Artist Who Are Popular Just Becuase of Fanart

[Nameless Prince]

I'm mixed on this.

I enjoy fan art. I really do. Enjoy drawing it and seeing it and using it. I like how fans come together because of it.

On the other hand, I know it's bad if you're using it without permission. And especially selling it. You are making money off someone else's work. Not the drawing itself, but the character and/or story concept. And that takes money from the real owner(s). Aka stealing. Plus, if they do come around, I don't want to tango with that lawsuit.

[artificial trees]

I do not have a problem with fanart itself, or the artists who draw it.
I mean, I draw fanart myself, so...

The problem comes when artists profit off of it. I don't think that's
right, and I personally would never sell fanart prints, etc. or do commissions
of copyrighted characters. I know a lot of artists out there DO,
but...I dunno, it just doesn't feel right to me (plus I'd prefer to
avoid that lawsuit, thanks!)

But as for those of us who just do it for fun, I think that's fine. And artists
who become popular for it...who cares? Some may do it
just to get popular, but I think a lot genuinely do it because they
enjoy it, and I see nothing wrong with that. *shrug*

I know a lot of artists who started drawing 100% fanart, and then later
moved to original work, so I don't think that you can definitely say they're just
doing it to be popular, even if their gallery is mainly fan work.

But that's just my two cents.

[hades]

i don't mind it in all honesty! it's nice to see people contributing to their fandoms or what they like and show how much they liek that specific thing by expressing themselves!

but i think it's kind of cheap to sell fanart or to do commissions of requested fanart, bc there's a lot of companies or ppl who made the fandom don't want them to sell merch outside of their official store

[God-the-almighty]

I've drawn fan art but I'd never sell it. I see making a profit from drawing other people's characters as theft of intellectual property. Fan art is a gray area anyway.

[Deadlight Disco]

I understand that it is incredibly unfair to be making money off of characters not your own. I would be downright pissed off if somebody took characters that I made while they took all the recognition.
However, it's fan art. The characters may not be their own, but the work and the effort put into the piece is.
I think it's perfectly fine to show off something your proud of that depicts a character or concept not your own, if it's purely to show appreciation. That's a lot of what fan art is and what it should be. If you're doing this though, and it's pulling in a crowd larger than what someone might have expected from their own work, then I think discretion is definitely needed.
I do think that if someone is using the popularity of a character from a show/anime/movie/etc., it's pretty much like cutting corners in terms of being recognized. Sometimes I can understand, because waiting to be noticed for your own work is incredibly frustrating when it feels like you're always being overlooked. But i do feel that not everyone is always going to be pleased with the outcome if they go with that strategy though. Some people who make fan art sometimes get quite miffed that their mediocre drawing of Naruto/Inu-Yasha/etc, that's some odd years old, still somehow gets more notice than their newer, improved pieces with their own original designs and characters.

But, before I start to digress further, I'm not against fan art. I like the idea, a lot of the creators of the characters and the people who are depicted in fan art really appreciate it too! But when it comes to profiting off of it, that's a no sir-ee! It may not even be worth it in the end either...

[iCo-kie]

A lot of you have expressed many of the feelings I have about the topic. Fanart IS a gray area, and I also think that it's a honest gateway for some artists. Not everyone is so lucky to gather a fanbase with original concepts alone. You have to often draw your viewers in, and what better way than fanart?

I understand how the whole profiting is "bad", but I just don't see it as a problem unless it's a large scale.
These companies are mass producing posters, stickers, buttons, bookmarks tshirt you name it. One artist was paid to create that piece and it's going to be reprinted a thousand times over.

If you were to do one headshot commission of some disney character for $15 dollars, from a diehard fan who's probably gonna spend 30+ beyond that 15 for official stuff as well, what's the problem?
It's not as if they are tracing. If an artist who has honed their own original style is drawing an existing character that is already being sold on a wide scale and overpriced for a little coin here and there, what's the issue there?
That $15 you made is no competition for companies that make probably millions in one year alone.
At that rate you'll never dip deep enough to make that much of a difference.

Artist's gotta eat, they have to pay for school, they have to make a living too.
"Get a job" is not as easy as it sounds. For some people, commissions are the only way they can get the necessities they need.
The customer is happy, the artist gained a bit of skill from doing the drawing, and also has $15 dollars that could buy themselves a decent meal that week.
I see no harm done.

[megrar]

i love fanart. i wish i had time to make it myself. the only thing that really bites me about it is when i see a truly phenomenal talent, and fanart is the majority of what they do. i want to see what they could create themselves. i want to see THEIR stories. but they don't seem to be interested in making their own.

[Kaiser-chan]

I love doing fanart because I do it predominantly for myself. When I do commissions or gift art, obviously, those are for someone else. But when I do art of my own stuff, it's still for someone else -it's for a hypothetical audience of my stuff. I want to introduce my own stories to people other than me, and to do so takes consideration and effort. Someone unfamiliar with my characters needs images that present them properly. Someone unfamiliar with my stories needs to have them expressed in a language other than the half-baked metaphors I carry around as shorthand for myself.

