tone scraping effect. I use one like this.
You can theoretically use any colors you want for this next part, but I'd recommend pastels as they tend to blend better.
Either way, let's add some color to the text.
Once that's finished,
You're going to want to go to Layer Property, and Border Effect
You'll be given an option of choosing color and thickness. Choose black, and go for at least a 5 in thickness. Adjust per your own preferences.
Now create a layer beneath your sig layer, and merge the sig down onto the blank layer.
This effectively 'locks in' the border effect, which is exactly what we want.
Hooray, you've finished your watermark!
Now let's place that bad boy into your finished piece.
You'll get the best mileage out of a mark if you can place it over a spot that isn't black of white, since you'll get better blending options that way. My preference is for Overlay.
From here, I'll adjust the opacity to around 20-25, depending on the image.
If you don't have a spot to use overlay, however, there's a couple other options. For white, there's Linear Burn, which imho doesn't look as good, but it still works in a pinch.
And for lots of black, you have Linear Light
Either way, you're in business!
EDIT since this has escaped my usual circles, and folks aren't as familiar with my personal usage:
An example of one of my own finished pieces, with watermark, so you can see what I mean about 'relatively unobtrusive'-- I try to at least use them as framing devices, or let them work with the image somehow (or, at the very least, not actively against it).
I know it's a bummer for some people to "ruin" their work with watermarks, which is part of the reason I developed this mark in particular. Its disruption is about as minimal as I can make it while still letting it serve its intended purpose.
There's other methods, too, of course! But this is the one I use, and the one I can speak on. Hope it helps some of you!
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