True, but I think there's a huge difference between inspired works (Hunger Games vs Battle Royal/ Art style imitation) and theft. If your imitating an artist you love, like Picasso, you would probably imitate his style and draw some portraits in that way. Which is fine and not theft. However if you recreate his works and sell them, it's theft. I dunno. I'm trying to make points, but I'm actually horrible at debate XDD And I suck at words.
fkuwu
Studies shouldn't be sold, and since I'm pretty certain I know who you're talking about, what they did was too similar to the original to be anything but a study. I don't care that they came clean now, they should've been open about it from the start instead of making so much money and then when they were called out deciding to say it. It's dirty.
It's true. I guess I could give him/her the benefit of the doubt and say maybe they didn't know selling them was illegal, but it still looks weird when you insist they're only studies. If you believe they are, then why include them in your main gallery and sell them? Seems weird.
TarotBunny
Who polishes studies anyway? It's obvious they were meant for show. And all of their "studies" were so similar, I'm pretty sure they had learned what they were trying to learn after the 50th portrait. If you ever saw their original work, unless they were stiff poses, any active poses were stiff and rigid. --Since all their "studies" were focused on the eye candied parts of the character like the face.
I really don't care about the money aspect in things like these because the selling of fanart in general, whether its completely copied or not is still in this gray area of taking something pre-existing (that has it's own pre-existing fanbase) and then taking that to you.Of course it's just a tad worse if you're just copying official art or doing spinoffs but on the whole, it's pretty much the same idea. It's just not original.
But what i care about the growth of the artist in question. Because honestly if fanart is all you do, then that's all you ever would be but I expect more out of artists, especially this one. They're more than capable to do greater things but they're pigeon holing themselves so bad. Even after coming clean and posting that FB post. It was just another currently-trending fanart.
I mean I'm not gonna pick on fanartists if they've made it clear that's going to be their life decision with their work but with this artist I can totally see they're struggling with their own identity and are just doing portraits to fill a void. //at least that's what i see, i could be terribly wrong, maybe it's their thing they just do on their free time. But looking at their video on their patreon for their animation project-- it's nothing but a random hot mess.
I thought the same thing. All portraits in the same consistent style seems like he/she should be well off enough to make more original works. If they want to do fan art, it's fine but pick another resource for posing and stuff other than the original. Try at least that much. I don't know the person, but with his/her obvious talent it's clear that the thing they may need to work on the most is steering away from resourcing everything from the same photo, drawing, or screenshot.
Obviously their popularity won't suffer too much from this, lucky for them. However, isn't it funny how an artist just committed art theft and sold the prints and yet when an artist with no fans does the same thing he/she is trolled and harassed into leaving a site like DA.
scarletier
Tracing can certainly be helpful in certain ways while honing your skills. However I believe you should do any of the following things if you plan to learn in this manner.
1.) Don't post it online. Even delete it after you're done so the temptation doesn't strike you.
2.) If you REALLY want to show it off, ask the original artist (if it is art) if you can first. If you get an okay then post it with credit.
3.) If you want to show it and it's NOT from an artist, go ahead and just credit the original image.
And then as long as you're not selling the art you're good to go. I feel super iffy about anything traced otherwise.
I can agree with this. Really, I feel a study if for your learning and that alone. There's not much of a need to post it online. Maybe in your DA scrapbook is ok as long as it's cited.
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