But fanart doesn't require those. I can do fanart of a brave character crying without anyone thinking I'm expressing a norm. I can do silly fanart of a serious story. I can do romantic fanart of characters that I know won't ever be together in canon, or sexy fanart without taking away from the character's power to be more than objectified eye-candy.

I can do fanart like this because the characters already exist in other people's minds, but not so closely that they would be offended or confused like people are when you do off-tone commission or gift art.

And most importantly I can do any of those (or the opposite) entirely because that's the mood and the image I want to explore right at that moment rather than the one that holds the most power to a hypothetical viewer.


I love fanart, and no amount of copyright law will change that. I did fanart before the internet was a well-known place for fandom. If I was never able to share fanart again I'd still do it. It's for me. I do fanart only of s**t I love for this reason. I don't care about profiting financially, and realistically the money made off fanart is a lot smaller than people think it is. I don't care about attention because if someone getting more e-favorites are really that ******** important then ********, man, I can't even have an conversation with you because we won't be in the same book let alone on the same page.

If someone is looking to build a professional career out of fanart, then they either have a good strategy or a stupid one, and I don't have the business acumen (nor do we have a long enough period of established mass fandom in the public sphere to have a solid sample size to study - and given that there's a lot more to compare with public success on fanFICTION I find it odd that fan art keeps spawning these instead) to comment. I don't think this-one-person-did-it is really a point in either favor.


But tl;dr when something become popular enough to get fanart, it's because it has reached audiences and sprouted something in their minds beyond the original. The way that I perceive my favorite book or movie isn't the way you do, or the way the creator intended. Fanart is a way of parsing that, a way of critiquing and comprehending and sharing what an audience gets from the original work. It's a way of responding in a language that may come easier or more powerfully than words. That's rad as hell.

[Shcha]

I think fanart is fine personally? Unless the original creator says no to fanart, I don't see a reason to get upset about it.
I think more than anything 'elitism' about fanart annoys the hell out of me. A lot of people start out learning to draw their favorite characters, and then move onto improving things like composition, anatomy, and color theory on their own time. Because it's fun to them, not for any 'fame' aspect.

[Miscellaneous Artist]

megrar

i love fanart. i wish i had time to make it myself. the only thing that really bites me about it is when i see a truly phenomenal talent, and fanart is the majority of what they do. i want to see what they could create themselves. i want to see THEIR stories. but they don't seem to be interested in making their own.

I've observed this before too. I think part of the reason why people continue to draw fanart even though they are vastly talented, (when they're not just paying tribute) is because their audience expects them too. People like you and me might want to see original work, but we more likely than not out numbered by the people who are searching the stuff up in the first place.

[Felkyr]

Fight Me Bro

what are your thoughts on using fanart SOLEY for the purpose of gaining recognition?

The methods of a little b***h.

That said, who's qualified to judge when this is occurring?

Fight Me Bro

Further more, can you think of other legitimate ways to get attention as an artist online?

Community involvement, as you say, is a good start. People who've little skill and little patience to develop their skills should in fact divert their energy towards the managing of galleries and organisation of events (online or offline) if they still want to be a part of that world but feel they cannot keep up with other artists.

This isn't to be considered an elitist attitude, just a forthcoming one. There really is no point struggling along copying others' art if you're not going to develop in your own way. Because they'll always do it better than you.

edit.
I guess it's also worth mentioning: I have no problem with fanart in general. I think it's a good thing to see characters or themes we like reimagined by many different minds to explore these ideas. I do however get a little sick of people copying an artwork exactly, pose, colours, everything. While it may be helpful to do this when new to art to practice moving your hand properly, I don't think it's something you should be known for. My idea of fanart is either drawing already established IPs in different poses/costumes/situations/variations or inking/colouring others' work that hasn't been done yet, as it's making a significant addition then.

[mr baconsy]

On dA, fanart is easily one of the most effective ways of gaining recognition and watchers.
Other than that and the community involvement you mentioned, something like a unique style,
or steady flow of art in your gallery can draw people to you.
I myself find artists to commission by looking at the page dolls or pixels on someone else's page and go from there.
So.. gift arts to popular artists, I suppose? Not like there's a 100% chance of them putting it up on their page.
And art contests! >v> Sometimes those things are good for features.

[lunarleafe]

Shivaj

Tumblr made me realize that fanart is not really that bad. It brings artist together and maybe even the original artist closer to the crowd. Im okay with it.

your eyebrows are godlike 4laugh

[Shivaj]

u-shet

Shivaj

Tumblr made me realize that fanart is not really that bad. It brings artist together and maybe even the original artist closer to the crowd. Im okay with it.

your eyebrows are godlike 4laugh

Thanks <3
Never had a comment about my eyebrows before XD

[lunarleafe]

Shivaj

u-shet

Shivaj

Tumblr made me realize that fanart is not really that bad. It brings artist together and maybe even the original artist closer to the crowd. Im okay with it.

your eyebrows are godlike 4laugh

Thanks <3
Never had a comment about my eyebrows before XD

there are super perfect xD. i wish i could get my eyebrows to be like yours. whee