Illustrative Erotic

Kink & Ink

Illustrative Erotic

A working-studio guide to illustrative erotic tattoos — the etching, plate-illustration, and Victorian-botanical lineage

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Is this for you?

Five questions before the consult.

This page is a planning and consult guide, not a sample book. Before we get to lineage, directions, or placement — five reads that decide whether illustrative-erotic is actually the right neighborhood for the piece you have in mind.

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Your reference pile is books, not photographs

If your moodboard runs through Beardsley, Redouté, Schiele, Victorian botanical plates, and old book illustration rather than glamour photography, this is your lane. Illustrative-erotic work uses drawing logic — hatching, contour weight, plate composition — to do what realism uses light and shadow to do. The mark-making is part of the meaning.

ΙΙ

You want the piece to read at two distances

Across a room: a botanical plate, a figure study, a vignette. Up close, the charge becomes visible. Most illustrative-erotic work is built around that double-read. If you want a piece that announces itself the same way at every distance, a different style probably serves you better.

ΙΙΙ

You're comfortable owning the subject quietly

Most clients place this work somewhere the wearer controls — back, ribcage, outer thigh, inner upper arm. If the goal is for the piece to be visible every day on a forearm or hand, the strengths of this style are mostly wasted. Decide visibility first; the rest of the design follows.

ΙV

You want the figure to look like you (or your partner)

Either is valid; tell the artist which. The default canon of illustrative-erotic imagery leans toward a narrow set of body templates. Apollo artists work from your reference — body type, skin tone, scarring, top-surgery scars, mobility aids, chosen hair — and choose line and value decisions that read true on your skin, not on a generic light-skin template.

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You can picture the piece in five years and still want it

Imagine this work visible at a beach, in a hospital gown, in a custody photo, in a family portrait. Still good? If not, scale down, move it, or dial the implication up. Illustrative-erotic compositions are harder to cover and harder to lase off cleanly than small symbol work, especially at scale. Plan for the long arc.

Illustrative-erotic is drawing logic applied to charged subject matter. The drawing is the meaning.
— The Apollo Tattoo Studio
If your reference pile is books, not photographs, you're in the right neighborhood.
— The Apollo Tattoo Studio
Implication carries further than depiction. A turned shoulder reads at twenty paces; an explicit scene mostly reads as a billboard.
— The Apollo Tattoo Studio

Twelve design directions

The working catalog clients actually browse.

Twelve directions cover almost every illustrative-erotic commission Apollo books. Each is genuinely distinct — a single-stem botanical and a Beardsley-style figure vignette are not scaled versions of the same idea. Pick the direction; the rendering follows. Where a direction names a living illustrator (Crepax, Manara), treat the reference as tonal anchor, not a copy spec.

Single-stem botanical with charged subject

Redouté plate, species as meaning

A foxglove, fig, pomegranate, or split peach rendered as an 18th- to 19th-century botanical plate. Reads as botany first; the sensual charge is in the species choice and the way the specimen is opened, halved, or held. The most discreet entry point in the style. Worth noting: figs, pomegranates, and lilies have parallel sensual symbolism in Mediterranean, Persian, and South Asian visual traditions — the floral-erotic reading is not uniquely European.

Scale. 4 – 7 inches

Placements. Forearm · ribcage · upper back

Beardsley-style figure vignette

Pure pen-and-ink, drapery and hair as line

A single figure rendered in pure line, drapery and hair carrying most of the linework, body simplified to elegant contour. The 1890s pen-and-ink lineage — Beardsley's *Salomé* and *Lysistrata* plates — is widely cited as the modern grammar of stylized erotic line, and the work was prosecuted-adjacent and queer-coded in its own century.

Scale. 6 – 10 inches

Placements. Outer thigh · upper back · ribcage panel

Anatomical-plate study

Hand, foot, torso as field-guide specimen

A hand grasping, a foot arched, a torso turned — drawn the way *Gray's Anatomy* (1858) or Vesalius would render it: labeled-feeling, scientifically composed. The seriousness of the rendering is the framing. Subject becomes object of study rather than object of display, which is exactly why the composition tends to read editorial rather than explicit in mixed company.

