For months I worked towards creating my naked men's colouring book. This bad boy celebrates all things male nudity in a body-inclusive colouring set for your mindful (and sexy) colouring pleasure.
I remember the inception of this idea very clearly. I was driving home after teaching an early morning Friday yoga class in Canberra, Australia. At the traffic lights, as I was passing a McDonalds, the concept downloaded into my head as if from spirit itself!
"I am going to make a product that:
Celebrates male nudity without overly sexualising people-with-penisis;
Shares the huge wellbeing that men's nude yoga and embodiment work offers;
Promotes mindfulness and slowing down by colouring-in;
Is edgy, different, and for adults;
And that is a hell of a lot of fun"
Behind-the-scenes video:
STEP ONE: Sharing the Vision to Find an Artist
I started scavenging the web, worrying about bothering friends who are graphic designers, and diligently trying to manifest a graphic artist into my life.
I wanted REAL men's bodies, not some google image search. I was going to get photo submissions from real guys across the world. I needed somebody who could confidently digitise those photos and put it all together in an interesting design that would be fun to colour!
Enter one of my epic yoga students and professional graphic artists, Mallory (follow mallory on IG @mallory_s_wild ). Also enter covid lockdowns, many design iterations, and heaps of coffee catchups with Mallory to discuss ideas. I won't lie - my original design drawings were very politely discouraged (thank god - this is why you get the pro's in). Soon enough my spiral-bound prototype bloomed into a collapsible, elegant and slick 1-page design that was better for the environment (hello less paper printing!) and more customisable (do you want a book, do you want a poster - well you get both!
You'll notice that the final poster is actually a 'posterzine'. Zine's were/ are popular mini publications - like a mini magazine, but more artisan. Said to have began to circulate in the 1930's, early zine's were made by hand with highly limited availability. Poster + Zine = Posterzine.
Mallory was also the genius behind the title MENTIMATE!
STEP TWO: Getting the naked guys in their favourite poses
I reached out directly to my naked yoga student community in Canberra but knew I wanted to expand my reach. Through tantric men's apps, discord, reddit and twitter, eventually I had spread the word to the nude yoga community to the point where I had too many photo submissions to even fit it all in!
I am so damn grateful to all the men who bravely shared their naked yoga photos. I know a lot of them were nervous about it! I've acknowledged them all in the poster - you'll see the names. After more coffee catchups and design meetings, Mallory & I finally had a product, and it was physically available AND available for digital download. We paired men's bodies with shadowing, fun details like body-hair and tattoos, and mandalas to create a unique and interesting tapestry to colour to your heart's delight.
STEP THREE: Putting it all Together
The next stage was super fun. I created a makeshift photography studio in my cousin's granny flat using my Dad's flood lighting. Here, my cousin and I took countless photos of the colouring poster, and photos of me, to get the perfect shots that would help me share this product with the world.
Queue countless hours of editing; editing in photoshop, creating videos and gifs, working out how to remove all of my backgrounds to create product shop images...everything. I built my entire website, learning how to create an online store, how to ship products, how to setup tax receipts for purchases and more.
I quickly learned it's one thing to have a product to sell, it's another thing entirely to sell it!
Here's a video of my granny-flat studio complete with lights strung onto my Aunty's lattice chair:
STEP FOUR: LAUNCHING
Finalise the pricepoints; Create the marketing strategy; Email the pre-launch list;
Manage to have a sandwich; Quick - oh man why isn't the bloody coupon working!?! THE COUPONN!?!
Putting it all together has been a wild ride. If you made it this far, thank you! Thank you for your interest in men's nude yoga and in my business, Andreas Embodiment. Thank you for supporting healthy men's body image, and for being part of a conversation that acknowledges that men experience body-confidence challenges as much as anyone else. Men's Nude Yoga is such a beautiful community for guys of all ages, body shapes, sexualities and walks-of-life to come together in brotherhood with nothing to hide and everything to share together.
If you wish to get your hands on your own copy head over to the product page here: