An interview with He Thong a kinky 3D illustrator.
MasterMarc: Hi HeThong. It’s a pleasure to talk to you. Your kinky art looks a little like snapshots out of a fetish video game. It gives us the possibility to dive in a fantasy world of masters and slaves. For how long do you create such pictures and how has it come?
HeThong: Hi MasterMarc, and thanks for the interest in my artwork. I have been attracted by depicting erotic and sexually explicit situations, both straight and gay, since I was a teenager -many, many years ago. Although I had never received formal education in the fine arts, I managed to draw more or less decently -just like my mom and dad- and, as soon as I learned to deal with the human figure, I began to produce one drawing after another. Many of my drawings were related to macrophilia and size differences but, during the first 
several years -perhaps because I was so young- I felt not comfortable with BDSM themes. This changed later, probably as a natural consequence of the domination factor implicit in macrophilia… and my losing of certain inhibitions. Anyway, the real breakthrough came for me from the technical side when, just some fifteen years ago, I discovered that it was possible to create 3D art of reasonable quality with relatively accessible software. At that point, I abandoned plain drawing -in which I considered myself quite limited- and embraced 3D art permanently.
MasterMarc: What are the kinks you’re interested in? Are you living your kinks or is your art a kind of substitution?
HeThong: As it transpires from my artwork -I hope- my main interests are slavery and macrophilia. I rush to point out, however, that my conception of these themes seems not fully coincident with the mainstream preferences of the public -at least, for what I see in the web. For me, for instance, slavery is first of all a kind of employment contract. In this contract, of course, the slave has no rights, no payment, no freedom of any sort, is considered to be an object, and is absolutely submitted to its owner’s will, much like if it were a kind of animate tool. As a worker, it hardly reaches the status of a beast of burden, not to speak of other domestic animals. However, it should not be the victim of irrational, unjustified sadism by its master’s hand. Any punishment -that, according to the owner’s judgment, can always be severe and violent even for the slightest fault or misconduct- must nonetheless have a well founded reason (in the owner’s view). Another point that I would like to make concerning slavery is that, being slaves budget-related objects, their maintenance must be carefully optimized, especially regarding all kinds of restraining apparel that some owners seem to appreciate much, but which is nothing more than a waste of money. In my opinion, costly bondage devices -from sophisticated harnesses to any type of cuff and piercing- should be severely economized, keeping just the minimum that maintains the slave under the owner’s control. Most of the time, it should only wear a metallic chastity device (allowing urination), with a few auxiliary rings to affix chains and other appendages and, if necessary, a buttplug to avoid sex attacks from other slaves or animals during working hours. A non-removable collar is also advisable as slavery mark, but only if it can also be used to secure the owner’s property.
Now, to my real life. It may disappoint (and amuse?) the readers that it has nothing to do with the fantasy world of my artwork. In the real world, I am a senior scientist and university teacher. I live somewhere in the southern hemisphere, and I have a family -wife and children. I devote myself to my artwork in my spare time, for instance, now during the summer holidays. I do not identify myself with any of my characters, and wouldn’t be much happy finding any realization of my fantasies in the real world. Substitution? Mild schizophrenia? Maybe.
MasterMarc: Even if you don’t live in this world you have mentioned an important point that masters have also to take care about their propiety. But comming back to your art work. As you are saying that macrophilia is also one of your interests it implies that it has also a sexual aspect for you. How important are the sexual phantasies and probably not lived desires for your motivation to create new pictures?
HeThong: Well, I think that macrophilia is practically by definition a form of sexual fetishism. The fascination with giants must have had a highly erotic facet even in the context of mythologies. In my view, however, this fascination is related more to love than to sex. Macrophilia has to do with protecting or being protected. Protection, in turn, is closely linked with domination. And both require personal interaction. This is why I prefer just-beyond-plausible size differences instead of extreme size differences. Interaction between beings of very different sizes can only lead to violence and destruction.
Coming back to my artwork, of course my sexual fantasies have always been my primary source of inspiration. And, of course -as for anybody else, I imagine, and not only in the erotic realm- fantasies replace the unrealized desires of my everyday life, or perhaps those desires that can only be partially fulfilled. On a second thought, I would even say that fantasies are the closest possible realizations of our deepest lusts, where we can add or remove at will all those elements that reality lacks or imposes upon us.