Scale. 5 – 8 inches

Placements. Ribcage · inner forearm · thigh

Two-figure embrace, storybook palette

Greenaway-adjacent line, intimate scene

Soft line, muted color (if any), small-figure intimate composition. Reads as storybook plate first; the tenderness is foregrounded and the charge stays implicit. Greenaway's nineteenth-century children's-book line is the historical reference, applied here to adult subject with a deliberately gentle hand.

Scale. 5 – 8 inches

Placements. Ribcage · upper thigh · shoulder blade

Etched still life with implication

Object as stand-in for subject

An untied corset on a chair, a glove on a vanity, a half-poured glass — object-based composition, no figure. The reading sits with the wearer; strangers see decoration. The most placement-flexible direction because the meaning is carried by the still life rather than by the body.

Scale. 4 – 7 inches

Placements. Forearm · calf · thigh

Hand-and-implement study

A hand alone, holding or reaching

A hand drawn in plate-illustration style holding a single charged object — a flower, a key, a ribbon, a pen. The hand carries the gesture; the object carries the second reading. Most placement-flexible figural direction because the composition reads as classical illustration to anyone who isn't looking for the second reading.

Scale. 3 – 6 inches

Placements. Forearm · ribcage · calf

Bound-in-ribbon study

Hands or wrists tied with a single line of satin

Hands or wrists tied with a satin ribbon — illustrative, not photographic. The lineage runs through Belle Époque postcard illustration into Beardsley's pen work. Carries the kink reading without depicting the rest of the scene; the ribbon is the entire composition.

Scale. 4 – 6 inches

Placements. Inner forearm · ribcage

Mythological figure (illustrative)

Leda, Pan, Eros — drawn as book-plate, not statue

Mythological figures rendered as 19th-century book illustrations, not as classical sculpture or realism. The mythological frame does narrative work the figure alone cannot. Larger scale required because the iconography is dense and the line work needs room to read.

Scale. 8 – 12 inches

Placements. Thigh · back panel · calf

Frame-and-vignette pair

Cartouche borders the charged subject

A framed cartouche containing the charged subject, set inside ornamental edging. The ornament does as much narrative work as the figure — many illustrative artists use this strategy to recontextualize a suggestive central image as a decorative plate, which is one common compositional move that lets the work post publicly when the unframed version could not.

Scale. 6 – 10 inches

Placements. Thigh · chest panel

Dark-illustrative scene

Gorey-descended, hatched atmosphere

A draped figure, a candlelit room, melancholic eros. Hatched atmosphere carries most of the weight; the figure is one element inside a larger mood. Edward Gorey's pen-and-ink work is the most direct contemporary lineage; the result reads gothic before it reads erotic.

Scale. 8 – 12 inches

Placements. Back panel · ribcage · outer thigh

Captioned plate

Illustration above a single line of script

Illustration above a script line — a botanical name, a quote, a short Latin phrase. The caption frames the read. A line of Latin under a botanical plate is elegant; three lines of erotic text under a figure makes the piece a poster. If the caption is the load-bearing element, shorten it or let the illustration carry the work.

Scale. 5 – 9 inches

Placements. Ribcage · inner thigh · upper back

Editorial / comic erotic panel

Crepax, Manara, alt-comics drawing logic

A single confident-line panel borrowing from European bandes dessinées and alt-comics — Guido Crepax, Milo Manara, the broader editorial-comics drawing logic. Living illustrators are copyrighted, so a Crepax or Manara reference is a tonal anchor, not a copy spec. The piece is redrawn for your body.

Scale. 6 – 10 inches

Placements. Thigh · ribcage

Six approaches

Pick the approach before you pick the artist.

Each approach has its own hand. Etching, storybook, editorial, dark, botanical-only, anatomical-plate — six branches of the same family tree, each asking for a slightly different artist match. Many illustrative artists are generalists; a minority specialize in erotic subject matter, and the right hand for an etched anatomical study may not be the right hand for a Greenaway-adjacent two-figure embrace.

Etching / engraving approach

Crosshatch volumes, contour-line clarity

The Redouté and Beardsley lineage in its most direct form — crosshatched volumes, plate-bound composition, hairline parallel hatching. Ages on line strength rather than color saturation, which is part of why the approach has held for two centuries of printed illustration. The default approach for editorial illustrative-erotic work.

