On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer

The first time I saw the internet was a complete revelation.
One summer’s day around ’96 I was at the seaside home of an erotic writer, who also happened to be a pioneer of the web. He had invited me to see his new Apple Mac – “his wonderful machine” and the astonishing  ‘Internet’.
Through a fug of heavy cigarette smoke I gazed at his magic lantern, at something called a ‘website’!
“Surely they can’t show that ??” I gasped as we looked at some dubious page.
I was reminded of the famous lines of Keats poem, ‘On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer’ :-

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 
When a new planet swims into his ken; 

I could see that the rules had all changed. We could now write and depict virtually what we wished. Oh, sure, the webhost was in between but they were usually quite liberal, hippy and unintrusive . And kinky art was liberated, as was a lot more. No longer did I need to worry whether my drawings would be published because I could be the publisher. (Though I still always self-censor I don’t know why …for reasons of ‘taste’?)

Censorship had almost always existed in some shape or form until the internet. My earliest published drawings were all made with a dark cloud hanging over them – “will the publisher accept this?” “Can I get away with this? ”
There were in fact no clear guidelines, which would have helped enormously. A lot depended on factors such as which party was in power or whom you were working for and we would all try to make sense of unclear directions. A mainstream magazine had to comply with the news vendor’s policies of what they were comfortable to put on sale. Smaller fetish magazines which allowed greater freedom could only be sold in sex-shops which were regularly raided by the authorities and restocked the next day. The extortionate mark-up on the goods meant they were never seriously out of pocket.
So life continued in a haphazard way.

The point of this rambling is that for the past few years we have seen greater regulation coming in as the Internet has taken over our lives and become much more portable, so the content of the web has become a much great concern. This week I was suspended from Twitter for the image above*, one of a series I drew many years ago for OWK.  My fault, as I should not have been using such a “violent” image for my public icon, which is required to be squeaky-clean. Make of that what you will. But it has made me reflect on how much we take for granted. At my age I can compare this to what came before and take it philosophically – oh well, just going back to the way it was.
I don’t know how it will all play out but I remember clearly how one day pre-internet I tore up some drawings in frustration as I thought I was doomed to only ever get a single page in an obscure magazine that would never reach a wider public or earn me more than a few pennies. It is no exaggeration to say that without this disruptive technology coming along when it did, I might never have continued.

* New twitter account is @sardaxs

Namio Harukawa

Namio Harukawa, who has recently passed away, was always one of my reference points for femdom illustration. In my younger years I was drawn to his art as he was one of the few artists almost totally dedicated to the femdom theme, so I tried to find as much of it as I could. By then his style had developed a distinctive look and in the sex shops of the 80‘s you could occasionally find collections of his art, shabby bindings of photocopies from legitimate Japanese magazines (yes, it happened even then!)
I once found his art published in a more reputable collection of Japanese erotica and wrote to him via the editor to introduce myself. A short friendly correspondence by letter ensued but we then lost touch for many years.

Astonishingly, especially to younger people, I don’t think Namio ever came on the Internet – unless he lurked incognito – so if he knew of his developing fame it must have been only indirectly. I tried to connect with him again a few times in the 90’s but I only really heard about him through the Japanese blogger Homer, who knew him directly, organised an exhibition and produced a DVD devoted to his work. As a tribute to him he asked me to draw my own face-sitting art for the cover.

“Viva facesitting” The model for this cover was the now-retired Mistress Lubyanka

Harukawa’s range was somewhat limited, it has to be said, but magnificently obsessive. Facesitting was his universe and he rarely strayed from that. If he drew whipping or shoe worship, for example, it would seem forced as if he had little interest. Moreover his women were very much of a bulkier type, unusual amongst Japanese, and maybe for that very reason so attractive to him.
It is interesting to track his development of this.  When he started drawing for the SM magazines of Japan in the 1970’s – either by choice or because it was requested – his women were normally proportioned. The line drawings were proficient and charming but unremarkable. As the years progressed the Namio Goddess developed. The buttocks became larger and larger, the settings more confined and claustrophobic, the light and shadow more haunting and the dreamy atmosphere more intense.

They are still recognisably Japanese for all that; this was before the anime cartoon style ruled that every female character had to have huge Western eyes and childish faces.
By contrast the men in his pictures remained largely homogenous and uniform, pathetic and passive in their adoration at their “altar”.
Rather than work under commission for portraiture as I have done, he seemed to be in the enviable position of supplying like-minded patrons with his vision and selling to SM magazines in Japan, a vibrant market which eagerly promoted bizarre artwork and amazing photography (so different to Britain!)
In latter days he supplied Megami-no-ai with previously published works but I understand he was too ill to produce anything new.
Namio stands remembered for his unique vision. I know he would have liked to pass from this earth suffocated underneath one of his goddesses but of course that never happened. He lived to a good age though taken by cancer, and  leaves behind a substantial legacy which will remain one of the pinnacles of excellence in femdom art .

