Illegal tracers getting more subs

[unknown_user]

Ok, I have drawn more than half of a poses in my comics, starting from sketches, made by tracing Google images, 3d models and my own photos. Of course, after that I added suitable clothes, changed figure type and some details (if necessary), which ironically often made everything look worse... For drawing heads I often use either 3d model generic heads (I rotate them to different suitable angles) or generic good sketches of heads, and then change hair and add face features, to get my characters.

But where is my fame? And where is good speed of drawing?

All what tracing allows me to do is getting not very horrible poses and correct head proportions in less time. And by less time I mean 3 or 4 hours instead of 10 for every pose drawing, which I would spend on it without trasing.

[KitKat]

It isn't wrong to get inspired by your favorite artists / comic creators for proper proportions, etc. I think all comic creators and artists have their own inspirations, they didn't just BOOM did their own art without someone's own art inspiring or motivating them. They learn from them a lot. Though one thing I could suggest is not to heavily use people's art styles and instead practice and come off on your own to make it known that it's totally you. I c o ni c dude

And for proportions, we have different ways of how to practice them, by referencing off real life images, etc

Coming up with your own art style will still be based off real proportions in real life I think . Don't know how to explain this though. Just make sure you don't like copy someone's art style heavily on your comics, if you do just because you didn't find your own art style yet, make sure to credit them that you get heavily inspired by their art. Art styles aren't copyrighted .

Some other artists' art style is a mix of a lot of people and cartoon art styles honestly which is totally fine.

[KitKat]

Like.. deviant ART. I hate that place personally it has been so strict as hell and there are loads of drama. But I think it's a little dead now? ? Considering it's quite a little inactive for me last time I checked.

Yeah.. Tapas isn't a pure strict art website after all I just wished people would have the common sense that tracing off of someone's work and publishing them as their own and getting supporters and subs doesn't do justice. It breaks my heart really.

Just happy that this site isn't very dramatic unlike the others. never seen anyone fighting and arguing so badly over here so far

[Mari]

I sometimes trace sketches for a pose from non-copyrighted material if I'm having a hard time with it (and I mean just the basic triangles and balls) but I do get what you mean. There's a lot of comics I've browsed through where everything is traced until the final steps and that's just outright plagiatrism and kinda illegal. Atleast you should use the free-to-use stuff...

[MangoTango]

lmao Cristali is that someone that came to mind when i read this.

i feel ur pain. I think it's natural that there are lots of hidden gems that aren't discovered yet. But eventually more peeps will def discover them soon.

tbh it's same for me lol, I think I do pretty decent on my art (ik I would always have rooms for improvement tho) but I don't have that much subs and followers yet considering I just started off recently.

Just continue doing what you love to do, and don't judge it by how many people's likes and people following you.

Eventually handwork would pay off soon hopefully

[KitKat]

Yeah just do tracing in a legal way. Considering comics take a lot more time to do, it's alright to use non-copyrighted stuff to help you finish your comic.

[Coati]

I use a lot of 3d models too, but this isn't tracing is basically optimization.

[Tobirone]

Plagiarism isn't just bad but a crime in most western countries, but also morally it's very frustrating to see how people use your own (or others) work to make it "their own".
Whether you make music, do art / comics, write (scientific, blogging/newspaper, novels), it can only be hoped that someone is out there not only identifies it and tries to help the person who actually is being robbed.
While it is easier in music to actually accidentally copy a motive or theme (because our brain is very good at adapting to sound, noise and thus music in away that we immitate those virtually and unconsciously in our brain. There is a whole neuro-science field investigating that) than copying the exact picture to the ink-line.
Now we do live in a world of copy and paste which enhances this problem. In the past several of my countries ministers had to resign because of cases of plagiarism (in their doctor thesises).

I may not be the best artist though I am seriously trying. Especially since I have kind of a little success here which feels amasing to say the least! And I am getting better every day which is kind of my "drug" so to speak. ^^

Thus I can only subscribe to what you say: Get out, look at things. Try to reference them. I got a whole folder with references which is partly the reason I soon need a second hard drive ...

It can only be hoped that people see your art and story as what it is: Something unique and sometimes even a little bit unpredictable.

And to the tracers / plagiarists: Waaaaaaaaggggh! (orcish war cry ... you are in trouble now!)

[MangoTango]

To anyone who wants to take "tracing" the legal way, here's a video that could be an example especially if you're doing your comics.

[Tobirone]

I actually do that ... all the real houses I use now exist in Sims. ^^
What I do as well is using google (maps/streetview)... which still is legal.

[BobbyjoeX]

glad someone said it QwQ

[vothnthorvaldson]

The music example is great @Tobirone , but I'll add a bit to it, because music is a good place to see that while it's legitimate to have concern over plagiarism, it's also important to keep in mind there is a malicious side to the fight against plagiarism.