Best for. Editorial pieces · provenance-driven commissions · long-line collectors

Placements. Outer thigh · back panel · ribcage · inner upper arm

Scale. 5 – 10 inches

Storybook approach

Greenaway-adjacent, tenderness foregrounded

Softer line, smaller-figure proportions, watercolor-muted color (if any). The Greenaway / Walter Crane lineage in adult subject. Tenderness foregrounded, charge implicit. Works particularly well for partner pieces where the goal is intimate vignette rather than statement.

Best for. Two-figure embraces · partner pieces · intimate small-scale work

Placements. Ribcage · upper thigh · shoulder blade

Scale. 4 – 8 inches

Editorial / comic approach

Confident weighted line, panel logic

Confident weighted line, flat or lightly modeled color, panel-style composition. Crepax, Manara, alt-comics drawing logic. Reads more declarative than the etching approach; a stronger statement at the same scale.

Best for. Statement pieces · panel-style compositions · single-figure work

Placements. Thigh · ribcage · back panel

Scale. 6 – 10 inches

Dark illustrative approach

Gorey-descended, hatched atmosphere

Edward Gorey's pen-and-ink mood — melancholic, gothic, hatched atmosphere, narrative restraint. The figure is one element in a larger composition; atmosphere does most of the reading. Reads gothic before it reads erotic, which is part of its appeal in a public-facing context.

Best for. Atmospheric scenes · narrative pieces · gothic-leaning collectors

Placements. Back panel · ribcage · outer thigh

Scale. 8 – 12 inches

Botanical-only approach

Figure absent, charge in the species

No figure at all — the charge is carried entirely by species choice and arrangement. Foxglove, fig, pomegranate, split peach, opening orchid. The most discreet entry point in the style and the easiest to wear in public-facing professional contexts.

Best for. First-piece clients · botanical collectors · maximally-discreet work

Placements. Forearm · ribcage · upper back · sternum

Scale. 3 – 7 inches

Anatomical-plate approach

Body part as scientific specimen

Hand, foot, torso, hip rendered as Vesalius- or *Gray's Anatomy*-style draftsmanship. Reads as figure study, not erotica, in mixed company. The seriousness of the rendering is the framing — and the framing is what makes the approach legible across more contexts than direct figure work.

Best for. Anatomical hearts · hand and torso studies · academic-style work

Placements. Inner upper arm · ribcage · sternum · outer thigh

Scale. 4 – 8 inches

Scale honesty

Four tiers. Figure work needs space.

Below six inches, most figure work stops reading as figure work. Below three inches, only ligature monograms and small object compositions survive. Scale also interacts with reversibility — the larger the piece, the harder it is to cover or laser cleanly later. Plan for the long arc.

Size What to know
3 – 4 inches Single botanical specimen, hand study, small object still-life, ligature monogram. Workable floor; complex hatching tightens fast below this and very fine illustrative detail softens faster on small scales — plan for a possible touch-up at the 5- to 10-year mark on this tier.
4 – 8 inches The working sweet spot for figural illustrative-erotic work — single figures, anatomical studies, captioned plates, object compositions. Most figural work lives here because anatomy and suggestive composition both need legibility room.
8 – 14 inches Two-figure scenes, captioned plates with frame, mythological figures, frame-and-vignette pairs. Begins demanding sleeve-adjacent or panel real estate and routinely runs as a multi-session commission.
14 inches and up Back panels, narrative scenes with foreground / midground / distance, multi-session illustrative-erotic backs. Architectural work — and worth flagging: scale interacts with reversibility, and bigger illustrative-erotic is harder to cover and harder to lase off cleanly. Plan accordingly.

Eight compositional pairings

What the figure pairs with changes what the figure means.

Eight pairings, each landing the work in a slightly different way. The pairing carries as much meaning as the central image does — and several of the pairings (cartouche frame, ornamental edging) are how a suggestive central image becomes a publicly-postable decorative plate.

Plate + ornamental cartouche

Illustration framed in beadwork, filigree, or botanical edging. The ornament recontextualizes the central image as decorative plate. One of the most-used compositional moves in the style.

Plate + script caption

A short Latin name, quote, or single-word title under the illustration. Adds literary anchoring; also adds visual weight. Decide at sketch — most pieces benefit from no caption.