Namio Harukawa 1947-2020

For Irv O’Neil’s remembrance please go here 
It’s a better article as he’s a proper writer!

The Milking Machine series 2

From the time I added the post “The Milking Machine series” it has never failed to be the most popular post on the blog. Month after month, no matter whatever other new post comes on, that post simply commands the most views.

Well, in the spirit of “if it’s popular I must be doing something right – even if it is all rather blatant”, I planned out a new series of four especially for my regular appearance in the Japanese magazine “Goddess Love ” (女神の愛）

The milking machines are as nasty as before-maybe a little more sophisticated. The lady wardens are just as cruel and sadistic.

As ever four renowned mistresses were invited to model :-

Mistress Courtney

Mistress Ria Harpsichord

Mistress Lola Ruin

Madame Ingrid

If you live in Japan you can buy the present issue -No 16 – from Amazon.
Regrettably the magazine cannot be bought overseas.
https://www.amazon.co.jp/別冊秘性-女神の愛-第16号-SANWA-MOOK/dp/4776919303/

The Funfair set of paintings

Following on the Gag-shop series, made for Japanese magazine “Goddess love” (女神の愛)  for my next “a la ronde” series where one frame leads to the next and back to the start, I requested four famous English mistresses to be models in an enactment of scenes from a femdom funfair.

In the first frame a pair of swing boats, supported by males tightly bound in black leather, showing the main participants in this series, Joanna Lark and Mistress Elizabeth Swan in the foreground and Mistress Evilyne and Mistress Elita.

In the second a carousel with male horses! Mistress Elizabeth is here riding one of her  submissives and behind them Mistress Evilyne with ‘kurdy’.

Then on to some stalls with a specialised form of femdom humiliation. The Shell Shock stall presents the ladies with the opportunity to humiliate males by throwing eggs at them. Mistress Evilyne enjoys the effect that a cracked egg makes as it trickles down the poor male’s head.

In the last frame a much darker scene – the “Torment Tent”. Mistress Elita touches a very suggestive lever of one of the electric shock-boxes, noticing the fear in the victim’s eyes, while Joanna Lark peeps in curiously.

 

If you live in Japan you can buy the present issue -No 12 – from Amazon.
Regrettably the magazine cannot be bought overseas.
https://www.amazon.co.jp/別冊秘性-女神の愛vol-12/dp/4776915707

 

Sidonia the Enchantress

I first got to know the beautiful and astonishingly influential Sidonia von Bork, the amazing force behind the English Mansion, in the early part of my career. Characteristically helpful towards an artist, she wanted to commission an artwork as she has done several times since. She named herself after a renowned German/Pomeranian femme fatale of the 16th Century who was accused of all sorts of wickedness. The pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones made her the subject of one of his paintings.

The present-day Sidonia is thoroughly English and in character nothing like the historical figure of course-all visitors leave the English Mansion completely safe and sound!  I was intrigued enough then to make my own drawing of her, dressed in a similar Renaissance costume.

Now I have returned to this historical theme for another series of the Japanese femdom magazine “Goddess Love”(女神の愛 ) depicting Sidonia as an enchantress, transforming the men who come to her Mansion and become enslaved in her universe. The costume is loosely medieval though this being a fantasy she is wearing modern-day stockings when she wishes…well – she is an enchantress so she can have what she wants.

The Swing. (The title in Japanese means “Enchantress”)

An adjustable swing-chair for Sidonia’s moments of relaxation.

Morning hair-brushing

In the rose garden

Visit Sidonia’s amazing and extensive femdom member site at

http://www.theenglishmansion.com

http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4776915146

The magazine “Goddess Love”, unfortunately not for sale outside Japan.

 

 

Alice in Wonderland – Set 2

The first set of four illustrations of Alice in Wonderland for Japanese femdom magazine “Goddess love”(女神の愛) featured in this post was very well received. So as soon as it was published I started to think up more ideas. Brighton dominatrix Kountess von Kink graciously modelled as Alice (I had learnt while making the previous series she had long been a fan of the book and even played Alice in a school play.) The ideas did not flow as easily as the first set however and an adjustment was needed.

The two of spades acts as a title-board for the set while worshipping Alice’s boot.

At the Mad Hatter’s tea party again. She dangles that tea-soaked watch from her booted heel, while the Mad Hatter gazes up adoringly.

Alice rides a lobster through the sea

Why a lobster?

