Adult illustrator as the main character artist?

[oka]

After finishing the game and looking up the guy listed in the credits-- the one who made the character art-- it took me less than a few minutes to discover that he primarily specializes in drawing pornography.

I wanted to ask the dev's take on this rather odd ethical choice, where the game meant to be seen as Christian specifically commissions an artist whose bread and butter is creating imagery which is meant to bring others to commit one of the seven deadly sins.

[LazerBlues]

Luce, the new mascot of the vatican was also made by an artist that does NSFW art, mind your business and do not mess with other people's work

[oka]

Originally posted by LazerBlues:

Luce, the new mascot of the vatican was also made by an artist that does NSFW art, mind your business and do not mess with other people's work

I'm aware of Tokidoki's previous collaborations and I would be lying if Vatican's choice to commission them for a Jubilee mascot, as adorable as the end result mascot is, didn't have me raising an eyebrow. I suppose it could be viewed as "hate the sin, not the sinner" situation, but I'd rather hear the official explanation than to speculate.

As for your last-- and frankly rude-- statement, every public figure is responsible for what they put out for the public eye to see and can be freely questioned and/or critiqued for it - just like how I could critique your own questionable drawings of MLP-themed characters if that was of interest to me. There's a big difference between what's shared in private and what's shared with the public, so I'm very much "minding my business", as my "business" here is genuinely wanting to learn the developer's intent by choosing the artist they chose, given the context.

[trueyomicdev]

The decision to take on the character illustrator with a past (and present) in creating such materials was one taken after searching for a long time for adequate high quality character design and finding none in the places I knew where to search. In the end, I initially justified it on a few grounds:

1) Since other great (especially Japanese) artists also got their start with not just lewd, but particularly extreme forms of lewd doujin work, I figured at the time of hire that it was an acceptable course of action. I would list multiple examples of such Japanese artist, but I don't want to further scandalize anyone here. Just note that there are quite of few who have worked on long time beloved franchises you know and love.

1a) On a note related to scandal the Church did hire many artists during the Renaissance Age who were active in various kinds of their own sins. This is similar to the Luce point made by the poster above.

2) I justified it further after going through his professional portfolio, noting that he also worked with Disney to produce children's media and so had a history of separating his professional work with his other work (Big Hero 5 cartoon to be specific among other non-Disney animated works).

3) The artist agreed to keep his professional name and art separate from this wholesome Christian work and has signed a copyright agreement ensuring I have all rights for all characters produced for this game, including characters with any with likenesses to protect them from misuse. Thus far, the artist has been nothing but professional in keeping his promise and working with me professionally.

Do I have regrets? Certainly. This is one of the biggest things that my mind revisits over and over again, especially as my faith has continued to mature over time. On one hand, there's the possibility of scandal, but only if people keep bringing it up like this. If people start making a bigger deal out of it, then people WILL seek out the other material.

On the other hand, the fruits of this game through the discord community and personal testimony are apparent to me, and I don't think it could have been done without a high quality artist.

As it is right now, the artist and I have mutually agreed to go our separate ways at the conclusion of this game whether or not a sequel is made. It feels like with how much money has gone into art and how in love with the characters as they are currently designed, it would do more harm than good to replace it all (assuming I could afford it at this point). Going forward, I will be making sure to do my best to avoid hiring artists who have a current business of making lewd material. If they have a past, I'm willing to look past it in the spirit of Christ, especially if they're looking for a more pure path forward.

[oka]

Thank you for such a detailed answer! This answers my question perfectly goes beyond to give even more relevant context. Things have certainly been put into perspective and I really appreciate you going out of your way to write it all out in such a descriptive manner. God bless.

[trueyomicdev]

It was certainly worth addressing in an official manner because it's a serious issue. I'm going to go ahead and lock the thread for now. If anyone has additional questions about it, feel free to hop onto the Discord server where everyone is most active. If the above answer doesn't satisfy most, I assure you the atmosphere of the server and the testimony from other fans will vouch for my intentions. Thanks for your blessings and trust! God bless!