Putting My Obsession to Good Use (Patreon)

One of my favorite teachers in college would often have us start class by completing the sentence "I am in love with, and obsessed by,________"  It's definitely a good lodestone for art. Passion is art's whole deal.

Ideally that passion would be for something very real and important in your life. However, in the vacuum of the pandemic, my obsession has focused on Criminal Minds. Specifically crushes on Reid/Matthew Gray Gubler and Hotch/Thomas Gibson. I've read SO MUCH slash fic about them. I've immersed myself in Gublerland.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. But I certainly questioned the artistic merit of whatever this obsession might inspire.

Yes, the image above is pretty. But is that *all* it is? Maybe.

Maybe this image of Hotch with a BAU tattoo is just some sexy fan art and a joke that's only funny to Criminal Minds Fans because Hotch would NEVER get a tattoo, but if he did, it would be BAU related.

As I worked on this, I realized that this is not the first time I've been obsessed with fictional FBI agents. I have an autographed photo of Gillian Anderson because I sent her a letter and drawing of her during the first season of X-Files before the show got popular. 

My current Criminal Minds obsession feels a lot like my 6th grade X-Files obsession, which definitely worried me for a while. No one wants to be who they were in 6th grade. But, in many ways, the pandemic has created similar conditions; My social world is very small and I've been largely helpless in the face of overwhelming external influences. So I turned to what was familiar and comforting, sexy people solving spooky murders.

Wherever this strange impulse comes from, I'm not alone in feeling it. According to the Nielsen ratings, Criminal Minds is *the most* streamed tv show right now. And, from what I've seen of the fandom, the attractiveness of the cast is no small part of its appeal.

I mean, COME ON.

So I thought, why not do a series of Foxy Feds illustrations?

My Ipad makes this a thousand times easier since I can get likenesses from, essentially, tracing photos. And if I need to spend a lot of time looking for mostly naked photos of beautiful people well...somehow I'll muddle through.

Mulder was, of course, the first to get a fully finished illustration. There's plenty of hot photos out there and my love of the character madean illustration almost instinctual.

Dreamy gaze searching the skies! Spooky green light! X-Files-y shadows! Done.

I drew this the same weekend I finished watching Wandavision and I was *very* excited to realize that they'd given me a fantastic subject.

Still not sure about costume and background details, but I'm very happy with this beginning.

On the to-be-drawn list:

Scully
Dale Cooper
Betty Cooper
Hotch
Reid
Morgan
Prentiss
Jack Crawford
Will Graham
Clarice Starling

There's a billion other FBI shows so I'm sure there's more that I should do. I kind of want these framed as a Foxy Feds Calendar so I might put some characters together. But for copyright reasons I can't actually sell it as a calendar (or anything else) so I may just keep adding to the list.

Any character requests?