This illustration started as a single-page incorporating the griffon and the mock turtle vaguely indicated in the background, the reference being to the Lobster Quadrille.

The original single page rough before extension

The fourth was a rather weak idea about the croquet game. I felt that being the only watery piece it did not fit in with the other woodland ideas so rather than drop it (as I really liked the lobster concept) I extended the drawing into a double-page spread, eliminating the fourth painting and changed the scene from being in intimate contact to sitting on its back and riding it. Once I gave myself the extra space to develop it I felt sure I had made the right decision. Moreover, in a “what-the-hell” moment I simply abandoned the whole idea of including the mock-turtle and griffon as now irrelevant. Artistic licence or such.

I felt that after this I had exhausted the ideas in Alice in Wonderland but there was still ‘Alice through the looking-glass’ to consider and as I shall reveal in a forthcoming post, I tackled that in a rather different way…

If you live in Japan you can buy the present issue -No 9 – from Amazon.

Sadly the magazine cannot be bought overseas.

Leg Show

Leg Show was my first regular femdom illustration work, sustained over a period of 5 to 6 years and allowing me to develop my art in a way which had not been possible in previous publications. I was introduced to the editor, the legendary Dian Hanson, by one of her writers – an  author of femdom erotica with the preposterous pseudonym Titian Beresford (like I can talk!). I had read his work in some paperback novels and I had struck up a friendly correspondence with him.

Pre-email our business would be conducted by phone and the trusty fax. Dian would call me every other month or so, briefly explaining in her husky drawl the story she wished me to illustrate. Then followed the fax, spewing out the manuscript 15-20 pages long for me to read and over the next few days I’d draft out a rough on paper, fax that back to her, then she would phone back to let me know how she felt. (Thank heavens for today’s email attachments and phone pix!)

My first illustration for “Leg Show”- The Butler

Once the artwork was produced -conventionally of course, no digital art then – it would be couriered via Fedex to land on her desk 5 days later and just hope it was all ok -there was no luxury of just fixing a little digitally. Later to reduce costs I might get a transparency made and mail that off instead of the artwork itself.

At that time Irv O’Neil was writing under the name Neil Wexler and I was sent some of his stories to illustrate, though at that time I had little idea he’d be the media sensation he is these days. He has written his own impressions of Leg Show days on his site and you can find out more about his range of femdom ebooks.

One of numerous collaborations with Neil Wexler aka Irv O’Neil- “Punishing the pornographer”

This fruitful relationship with Leg Show lasted until the turn of the century and Dian’s departure. Once she had left I thought it was time to move on myself and the magazine did not survive that much longer once the popularity of free pirated media on the Net seriously started to erode the printed magazine market. In retrospect Leg Show was at its peak at that period and I look back on the time with pleasure, feeling fortunate to have been a part of it .

Christmas issue -“Korean tennis players”

 

 

Other World Kingdom

It’s impossible for the femdom devotee not to have seen something of OWK* on the Net. From photos and videos all over the Net we are all by now very well-acquainted with the white walls of the palace exterior, the endless wooden-floored corridors and the vast halls with leather-clad ladies and their devoted naked slaves. Decent folk like yourself will probably have bought a membership to their website. Some might even have stayed for a holiday or attended the events participating in the occasional festivals. Anyone under 30 will hardly remember when it did not exist – it seems so long now since they started.

I remember my first contact was when I had come into the offices of Zeitgeist (one of the better femdom magazines at the time and only running for a few issues) somewhere round 1997 and was told there was a package for me. I opened a heavy envelope to find a beautifully produced book and a selection of well printed colour magazines with an accompanying letter explaining who they were and a description of their castle and vast complex of surrounding buildings.

It was extraordinary to see something so lavishly crafted coming from a country which had only recently thrown off the shackles of communism, and from someone totally unknown in the West. I asked around the people I knew – like Skin Two – if they knew anything about them. They too had received a package but were none the wiser. I was hesitant to make contact at first when I was commissioned to produce a number of watercolours for their magazine  and thereafter a few black and white line drawings. But all went through without any complications though I did not form any close association either; our negotiations were straightforward but formal. There was talk of murals for a room but that never realised.

Sadly I never had the opportunity to go there myself but enjoyed hearing the adventures of others who did. After some years of an uncertain future I believe the premises itself is no longer functioning but the website is still in existence.

Find out more at owk.cz

*It has been remarked often how inappropriate the name seemed-Other World Queendom would have been more suitable?

