Blogcritics Author: Auke Veenstra

Most Precious PC Games of 2007

Auke Veenstra — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 01:10:37 EST

2007 was (again) the year of the sequel, when it comes to computer games.
We all love those lists at this time of the year, most magazines will feature them plentiful. 2007 was (again) the year of the sequel, when it comes to computer games. Most game studios prefer to take the easy route, when a game has established a decent name, and is played by enough people to provide a steady cash flow; just make version two,...

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Adult Games Are Claiming Their Share

Auke Veenstra — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 18:53:04 EDT

There's an endless list of computer games released each month, marketing machines work in overdrive, trying to grab the attention from an immense army of gamers. Game magazines and gaming website's compete to get that latest demo or mind nibbling game review first, feeding their audience, hyping some games, ignoring others. And then there are the game rating boards, deciding what's healthy to play, but above all reflect some sort of cultural and political agreement on what's acceptable and what's not. This well-oiled money making machine has worked for years now, all targeting that typical gamer, young males between the age of 14 to 30. But times are changing, that typical gamer doesn't seem to exist anymore, gamers have grown up, and women entered the gaming arena. The Internet made the old distribution and marketing strategies less dominant, or at least it's not the only way to publish a successful computer game anymore. What we are witnessing right now is a change on both sides. Besides those well-known large international gaming companies, small publishers are gaining ground -- even without a million dollar budget -- creating "niche games" for an audience that's more diverse and demanding then ever. The role of the Internet can't be exaggerated in this, it provides the opportunity to bypass the beaten, and highly protected, publishing path. It gives the gamers a voice, and the possibility to choose the games they want to play themselves, without a marketing machine, or rating board, interfering. One of these typical gaming niches is adult games, in this case games with erotic or strong sexual content. They seem to exist for quite some time now, in there own, small and hardly known, spot among mainly pornographic websites. But recently this niche is prospering more then ever before. New titles are released, and gamers are more then willing to buy them, as a relatively normal extension of their game collection. Game magazines and websites are still ignoring these games, with a few minor exceptions, and the rating boards are going berserk. How do you rate them? Where to draw the line? Is partial nudity pornographic? They tend to hang on to an outdated concept, computer games are solely intended for kids, and excessive violent is acceptable, but sex or erotica isn't. It's important to protect children and minors from accessing sexual content, I surely agree. But strict local ratings don't mean that much in an international market, and ignoring these games won't make them go away. Remember that most gamers are adults, distribution trough the Internet is relatively easy, and there is money to be made. It's really time to revamp the system; partial nudity is not going to make young adults jumping on the person sitting next to them (even Playboy the Mansion: Private Party received an "Adults Only" rating). International guidelines should be set up, with a new definition of what's potentially harmful or acceptable. And the game media should start talking about adult games, in a more normal manner, informing the public on what's out there. The game studios, creating these adult games, should also take their responsibility, and prevent minors from accessing their content. What a wonderful "gaming world" it would be...

Auke Veenstra writes about erotic art and games on the Art of Love website.

The Art of Body Paint

Auke Veenstra — Thu, 16 Jun 2005 02:43:32 EDT

When I first encountered the body paint images of Nelly Recchia I was stunned, amazed and speechless. If there is a person who has really lifted body painting in to an artform I just found her in the artist Nelly Recchia. And it's not only the body paint that's of an intense beauty, the photography displaying her art is adding even more layers.She plays with the human body and its capability of expression in so many ways, that I find it rather difficult to talk about her art in general terms or as an expression of one concept, one idea. I guess her ideas are developing while she works with her nude model, looking at the shape and it's expression. I think this is the only explanation possible for the diversity in her body paintings.But there are several thematics you see in all her work, in one way or an other. Like the pain theme, pierced body parts, opened torso's and sharp weaponry. But as a real surrealistic master Nelly Recchia's pain is easily transformed in to beauty. The Geisha is a nice example of what I mean, the open wounds painted on the body are becoming beautiful Koi Fish swimming out of her.An other theme appearing in several of her works is the puppet. In one image this bounded puppet is a wounded woman hanging by her neck, legs and arms amputated by a mysterious black woman standing beside her. An other image is showing a beautiful nude body painted woman hanging on some kind of strings, this image is called the 'Petit Dancer'.The body paint Art of Nelly Recchia has a dense complexity, it plays with feelings, fetishes and even flirts with surrealism. But the beauty of the nude human body and its intrinsic capabilities of expression always comes first.The Art of Body Paint Images

Auke Veenstra writes about erotic art and games on the Art of Love website.