Botanical + figure

Figure entering or leaving a botanical frame. The Art Nouveau lineage — Mucha, Beardsley — where figure and ornament share the same line weight.

Anatomical study + ribbon

Hand or wrist with a single ribbon detail. Light kink reference inside an otherwise editorial-anatomical composition.

Two-figure scene + landscape backdrop

Drapery, room, garden — illustrated ground holding the figures. Adds narrative depth without enlarging scale dramatically.

Etched figure + dotwork shading

Stippled midtones layered behind hatched contour. Useful for adding atmosphere to a figure piece without adding color.

Illustrative + fine-line technique

Most illustrative-erotic work is executed in fine-line for hatching and contour. The fine-line tattoo guide covers the technical side; this approach inherits its aging and aftercare considerations.

Avoid: illustrative-erotic + heavy traditional iconography

The weight mismatch reads as two tattoos sharing space uneasily. Pair illustrative with illustrative; if you want heavy traditional eros, that's a different lineage entirely.

Consultation

Six questions to bring to the consult.

The illustrative-erotic consult is longer than a flash consult. Walk in with answers to these and you save yourself an hour of triage and a bad first draft.

Can I see three healed pieces from the past year?

At the scale and placement you're considering, ideally with at least one healed-at-one-year photo. Fresh hatching always looks crisp; healed hatching reveals whether lines hold separation or merge. The honest comparison happens after the skin settles.

What's your non-tattoo drawing or printmaking practice?

Illustrative-erotic work is most successful when the artist already draws this kind of thing. Ask about printmaking, comics, illustration, or fine-art practice outside tattoo. Many illustrative specialists keep a parallel drawing practice; the answer is usually decisive about whether the artist is the right match.

Is this artist comfortable with the brief — and which elements would route to someone else?

Every artist keeps their own list of what they tattoo. Some decline figure work, some decline specific compositions, some decline the topic entirely. A pass is a routing decision, not a judgment of you. Ask at booking and expect a routing conversation.

What's your line on implicit vs. explicit for my brief — and where's mine?

Artist and client misalignment on implication is the most common late-stage rework cause for the topic. Many artists use a 1-to-10 scale at consultation: 1 = a botanical only you know is charged, 10 = a frank Beardsley-direct figure scene. Agree on a number before sketch starts.

If the design depicts an identifiable person, do they know about it and have they consented?

Portraits of partners — including erotic ones — carry consent issues that ordinary portrait tattoos don't. Bring written confirmation if the figure is identifiable, or change the design so the figure isn't (turned head, framing crop, abstracted features). Artists may also decline portfolio use of any erotic portrait regardless of client consent.

What's your approach to portfolio use, and what's your touch-up window for hatched work?

Erotic pieces are not posted to public portfolios without separate, written, granular consent — decline is the default expectation. Separately, hatched illustrative work often benefits from a six-month settling pass; ask the artist what their workflow looks like for that on this kind of piece.

We design visibility first. The piece serves the placement; the placement doesn't serve the piece.
— The Apollo Tattoo Studio
Every artist here keeps their own list of what they tattoo. A pass is a routing decision, not a judgment of you.
— The Apollo Tattoo Studio
Mid-century figures like Sam Steward and Tom of Finland are part of how erotic illustration entered the tattoo canon. Their legacies are also contested. We cite the work without endorsing the practices.
— The Apollo Tattoo Studio

Common mistakes

Eight execution patterns to watch for.

Most disappointing illustrative-erotic commissions fall into one of these eight categories. Catching it in the consult prevents it in the chair.

Briefing the artist with a porn screenshot

Photographic-explicit references push the work toward realism, not illustrative — and explicit photographs raise consent and provenance concerns the artist cannot verify. Fix: bring composition references (lighting, posture, framing) plus a clear statement of how visible you want the work to read in public.

Treating illustrative as decorative-only

The drawing logic is the meaning, not garnish. Crosshatch direction, line weight, and plate composition are the design decisions, not afterthoughts. Fix: spend the first fifteen minutes of consultation on lineage references, not on decorative flourishes.