A version of the OWK drawing was cleverly executed in photography by TommyO photographic maestro of Los Angeles featuring -from behind – Mistress Alexia Jordon=

Read also Femdom Resource’s blog-post about OWK

The Gag-shop set of paintings

In this series for Megami-no-ai (Love of Goddess) the Japanese femdom magazine, I invited four internationally renowned mistresses to pose for each frame of a set of four paintings. They all willingly agreed to lend their assistance in providing photographic reference and it was a pleasure to collaborate with them. The theme of the set is a gag-shop.Yes, a specialised store only selling gags.

I was inspired by this fascinating drawing of Japanese femdom artist Anmo Night and wondered how it might be if a shop actually existed in reality where they could be bought.

In No. 1 Mistress Akella is walking down the street with a ‘dog’ on her leash carrying her purchases on his back. In the background is the gag-shop.

As we move into No. 2 we see Mistress Ezada Sinn looking in through the window of the shop, perhaps deciding which gag the dog beside her will be buying.

 In No. 3 we have moved inside the shop and see Madame Catarina inspecting the various gags in the shop. There are some really exotic varieties here. In the background another lady has just bought some gags and the sales-assistant is wrapping them up for her.

In No 4 we see that lady herself, Lady Victoria Valente looking menacingly at her own slave who has spilt her purchases all over the street. There will be consequences for him! In the background we glimpse Mistress Akella again which brings us satisfyingly round to the first frame again.   This is not the last word on the gag-shop series. Mistress Ezada, who appeared in the second frame, has had the fantastic idea of re-enacting the scene with all the other mistresses in a locale in Germany. Read more on this story here… http://mistressezada.com/the-gag-shop-enactment/

and see what happened in this post

Alice in Wonderland

For the last 5 issues I have been producing sets of four illustrations at a time for a respected Japanese femdom magazine called “Goddess love” Megami-no-ai (女神の愛). I got to know the editor via Twitter. Somehow or other despite speaking different languages we communicated well and have enjoyed a very fruitful relationship. I’ll show some other series later but for now I just wanted to show the most recent – The Alice in Wonderland set. There really was only one Mistress in London to model for this – Alice Malice who feels such an close connection with the book. I approached her last year and she said she’d be delighted to pose. I worked on them all over Christmas. They were in fact a joy to produce as I had such a clear conception of “Femdom Alice”. I looked at the first illustrations by Sir John Tenniel and tried to keep closely to the way he had depicted the story. Rather than any luridly trashy fashion you might find for party wear I wanted her dress to be classic and simple, but added to that short black gloves and ankle boots to give it a kinky powerful edge. Moreover the watercolour style gives it that traditional old-fashioned look. I didn’t know it but this year is the 150th anniversary of the book’s publication so it was an apt choice of subject matter. I hope Lewis Carroll would approve – if not, at least forgive. Really it was just the look I was aiming at, not any reference to the original Alice. So these are the resulting paintings…

Alice in the woods teaches the 5 of spades a lesson.

Alice takes over the mushroom from he caterpillar and enjoys the hookah.

Alice teases the little man at the bottom of the glass table with the little box suggestively marked “Eat Me”.

Alice climbs up on the table and the Mad Hatter prepares the teapot!

One of many  initial sketches – planning is very important for watercolour painting as you cannot make changes very easily so for every painting there are lots of initial sketches- most of which are never seen.

Issue No 8

 Update May 2016

The “Kinky Alice” look is now a new cosplay! The same magazine has now commissioned a photo-shoot of famous Japanese actress Aoi Shino (碧しの）dressed in similar costume as Femdom Alice. I look forward to seeing the full set in the coming months.

March 2017

Dominatrix and cosplayer Princess Aurora was also generous enough to give her time and effort to dress as Femdom Alice. She definitely looks the part. Her classic English looks seem to promise a wonderland of naughtiness behind her innocent gaze.

 

December 2018

I commissioned Restrained Elegance to produce a custom set featuring the stunning model Chloe Toy. This studio’s main emphasis is on bondage but they had just the right setting for what I was imagining and a great portfolio of previous work so I worked out a little plan – in sketches of course – of what I wanted to see.

The pivotal moment comes when Alice, having dressed in gloves and boots from an old chest, admires herself in a mirror and then is sucked into mirror-land, where everything is reversed and she is forced to become a bound barefoot submissive . At that point I let the studio have free rein to photograph however they wished.

I was very pleased with the results. You can buy this set here  or join the wonderful member site Restrained Elegance to see this and many other bondage sets.

In a way I was in mirror-land myself. It was great fun for me to be the commissioner for once – as I’m usually on the other end. I’d recommend the process highly, not only for the enjoyment of having your own fantasy brought to life but also because it supports the creative efforts of studios and individual artists.

March 2021

Misu Eevee brings her own unique style to the Femdom Alice look!

See my own commissioning page.

See Alice in Wonderland series 2