Illustrating XConfessions: the wonderful world of erotic artwork

Every time I introduce XConfessions to someone, I end up answering to the same question: how do we find so many cool images to go with each story? And that, dear lusties, is one of the best parts of our job! And from now on they will have an even bigger space in our website. So here’s how it goes:

First you come here, let your imagination run free in a quiet space where everything is permitted, and press “send” on your story. Bam! Done, confession confessed!

That’s just the beginning of a several-steps work that me and my team do everyday, with all and every new story that arrive to the website. Once we have your story, we read it (to make sure that there’s nothing violent or illegal in it, yes, but also because we just love reading your stories!), insert the tags that make sense in them (so that other uses can find it easily), and then get ready to start the most fun part of the whole process: illustrating it.

Seeing that colorful, pretty board feels so natural that it might pass unnoticed, but we know that illustrating your confessions is as important as publishing them. Each new story has its own tone, its own understanding of eroticism, its own highlights and arousal points. And we are very aware that if we want to put a “face” in it, we have to do it right. That’s why we dedicate a good amount of time researching and investigating new artwork (which can be either photography, illustration, gifs, or basically anything pretty) to bring to the project.

We are constantly checking Tumblr, Pinterest and art magazines and blogs, looking for new artists, designers, illustrators and photographers that focus in sex, erotica and human bodies. Then, we get in touch with them, asking permission to use their work (luckily they are all very happy to participate in XC!).

During the past few years, we’ve created a huge and wonderful network of artists and illustrators who generously accepted our invitation to collaborate in XC. We, of course, credit all images and don’t claim the rights to anything – they just lend us the images, and we illustrate your stories with them. This way we have an even more fun, diverse and stimulating website!

We thought it would be fun to create a special space for our collaborators, so we’ll be launching a special page in XConfessions dedicated to all collaborators. In our Artists Gallery, you’ll find names like Apollonia Saintclair, The Dirty Gentleman, Simon Studios, Petites Luxuries, Giuseppe Palmisano and many others. We’re working on putting all profiles up (there’s over a thousand images in our history!), so stay tuned

I’ll also try to publish a short interview with every artist here, and in XConfessions’ blog. Don’t miss out!