Paying bills through design, drugs and drawing

Here's an article in the online Western Front, the official newspaper of Western Washington University. Written by Ashley Hogrebe, dated October 23.

http://www.westernfrontonline.net/features/article_f71f71d4-1d51-11e2-a6bb-001a4bcf6878.html

It discusses "unconventional" ways some students have made money to make ends meet. One of those methods is... drawing porn on Fur Affinity...

Drawing porn

Mitchell Abston, a Western junior, sits down to his computer and logs on to a website he is almost too embarrassed to admit he is a part of.

“It’s a really stupid website,” Abston said.

He opens his ‘Notes’ page on the site and browses through the different artwork requests: a dragon devouring a little person, a man with female genitalia in a scandalous position and a scantily clad human with animal features. Smirking to himself at the absurdity of the requests, he opens up his Japanese design software and gets to work creating X-rated images for his clients.

“You really have to have no respect whatsoever to do this,” Abston said.

The website, Fur Affinity, is an online gallery for fans of anthropomorphic art, a fetish involving fictional human characters with animal-like features. People interested in it are often referred to as “furries.” The website hosts the largest “furry” community with more than 750,000 users, according to Fur Affinity’s Twitter. Users are encouraged to post their artwork on the site, and individuals can request artists to do commissions.

Abston is one of those artists.

He said he has casually drawn fan art for video games before, and started doing commissions when his friend got involved in the site and told him about the potential to earn extra cash.

Abston was skeptical that he could get business with his limited drawing abilities.

“Who in their right mind would pay me for my crappy drawings?” Abston said.

He took a chance and had his first commissioned piece posted on the website last summer. Within one week, his 15-slot request list was full and people were backlogging him for art.

“This is something specific to this fandom. You don’t see this in any other fetish,” Abston said. “People get so embroiled in this lifestyle and they need more and more images.”

Abston said he charges $10 for a line drawing and $20 for a full-color piece, which is cheap compared to other artists on the site. The most expensive piece he saw was $400.

While Abston doesn’t consider himself a part of the furry community, he finds the financial incentive keeps him coming back.

“I am not attracted to it whatsoever," Abston said. " I just do it for the money”

Sometimes people on the site request drawings an artist is uncomfortable with. Abston charges a 'Fetish Charge' if a request is out of his comfort zone. Most of the time the $10 increase in price makes the requester tame their inquiry.

Abston’s full course load keeps him busy late at night and he finds drawing porn is an easy way to make money that works with his schedule. Drawing is Abston’s only current form of income and he uses the extra cash for spending money. Instead of playing video games in his free time, he will sit down and work on a piece. Abston does an average of one to two pieces a week, each one takes an average of 3-5 hours. He started last summer, Abston has made more than $200.

While he thinks most people on the site are too peculiar for his taste, he enjoys stepping into strangers’ worlds.

“It’s like a window looking into people’s weirdest desires,” Abston said.