The Man

Okay, well, No pictures of my own this time.

Anyway, I have been talking to the artist 'The Man' since I've made this site and
we've become friends. We've had a number of discussions involving
masking, fetish, art, furries, etc. etc. Anyway, he's consistantly had interesting
things to say so I figured I'd do an online interview of which I feel is completely
relevant to this site.

Enjoy and feel free to leave comments or questions here and I can forward them
to him.

How did you first get into latex/furries/rubber/x-dressing/cosplay
fetish?

That answer is rather long but I'll compress it down for public
consumption the best I can. As far back as when I was in grade school I always
remember having an attraction to female masks. I'd see occasional
depictions in media and I would love it. I still have no idea why it started
when I was so young. When I first noticed my attraction I was only 8 or
so, so why show an interest in a latex mask that portrayed women? I
still have no absolute answer as to why I enjoy them, simply ideas as to
what it could be. As I got older I got to experience new things and I
started to notice more around me. With the coming of the internet into my
home in the late 90's when I was 15, along came a lot of new places to
find things that interested me. Due to the fact that most female masks
are made out of latex or some other rubber compound, it was only
natural for me to be drawn to latex clothing. The internet became a gateway
to things I could only imagine. At first I had thought that I was the
only one who enjoyed female masks. That changed when I stumbled upon a
link from a latex site to Kerry's female mask site. I had found a whole
niche of folks who practiced making and wearing female latex masks. With
this new found group of people also came more links which lead me into
things like Kigurumi. For those who don't know, Kigurumi is a form of
masked cosplay found in Japan that is often performed onstage featuring
cartoon characters or videogame characters. One of the interesting
things about Kigurumi is the gender of the performer has no bearing on the
character they can play. At this same time I started to notice some of
the mask artwork out there. Most of it showed up on my friend
Closetmonster's site. At first it was bits and pieces but the collection on his
site quickly grew. Robert Hill's work was my first dealings with furry
and furry mask artwork. It was another one of those “Holy crap! That's
interesting, where can I see more?!” type of things. Thus began my
involvment in the furry and Kigurumi worlds. Naturally, since most female
maskers and Kigurumi performers are male, my interest in crossdressing
just came with the territory.

When did you first start drawing?

I first started drawing when I was very little and due to my rampant
lust for seeing more female mask pictures I started drawing my own in
gradeschool. Because of my fears of having my involvement with the subject
discovered I never drew more than a few at that time and most of poor
quality because of my lack of art experience. As the years went on I got
better at drawing in general so I'd take a stab at drawing some more
mask pieces. None of which were ever very good and are rotting in a
folder underneath my bed waiting for me to burn them. I really don't like my
oldest works but I do recognize their contributions to my ascension to
being a better artist. Around '99 or '00 is when I started to really
get into it a bit more and I even felt some of the stuff was good enough
to show off and it spiraled out of control from there.

Why did you start drawing?

I started drawing because I found out that I wasn't the only one who
drew stuff like this and I wanted to be part of it. It wasn't until about
the time Closetmonster's site first showed up that I saw other artist's
renderings of female masks. Robert Hill was one of the first few I saw
as I mentioned and his work is, in my opinion, some of the best stuff
still around. However, when I first saw Cally's work, I was floored. I
was amazed that anyone could achieve what Cally does when depicting
masks and suiting pictures. This sparked a deep urge to be able to make my
art look like that, it just required more practice. So I started
working on it. As time has gone on I have improved significantly from my
early days. Cally has been a great inspiration for me and we eventually
became friends. I'm still not nearly as good of an artist as Cally is but
we have this way of feeding off of each others work for motivation and
inspiration in some cases.
Have you ever had a fetish or cosplay experience?

It's actually kind of funny that a man who enjoys latex so much has
never actually worn any or been with anyone in it. My fetish range is
actually kind of broad and but I'm not actually sure they could be
considered fetishes. My love of latex started when I was too young to even
think about sex so how could it be a fetish? I'm not Sigmund Freud and I'd
probably just pass out and hit my head on the coffee table if I tried
to figure that question out. But to answer your question: no to the
fetish side and a sort of for the cosplay side. Because of the wonderful
friends who I have made over the years I have a few connections to
Kigurumi. One of my best friends was Yuri Tsukino, commonly known as the
mother of western Kigurumi. Yuri passed away this last June and it was
horrible to lose such a good friend but I was unbelievably lucky enough to
meet her early this year along with my other very dear friend Rabbit
from www.rabbitinthemoon.us. During this time I was able to dabble a
little bit with Kigurumi and fursuits. However, I never really did
Kigurumi, I did female masking using one of the Natori masks from Japan. I
actually just got the invoice for my Natori mask recently so it will be at
home waiting for me when I return from Iraq for me to enjoy :)

How was it?

