Skin Tone Practice + 'Fan Service'

Well, decided I needed some more practice with skin tones, so here's what I came up with after a few hours one night.

Which brings me right to the topic of Fan service. For those who don't know what fan sevice is, it's basically gratuitous titillating imagery in comics or movies that do nothing to promote the story or plot; they're just there to get the audience or readers all hot and bothered.

Now, the problem with fan service is that people really really like it. Well, let me clarify: guys really really like it. We're almost all slaves to our testosterone, so any hint of flesh can get us to start reverting back into caveman mode. I haven't met many women who care about it, for the most part.

I don't really have a problem with this, personally. A little fan service is fine, but it's easy to go overboard into the ridiculous. Some of Masamune Shirow's recent work has gone so far overboard into ridiculous near-nudity and panty shots that you might actually forget that the plot and characters in his recent Ghost in the Shell works suck ass. There are loads of other works that are really nothing but pointless fan service as well, and I tend to find them pretty annoying.

Now that I'm working on my own material, it's tough to find a balance between the two extremes. I really love drawing women, but I feel like a jerk off if I start drawing too much bare flesh for no other reason than to see more skin. At the same time, that's what gets attention and accolades form the a huge portion of the people who buy comics or read web comics.

I don't really have any solutions or anything, It's just something that I ponder as I work on further layouts and comic pages.