How I Crowdsourced a Cartoon Butt on Social Media
Sometimes, when you have what you think is a good idea, a funny idea, it's best to make sure that it is, indeed, a good and funny idea. That's when it comes in handy to have friends and family who aren't afraid to tell you it's not.
For whatever reason, people find pirates funny, and I'm people. I'd been trying to come up with some good design ideas for my Etsy shop, which is called All Sorts of Art (without Ali, because I was less savvy about branding, back then). I thought about the word “booty”, which pirates used to mean “loot”--basically the treasure and valuables they stole from their victims -- but how we use it to refer to butts, which are inherently hilarious. The phrase “pirate booty” had, therefore, a double meaning of a pirate's treasure—or a pirate's buttocks. So the obvious idea that arose in me noggin was an image of a little cartoon pirate mooning everyone. I made a thumbnail sketch of my, er, cheeky pirate.
Adorable, right? Who wouldn't appreciate a mischievous pirate showing his lil butt? Eh? Eh? Anyone? Sure, I figured; that's a winner. However, such a ridiculously obvious idea must have been done before, many times, so I figured I should see what kind of competition I had out there.
Not much, surprisingly. I don't mean there wasn't a whole lot of pirate humor, including a truly discomfiting number of t-shirts that said “Surrender the Booty”, but no mooning pirates. Seems like all the pirate merch is interested more in your booty than theirs, in a vaguely non-consensual way that gives one pause. I mean, I guess it's more pirate-y, but we're not doing that here at ASoA.
Forging ahead with the all-clear, I used my brand new tablet and my brand new Sketch app to create a digital illustration (my first one, actually, unless you count some terrifically clumsy drawings created with a mouse and Windows Paint). My little cartoon sketch turned into this:
So. Uh. Yeah.
I'd been pretty happy creating it, marveling at how lovely the paint-like effects were, but when I was done, I found the pic a little disturbing. It was a lot less “Tee hee, look at me bum” and a lot more “HERE'S ME ARSE”. I also was a bit freaked out by my pirate looking less like he was casting a grin over his shoulder and more like his head had snaked around on a weirdly long neck to stare full-on, his hands seemed to come out of nowhere, and his pants might be pulled down a little too far for decency's sake. I wasn't familiar enough with Sketch or with digital art programs in general to even figure out how to fix a lot of these things.
At this point, it occurred to me that I had a forum of, if not potential customers, then people who did indeed sometimes buy things and who would not hesitate to share their opinions of whether Mr. Arrrrse was a marketable design: my Facebook friends. I submitted my work thus far and threw myself on their mercy.
There were a couple of outliers on either end: Some thought it was great as is, and some said they wouldn't consider sporting any gear with a nekkid pirate butt regardless of presentation, but most everyone agreed that the pirate looked excessively pervy, which is what spoiled things, and that it was because he looked too realistic. No one mentioned the anatomical issues that bugged me, but those were entirely beside the point. I had to de-perv the pirate by going back to the drawing board, literally.
I started with my initial sketch that I liked, and every time I felt tempted to make him look realistic in any way, I slapped the urge down. It was tough, because I have been a portrait artist for decades, and making people look like people is kinda my jam. But I produced a second version that I think captured the lightheartedness of my rough sketch:
His head is still in about the same place, to be honest, but his arms make more sense, his booty is hanging out less over his pants and, while rosy, his cheeks don't appear to have recently been paddled with gusto. This met with approval, and so it is now available in the Etsy shop. I put it on a tote bag, which I thought was a clever way to incorporate the double meaning of “booty”, since you use a tote for your swag, right?
Anyway, I never thought I'd say this to anyone, but thanks for your comments about my butt.
Images: original art by Ali, (c) 2022
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