[Retrospective] Sherlock Hound

Edit: Since we're new to Patreon, we didn't realize that posts containing pornographic content aren't allowed to be public/free, so after receiving a warning e-mail we've used Mofu's stickers to block out the naughty bits and sanitized some of the text. We really want people to be able to know what exactly this reward is to help inform their decision on which membership tier to select, so we'll do what we can to hopefully keep this post available.

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An exclusive reward we'd like to offer at higher tiers is something we're calling a Retrospective. More than just WIPs, Retrospectives are our way of taking you guys behind the scenes to see everything that goes into producing these illustrations from start to finish, including with our thought processes and side commentary. We hope this can provide something really special to those who are deeply interested in Mofu's work without depriving lower tiers of anything essential.

Truthfully, though, another primary motivation of ours for making these Retrospectives comes from our disappointment that there's an increasingly unhealthy fixation on end results as more and more people blindly use AI to generate endless batches of images in the hopes of the model finally spitting out something that's close enough. The process of creating something, even if it's erotic or fetishy, is just as deserving of appreciation as (if not more than) the finished product, and we hope that our account of how this illustration came to be can give you a different kind of appreciation for not only what Mofu does but also every soul that devotes themselves to their creative endeavors 🙏

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The first step is figuring out what exactly to draw. For Mofu, it can be a real struggle to find something that sparks that extra bit of inspiration or excitement that pushes us to go above and beyond. Luckily, we came across a popular Twitter post advertising an upcoming pop-up shop for Sherlock Hound in Japan:

We're not exactly big fans of the show, but we have watched some episodes together, mostly to ogle at that devilishly dashing doggo detective. Surprisingly, Mofu hadn't drawn any Holmes fanart, and I happened to remember a particularly infamous scene which, if you're a fan of Mofu's work, you are probably already well-acquainted with. Evidently, so are a lot of others because it wasn't hard at all to find what I was looking for:

Sherlock Hound / ホームズ (Shoes) - Sherlock Hound

Now say what you will about this channel, but it's these creators who unabashedly embrace what speaks so profoundly to them that I find commendable, even more so lately as we're locked in a dire battle against payment processing conglomerates blithely carrying out the bidding of bigots seeking to stifle our fundamental right to self-expression.

Soapboxing aside, we watched this clip together several times, snickering and wondering how someone was able to successfully foist their less-than-subtle fetishes upon the production team. It's one thing to show Holmes taking off his shoes; it's quite another to do it with such an up-close and detailed shot (animation isn't cheap, so every frame is deliberate)! And as soon as we noticed what this channel selected for its profile picture, our resolve was cemented.

The first sketch wasn't bad but felt a little flat, so Mofu tried a couple of other compositions that used a more exaggerated perspective.

Admittedly, the top-left composition is more indulgent and thus perhaps hotter, but we both felt like the other one was more interesting. We neglected to save the initial version of this sketch where Holmes was looking at his dick and there was nothing on the ground, but because the large room felt too empty I suggested that Moriarty's shadow stretch across the floor ominously as the villain ambushes an unsuspecting and rather vulnerable Holmes.

The composition was cropped to bring Holmes closer, though you can see we cropped it a little too much with the toes being slightly cut off at the top. When making one of these... strippable(?) illustrations, Mofu finds it much easier to start with the fully naked version and then gradually add layers of clothing. This is also why, despite a few requests, we don't plan on making a stripped version of the recently posted modern Robin illustration. Without having planned the separate layers in advance, the sheer amount of time and effort it would take to do something as seemingly simple as "take off" Robin's clothes would be better spent, we think, on simply making a new drawing.

Of course, new drawings also come with their own difficulties and challenges. At one point, while admiring some Sherlock Hound fanart by the amazing artist uochandayo, Mofu realizes that the pattern on the sofa is actually supposed to depict grapes, not just random dots as we had assumed!

Thankfully that's a pretty easy fix, and even if we hadn't it's unlikely anyone would notice or care, but Mofu doesn't like ignoring mistakes just because we can get away with it, not so much in pursuit of perfection but more so out of a personal pride as an artist which I always admire.

There's actually another discrepancy, but this one's deliberate: Holmes's suit is, in fact, the same color as his trousers!

But because we wanted more contrast, especially to better stand out from the sofa, we opted to make his suit jacket brown like his Inverness coat. It was a little too strong so after playing around with the colors we found something that we felt was like a good middle ground. Then, since the room was so empty, we checked the video for examples of things we could add. Like many artists, Mofu struggles with backgrounds (after all, it's much more fun to practice drawing characters), so having to fill this room with decorations was great practice in learning how to establish a setting more convincingly.

Finally, to really bring the picture to life, we added a strong bit of lighting cutting diagonally across the canvas. When you first look at the image, your eyes are likely to snap to Holmes's eyes, shining brightly in the darkness. Then, the diagonal strip of light (hopefully) guides your gaze down the rest of his body until you reach his feet which is where we imagine our followers' eyes will be lingering longest 🤭

Overall, we're pretty pleased with the final result! It's not perfect; there are still a couple of lingering issues that we didn't consider or realize until well after everything had been finished and couldn't be changed without significant loss of sanity and will to live 🫠

The first is Holmes's genitalia: it suddenly occurred to us afterwards that people have a wide range of preferences. However, the more variations we have to plan for the more complex the layer management, and Mofu is one of those artists who already uses quite a few layers, meaning that when there's a random stray mark that shouldn't be on the image, we have to play a frantic game of whack-a-mole to figure out which layer needs to be selected to get rid of the blemish. Still, we'll try adding a couple extra alts for our next major illustration to see if the extra effort is still manageable.

The second we leave for you to discover. It's not a particularly blatant error, so all the better if you can't find it 😊

All in all, writing this Retrospective may have been time-consuming, but the process of gathering and organizing our thoughts like this really did give us a lot of valuable ideas to reflect on, and we sincerely hope that you guys found it worthwhile as well, so feel free to let us know what you think and if there's anything more you'd like to see or read in these posts!

And don't worry, we'll upload all the illustrations in a separate post sometime later, so keep your ears perked and your nose to the ground 🕵️‍♂️