It was a wonderful experience for me since it was the first time I
dressed up in a mask and outfit ever. However, it was only for a short
time, maybe an hour or so. This didn't bother me because of the company I
was in. It was just enjoyable for me to be able to spend time with my
friends. Now before someone thinks me some sick weirdo(as if you don't
already), because I don't consider Kigurmi or cosplay to be overly
sexual, this was just a time for me to enjoy myself and do something I loved.

I personally enjoy x-dressing in latex, but have never really tried
x-dressing through cosplay. Do you think that cosplay and latex x-dressing
differ?

They do differ but it really depends on what you want to get out of it.
Like I said, Kigurmi isn't about sex and latex doesn't have to be
either. To me, latex is something that can be very sexual but also be very
beautiful. The same could be said for Kigurmi, however in the
traditional sense, Kigurumi is meant to be cute which is how I see it. That does
not mean I don't ever see it as being attractive or sexual, it's just
not my primary focus with either interest for me. If you enjoy wearing
latex and dressing up as the other gender then it could be considered
the same as Kigurumi, just different means to an end.

When I x-dress I notice that it isn’t as sexual as much as it is an
identity shift, have you had a similar experience?

Because my experience is so limited with crossdressing I cannot provide
much insight, but I would have to say yes. After giving it much thought
when I have dressed up in a mask and costume I find that I am still the
same person but I am not hindered by my own convictions. I am free to
portray a character as with Kigurumi or enjoy having the appearance of a
different body with latex. My identity doesn't change but shift is
definitely a good way to describe it.

I’ve also noticed that you have strong furry and cartoon character
influences in your art. Why?

It's not something I can easily answer. I usually just draw what I
like. Cartoons have always been a big influence on me as I enjoyed them so
much when I was young watching them on Saturday mornings. I still watch
cartoons now at the age of 23. Over the time though as I matured,
cartoons matured as did my perceptions of some of the characters. It was
quite common to see Bugs Bunny dress up in drag in Looney Tunes and
because of that, it didn't seem all that awkward to do it with other
characters. Perhaps taking a character from an innocent cartoon like Road
Rovers(Colleen) and drawing a rubber bodysuit in her image is considered out
of the ordinary but where should the boundary be? My drawings are not
meant to be viewed by people who aren't of a mature age or nature so why
can't I update the characters I enjoyed as a kid to reflect my
interests as an adult? This is a question that a lot of people cannot get
around but my mind is pretty open. The reasoning behind my heavy furry
influences are mainly because as much as I love the human female body I'm
not terribly good at drawing their faces and since furry stuff is a big
interest of mine and a helluva lot easier to draw I figured I would
combine interests. So far it has worked out well and people seem to enjoy
it. I'm constantly improving on myself so be on the lookout for more
whacky stuff to come out of my corner.

(I still watch cartoons too. hehe)
I have almost no experience with the furries or the fetish, but I have
always been interested in it. I was just wondering how you see it?

The furry fandom can't be called a fetish because it is much more than
that. I won't try to explain it but I'll just lay down a few lines
fleshing it out a bit more for those who don't know anything about it.
Being a furry is not about sex. It's actually a small portion of it that
gets highlighted by bad publicity and shows like Sex2K which was run one
time on MTV. It's almost a lifestyle but in a hypothetical sense. I
like furries because it is something you don't normally see, it's
interesting :) Friends who I have shown my artwork that involves furries to
aren't familiar with the subject but they can appreciate the art and how
it looks in the end. Some even find it arousing even in just the sense
that it gets the hamster running on the wheel in their coconuts. I
personally see furries as harmless and kinda like Halloween but only with
animals. Like a big roleplaying game where all the girls have huge
breasts and aren't always girls ;). It's really a mind blowing subject and
cannot be explained very well by a Jarhead like me

Shifting gears; do you consider your art to be pornography?

Honestly, no.

Why?

I understand that some people get a sexual reaction from my artwork and
that is the point quite often. However I personally get no sexual
gratification out of my own artwork. I just identify it as something I
wanted to see so I drew it. As I mentioned earlier, none of this stuff
appears sexual to me all the time and pornography is sexual all the time.
Not to mention I haven't drawn anything that directly involves sex as of
yet but I have a few ideas which might come to fruition down the line
which are designed with the idea of sex solely in mind.

Ah, well. Thank you for the discussion, but we are running out of time. 
Cut to a commercial! lol.
But yes, if you would like to see more of The Man's art, then link over to
his site (on the right of this page).