Suze Randall

Auke Veenstra — Mon, 13 Dec 2004 19:06:22 EST

Naughty images created by one of those almost mythical names in erotic photography, Suze Randall.Once a fashion model in the seventies, she switched sides and became a photographer herself. She worked for all the mayor magazines like Playboy, Hustler and many others. She now works as a freelance artist from her own studio in Los Angeles. Remarkable about her work is the capability of combining explicit poses, fetish theme's within a glamorous style, and often a decent dose of humor. The housewife image is surely my favorite, I would love to see her cleaning my house in that costume.The photographic quality of her work is high, with a good eye for detail. Suze Randall plays nicely with the shininess of the used materials, and the compositions are well balanced. Everything you might expect from a photographer of this level and experience.Suze Randall just finished a book called 'Fetish Divas'. Without any doubt the book is about fetish clothing, but in my opinion it's even more about the fetish role play itself.Suze Randall Erotic art The Art of Love Erotic art

Auke Veenstra writes about erotic art and games on the Art of Love website.

Digital Babes

Auke Veenstra — Mon, 13 Dec 2004 18:58:08 EST

With all the graphic blockbusters released the last couple of months like doom 3 and Halflive 2. It is time to look at the spicy side of computer animation and graphics. What is happening in the more adult related 3D graphic art, are we coming close to the real thing? Will computer generated Babes take over the human ones? And will the eyecandy rendered by the 3D artist come available in adult games?Well first it is important to realize the difference between a rendered image (or animation ) and a realtime animated model. Both are usually made in a 3D graphic package like Maya or 3D Studiomax. There are many other packages available, even free one's, but that's a whole other topic. The modeling process is basically the same, you build your model in splines or polygons. Generally a model made for the rendering process can have much more polygons then one's made for realtime environments. The main reason for this is rather simple. The current computer hardware is not capable of rendering these high poly models in realtime. The rendering is done in front, which can take hours for a complex animation. The result is a picture or animation, that can be played in windows Media player, Quicktime and others. The models made for games have much less polygons and are using other tricks to give a more realistic experience. Things like normalmapping, bumpmapping, texture burning are texturing techniques to make the model look more detailed than they actually are.It is just a matter of time and 3D videocard will be capable of rendering high poly models in realtime environments. That's for sure. I guess within 5 years we will see all the high poly girls we want walking on our screen with no problems at all. Sure one thing to look forward to ;-) But it is not only a pure poly count when it comes to replacing humans in erotic movies, games and art. The next big thing is animation. We will like to see our girls move, and do their thing don't we.Currently there are two way's of adding animation. The frame by frame way of animation and motion capture. The first one is the oldest one and is still used in many games today. It's basically moving every part of the body from one point to an other. The software calculates the movement between. The more advanced way of adding animation to the model is motion capture. We all have seen the black suited people walking and dancing with wires attached to their suit I guess. The movements the actor is making is recorded and transferred to the computer. The great advantage of this animation technique is that the motion seems more natural.The frame animation technique also has some advantages. First you can go beyond the possible human movement. Secondly you only have the limitations of your imagination. You can be more explicit in your animation's expression. And when it comes to creating sex animations this is a real advantage in my opinion. With all this talking about techniques, hardware and software we have to realize that it all starts and ends with the artist creativity. In the next couple of weeks I will introduce some of the best 3D artists around. And the main focus, of course, will be on their erotic work. Some of them are purely focused on erotic image creation, others are primarily working on animation or adult games.Digital babesErotic art by Geoff Ridgway

Auke Veenstra writes about erotic art and games on the Art of Love website.

Obsessions

Auke Veenstra — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 14:07:40 EST

Inspired by de Sade, Pierre Molinier visualizes his own sexual obsessions. Imagine that these works are created in the fifties, the conservative world before the sexual revolution started. But at the same time the ideas about sexuality were undergoing a mayor change, there was a sexual revolution coming.Pierre Molinier was surrounded by guys like Breton, one of the founders of surrealism, and had his first important exhibit in 1955. It was the time of the great exploration of the human psyche by Sigmund Freud and his Psychoanalytic Movement. Ideas that were reflected as a mayor theme in surrealism en DaDa. And within this movements the work of Molinier is situated.The strange manipulated images he left behind are great examples of the inner exploration Freud was teaching. The understanding of our own sexual obsessions, frustrations and desires, revealed to us in our dreams.Besides this rather heavy psychological theme his work also has a decent dose of humor. At least for us modern people looking at it. I guess that Molinier was taking his work very seriously. But today we are used to this kind of images and the ideas of Sigmund Freud are not fashionable anymore.Historic erotic art images on The Art of Love

Auke Veenstra writes about erotic art and games on the Art of Love website.