MasterMarc: Can you tell us about your creative process and what the steps of your new creations are?
HeThong: Well, as you know, all begins with some amount of the (in)famous inspiration. As I told you before, I find inspiration in my own imagination and fantasies, but that is just to shift the question on where the ideas come from. The American composer Aaron Copland once said that it makes no sense to try to understand how inspiration functions. Anyway, nowadays there is a lot of material around, especially images but also stories, from where good ideas can emerge. I also get much inspiration from mythology and classic comics, which feature some very erotic characters and situations. You may also note that some leitmotivs, such as bath, toilet, and other homely scenes, as well as cages, some kinds of underwear, and body ointment, are recurrent in my artwork.
Assuming that I have got some idea, which can range from a very blurred scene to a well defined image, there comes the realization stage. I do not remember which other composer said that artistic creation is 10% inspiration and 90% hard work, but I do agree. Even with a clear picture of what I am looking for, there is a lot of factors to decide at the moment of realization. Composition, i.e. the choice of the relative location of figures and objects, is surely the most important to secure an aesthetically satisfying result. For this, I normally rely on traditional criteria of Western visual arts -the same as used by the classical masters… but no doubt less skillfully in my case. Composition also regards the choice of a viewpoint, which I recognize as my weakest side. Very often I am not happy with the final result, despite how much I have struggled to optimize the perspective. Finally, lightning is an important part of composition as well.
3D art software is a really amazing tool. For me, it is the only solution to create pictures with gratifying results. At the same time, 3D techniques have some important limitations which have to be taken into account when planning a job. From the requests that I sometimes get from fans, it is clear that not everybody is aware of the stringent constrains of 3D art, at least, at the amateur level at which I work. Computer memory, for instance, fixes an upper (not so large) bound to the maximum number of objects that I can deal with simultaneously. Any scene with more than, say, four or five high-definition human figures requires to be rendered in two or more parts, cut and pasted with each other, which in turn brings about problems of overlapping shadows, contact between figures, and so on. Another problematic point has to do with the compatibility between human figures and clothing, the latter seldom being as realistic as the bodies themselves. Fortunately, most of my artwork depicts nude or almost nude characters!
MasterMarc: That’s really interesting and i can imagine, that it is not easy. How much time does it take to make a picture you’re happy with and what do you do with your pictures?
HeThong: Fans frequently ask how long it takes to make a picture, and the answer is that it varies a lot. If I have a well-defined, good idea and all the necessary 3D elements at hand, the picture can be ready in half an hour. If, on the other hand, I am undecided about the composition, or I have problems choosing the view and lightning, or my idea on what I want to depict is not so clear, it may take hours of trial renderings discarded one after another. Many times, I give up. After all, I do this during my spare time, which is normally rather limited.
Animations usually take a lot more time. First, one needs a convincing minimal story compatible with 3D tools. Then, animated composition not only regards spatial distribution of objects but also their temporal dynamics, which should be as smooth and believable as possible. Finally, the rendering of the many successive images of an animation can last for several hours.
It is interesting to mention that there is little relation between the time that I need to make a picture or an animation that really satisfies me, and how successful it turns out to be (as measured by the likes, reblogs, and comments that it gets online). For instance, my recent animation “The gyro” was an instant success, with hundreds of likes in the first few days, but it took less than one hour to finish. Perhaps I am not catching up what the public really wants to see.
As for what I do with my artwork, I have always deposited the pictures that I like in the public domain. I am happy with the idea that they are free to be enjoyed by anybody, as I enjoy them during their making. Some time ago, I used to collaborate with Coiled Fist, a friendly gay-oriented macrophile site with essentially no restrictions on the material they publish. I had as well a page on Deviant Art, but I was banned on the charge of pornographic posting. I also used to have a blog in Blogger, but suddenly they decided to change their policy regarding sexually explicit images and, although finally they reverted to the previous situation, I migrated to Tumblr. I am now publishing all my work in Tumblr.
MasterMarc: It is great that you offer your art work to everyoneon on the internet and I am sure, a lot of guys are enjoying it. It was really great to talk to you and I hope, you’ll enjoy your pictures by yourself, so that we all get the possibility to follow your dirty fantasies for a long time.