Picking an artist whose erotic work is photo-realistic

Realism and illustrative are different toolkits. A great realism-erotic artist may not be the right hand for a Beardsley-line vignette. Fix: look specifically for illustration, printmaking, or comics backgrounds in the artist's portfolio, and look at line drawings, not just finished tattoos.

Going too small for the hatching

Crosshatched eros at two inches blurs to a smudge inside a decade. Very fine illustrative detail softens faster than bold linework, and small fine-line work tends to need a touch-up earlier than large work. Fix: scale up at least one tier from your first instinct, or simplify to pure line.

Direct copying of a published illustration

Beardsley and Redouté are public-domain; Crepax, Manara, and other living illustrators are copyrighted. Direct line-for-line copies of published illustrations raise legal and ethical issues and rarely tattoo well at scale anyway. Fix: bring reference, get the piece redrawn for your body.

Tattooing an identifiable erotic likeness without their knowledge

An identifiable nude or erotic likeness of a real person, on someone else's body, in public, raises consent questions even between currently-consenting partners — and especially after breakups. Fix: bring written confirmation from the depicted person, or change the design so the figure isn't identifiable.

Choosing a public placement, then asking to make the piece less obvious

That conflict undermines both goals. The placement enforces the visibility default. Fix: decide visibility first, design second. Public placement = botanical or implication-only. Private placement = wider latitude for explicit-composition work.

Skipping the implicit-vs-explicit conversation

Misalignment on this is the most common late-stage rework cause for the topic — and it lands the artist and client in an uncomfortable conversation in the chair instead of the consult room. Fix: name a 1-to-10 scale at consultation; agree on a number before sketch starts.

Personalization

Three layers turn a stock figure into a documented piece.

The piece becomes yours in three layers — source tradition, implication level, private meaning. Most clients only think about the first. The third is where the work actually lives.

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The source tradition

Redouté botanical, Beardsley line, storybook palette, Crepax / Manara editorial, Gorey-gothic, anatomical-plate. The source decides almost every visual choice downstream — line weight, composition, color (if any), how the piece reads at distance. Pick the tradition first; subject second.

ΙΙ

The implication level

Botanical-only → captioned plate → object still life → single figure → figure scene. Walk the ladder until you find the rung that matches what you actually want to wear in public. Most clients land mid-ladder; the ladder is what makes the conversation possible.

ΙΙΙ

The private layer

What it marks for the wearer. A relationship, a chosen name, a personal commemoration, a private mythology. The private layer is what keeps the piece from ever feeling generic — even if the rendering reads as a documented source to strangers.

Matching and partner pieces

Four notes on partner work.

Partner pieces work best when the design plans for both the relationship and the wearer's solo aesthetic life. Four notes that come up in nearly every couples consult.

Share a tradition, not an image

Matching illustrative-erotic pieces work best when partners share a *source tradition* rather than the same image. One Redouté botanical and one Beardsley-line vignette read as a matched set without being a copy-paste, which ages better and stays interesting longer.

Mirror the placement, not the composition

Mirrored placement (e.g., both partners' inner left forearms, or each partner's left ribcage) reinforces the pairing without identical art. The pairing is doing the work the matched image would otherwise do.

Share a script, vary the illustration

Pairs benefit from a shared script caption — same phrase, same hand, different illustration above it. Latin names, lines from a poem, a private word. The shared script anchors the pairing; the illustrations stay personal.

Design each piece to stand alone

Pairs designed for a relationship that ends still belong to the wearers individually. Design each piece so it works aesthetically as a solo composition, not just as half of a set. The hedge is honest, not pessimistic — and the resulting pieces are usually better.

FAQ

The questions every illustrative-erotic consult surfaces.

Eight questions covering implication level, lineage, placement, source references, artist routing, aging, aftercare, and how the topic intersects with reclamation work.

Is illustrative-erotic explicit?

It can be, but most isn't. The illustrative tradition leans toward implication — a turned figure, a charged botanical, a single object — and that's where the style does its strongest work. Explicit illustrative pieces exist (Aubrey Beardsley's Lysistrata portfolio from 1896 is the foundational Western reference) and we tattoo them when the brief is clear, the placement supports them, the consent conversation is settled, and the matched artist is comfortable with the work. The default mode of the topic, though, is illustration first, charge second. If you do want explicit work, say so plainly at consultation — soft framing helps no one.