Sensual and spiritual

Auke Veenstra — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 14:03:48 EST

Jaeda DeWalt describes her work as sensual and spiritual. The first work I encountered of Jaeda DeWalt was one of her self-portraits with mannequin figures. The plastic look of the figures is softened by the usage of light and shades of grey. In this black & white photo the human body is almost equal to the mannequins surrounding it. It's the same with the pose of Jaeda, it makes the human and plastic body's blend together as a group of equals.The main difference is the anonymity of the mannequins and the individuality of the central character. You could say that she reveals her individuality this way. Does she express her sexuality as a female here as well? In a way there is a sexual aspect in this picture. The nakedness, the sensual lines of the body's against each other, even if most of them are not for real. But on the opposite there is the non-interaction and the static poses. This duality makes this image intriguing to me.What I also experience in her work is what's best to describe as visual silence. It is one of the things that gives the work of Jeada DeWalt the serene intrinsic beauty. The images in this gallery are almost all self-portraits of the artist. She describes it as a way of seeking answers to who she is and what se will become, a personal journey we can witness.The Artist statement: The body is perhaps the most beautiful canvas of expression. The camera can provide a location of where we're at on this road map of life. Nudity in itself is not sexual, but rather, it is sensual. I feel sensuality is a state of mind that walks hand in hand with spirituality. In my photography I seek to express the sensual and spiritual in all of its magnificent colors, textures and feelings, as well as exposing the darkness that lingers within us all.Erotic art of Jaeda DeWalt on The Art of love

Auke Veenstra writes about erotic art and games on the Art of Love website.

The art of sensuality

Auke Veenstra — Fri, 26 Nov 2004 15:20:59 EST

Searching for the best way to capture the sensuality and beauty of the naked human body. This Artist is getting really close to perfection. The round female shapes are perfectly presented in both subtile and elegant poses.The smart way of using light, light reflection and shadows in combination with a rather simple setup drives all the attention to his marvelous nude models.The white wall background series with the asymmetric composition are the most puritan nudes you can imagine. It shows us the real strength of simplicity. A quite modernistic artistic concept, that dictates the less is more theory. And in this images it works very well, just because raemond knows how to balance the composition without getting predictable. The unnatural light from beneath the model is again one of the small additions in his working process that contributes greatly to the visualization of sensuality.Images The Art of Love

Auke Veenstra writes about erotic art and games on the Art of Love website.

Druuna comic

Auke Veenstra — Fri, 26 Nov 2004 15:19:41 EST

Did you ever explore the strange erotic comic worlds created by Serpieri? It's dark out there with some warm, wet places to give you shelter. The erotic comics of Serpieri are still one of the best out there.The Druuna album was first released in 1987 and did strike lovers of this erotic genre right in the heart. The drawing quality was awesome, and the comic album featured sexual explicit sex scenes in strange lustful fantasy worlds. At the same time the market of comics that started in de early 70' was at it's peak. The world was flooded with comics like superman, the x-men and many others. It was time to entertain this warmed up world with Druuna. The drawing style of this album was clearly related with the general comic style at that time. But Serpieri's technique is of a more free and artistic nature. A large part of the action and suggestion is a result of his free drawing hand and sometimes chaotic style. It gives his albums the typical Serpieri taste.The album Planete Oubliee is released in 2000, it's still featuring nude full breasted girls and many monsters, but it has less of the hardcore action than his previous ones. But again a masterpiece of erotic comics was born.The comics of Serpieri are among the classics of sex comics and I would really recommend lovers of this genre to start absorbing the great imaginary worlds in the Druuna series.Images of Druuna on The Art of Love

Auke Veenstra writes about erotic art and games on the Art of Love website.

Nudes in stereo : by Michel Charles

Auke Veenstra — Sun, 21 Nov 2004 05:46:51 EST

The erotic art of Michel Charles is of an incredible beauty. It shows us subtile, manipulated and colorful images dedicated to the female body. He plays with vague strokes of light and blurriness to make the images both suggestive and playful.The added effects however does not take over the entire character of the photo. It is more an addition that gives the work of Michel Charles that typical dreamy atmosphere. The techniques he uses for his work are a combination of computer manipulation and old ones like gomme, stenotype and airbrush. He is currently working with stereoscopy. This rather old way to create 3D effects in images is rediscovered by this artist. The 3D erotic images are displayed on a special website he recently opened. For the best viewing experience he offers the red and green glasses. 3D erotic images on The Art of Love

Auke Veenstra writes about erotic art and games on the Art of Love website.