How is this different from realism erotic art?

Realism reproduces what a camera sees. Illustrative embraces visible linework and stylized form. An illustrative-erotic piece reads as a drawing of a sensual subject; a realism-erotic piece reads as a photograph of one. Both are valid and both have working specialists; the toolkits diverge at the sketch and the artist match is different for each. If your reference pile is books, magazines, and printed plates, you're in illustrative territory; if it's photography, realism is probably the right lane.

Where do most clients place this work?

Back, ribcage, thigh — including inner thigh — and occasionally upper arm or chest panel. The pattern follows visibility control: most wearers want to decide who sees the work and when, and that's a choice that shapes the placement before the design. Forearm placements happen for the most discreet pieces (botanicals, hand studies). Inner thigh, hip crease, and lower abdomen heal in a higher-friction, higher-moisture environment — plan loose clothing and extra wrap time per the artist's aftercare for those zones.

Who are Sam Steward and Tom of Finland, and why does the page name them?

They're part of how erotic illustration entered the tattoo canon — and both legacies are contested in ways the page tries to be honest about. Sam Steward (1909–1993) was a literature PhD who left academia to tattoo as Phil Sparrow in Chicago and Oakland from 1954, kept a documented archive at the Kinsey Institute, and worked openly on erotic subject when most artists wouldn't. His record-keeping practices and the consent norms of his era do not meet contemporary community standards, and naming him here is historical citation, not endorsement of his methods. Tom of Finland (Touko Laaksonen, 1920–1991) is the most influential 20th-century gay erotic illustrator and a direct ancestor of leather-male illustrative tattooing — and his idealized body archetype has been critiqued from inside the queer community even as the work itself was queer-liberatory under criminalization. The deeper Tom of Finland treatment lives on the sibling Tom of Finland visual legacy page; this page links there rather than duplicating that conversation.

Can I bring a Beardsley print as reference?

Yes — as reference, not as a spec. Direct line-for-line copies of published illustrations raise copyright issues for living illustrators and rarely tattoo well at scale anyway. Beardsley and Redouté are public-domain; Crepax, Manara, and other living illustrators are not. Your artist will use the reference to anchor tone and lineage, then redraw the piece for your body so it lives on your skin rather than reproducing a printed page.

Do you tattoo explicit content?

Some artists do; some don't. Erotic illustrative work is a specialization within illustrative, and not every illustrative artist takes the subject. We route clients to the artist whose portfolio actually carries the work, and if no artist on the schedule is the right match we'll say so and recommend someone else. We don't tattoo anything depicting non-consent, anyone underage, or anything the artist isn't confident executing well. We're an educational, working studio — not a censor — and we take the consent and routing conversations seriously. Bookings are 18+ per California law.

How does this age, and what does aftercare look like?

Confident contour line ages well across decades. Dense hatching softens over time and small fine-line illustrative work commonly benefits from a touch-up around the five-to-ten-year mark, especially on placements that move a lot. UV exposure is the leading cause of premature fading on illustrative work — once healed, daily SPF on the piece is the highest-leverage longevity action. The aftercare arc is the same as any mid-to-large illustrative tattoo: follow your artist's written instructions, expect four to six weeks of surface healing, and skip pools, saunas, and direct sun for the first two weeks. Existing stretch marks, scars, or significant weight changes affect how the piece holds; mention them at consultation, and any individual medical question is best answered by your doctor or dermatologist.

I'm a survivor and want to reclaim something through this work. Is that a fit?

It can be, and we honor it carefully. The reclamation conversation deserves its own consultation — sometimes more than one — and we'll often suggest the wearer also be in conversation with a licensed therapist or trauma-informed clinician about the choice. We're tattooers, not clinicians, and we coordinate; we don't replace professional mental-health care. There's a sibling Reclamation and Survivor Tattoos page that goes deeper on the workflow if that's useful before booking.

Ready to start the consult?

Bring the source. Bring the implication level. Bring placement and audience already decided.

Apollo illustrative-erotic consults start with the implicit-vs-explicit conversation, surface the artist-routing question early, and build the piece outward from a documented source. Book a consultation to walk out with a piece whose lineage, scale, placement, and discretion all agree on what the work is for. Bookings are 18+.

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