If we look at the plagiarism cases that have been won in pop music, there are a number where it was just chord progressions that comes naturally to guitarists, just from the way notes are arranged on the instrument, or very simple melodies which can also come the same way, or old music motives for which copyright does not make sense (one of these won cases had a melody I knew I knew. I later found it in Mozarabic chant. Yes, it's probable that the 'plagiarist' got the motive from the first band and not from Mozarabic chant. But it's also probable that the first band did not invent it, but got it from, for example, Spanish folk influenced by these older chants.. if we can won a case for that, then we should be able to won cases for folk elements too. Any big band could come and say 'you did not learnt about this folk song on sheet music in public domain, you know it from us, it's plagiarism). We are almost there! It's not the future I want.

It's true that's it's generally A BIT easier to detect plagiarism in art, but not that much: Imagine a tracing or heavy referencing on a public domain picture: maybe not the best thing to do art-wise, but no plagiarism. Two artists use it: It does look like one plagiarized the other.

I saw it once already in illustrations on Ancient Egypt (but in a fiction setting). Ridiculous plagiarism claims when a simple google search could show that they were both using as reference bas-reliefs that were extremely standardized at one period of Ancient Egypt. It's not even sure both artists were using the same ref pictures.

People can be extremely uncultured and greedy, and that makes me extremely cautious in the fight against plagiarism.

Everything considered, the way I find the safest is to take in account the quality and complexity of the work. These problems to distinguish plagiarism from honest influences and referencing are more crucial to me in simple works, as there is little added to the potentially plagiarized work. If the added value other that the potentially traced image, let's say, it overwhelmingly higher than the value from the tracing, I don't really need to ask myself the question.

[MangoTango]

yeah,, tbh I use easy poser app a 3d model referencing tool sometimes soooo qwq

[TheSpaghettimobile]

When I was, like, 12-13, I was really insecure and doubtful about my art, and so I eventually traced to help make me feel a bit better about myself, which I really regret looking back. Thankfully, I never posted my traced stuff online, but still...

I suppose lots of other people trace for the same reason. Artists can end up comparing themselves to others more often than not, which may lead to jealousy, for want of a better word.

tl;dr: I wanna yeetus my younger selfus

[Menbung]

Not only this happen in comics, it also happen in the commissions land. People will trace from all the sources mentioned and get paid for it !.

So the average buyer won't notice that is a traced art and the guys can keep drawing faster and non stop, so they make more money, have more clients and more praise than your average artist. Sadly this is a pretty common thing.

Education is important so every artist know what's plagiarism and what's not, so the guys that are tracing to learn or get better don't feel guilty and the guys who are tracing for the bad reasons feel responsible for their actions.

[unknown_user]

But if you didn't lie that it is your art - since you didn't even upload it - what's the problem? Take it as a part of your learning process.

[TheSpaghettimobile]

Oh, I did, just not online. I took my traced stuff into school to show my classmates.
But yeah, I've put those days way behind me now.

One thing I will say though - at least I didn't charge money for my traced stuff!
(Laughs in Holly Brown)

[Tobirone]

Jipp that's quite right. Though the conditions between music and art differ.
With art you have possibly millions of ways you can portrait the same thing not only by medium (usually it is some kind of paper with us, so we stick at that), but also by the condition that every person has different muscle and bone conditions. Thus: A Mickey Mouse looks and looked fairly differently drawn by Walter Disney compared to a Mickey Mouse by Carl Banks though both drew the same character but in very different incarnation. Not only by decision but by chance. Thus the probability of copying the same character to the last detail is very improbable (which is why plagiarists in the art scene are both: Hated and sometimes pretty wealthy if they are good at selling "their" works without getting caught. )

Music though is a medium which is standardised western. Almost the whole world uses a notation form (which emerged around 1600 from a different notation form called "mensure" which itself is from ca. 1300). So it is a very old system which basically has two rules that are then again standardised: Tempo and pitch.
Pitch means that we have 12 notes within an octave, though there are 7 main notes that will be used through the whole course. If we take c-major it is always c d e f g h a and b (mi fa sol la si do and re in France). Which ALSO means: In this whole octave will always be 5 whole note steps and two half note steps (here from e to f and from b to c). Sometimes (or very often) componists use minor steps within this scale. The more "funky" (not the style, I'm not talking about music from the 1970's per se) the music is the more probable it will happen. Our modern scales though are all based on an A = 440 Hz. So as long as we don't get experimental in sound (like in newest music or veeeeery psychadelic stuff), we always have the same base.
The same goes with tempo: The biggest mostly used note is a "whole note", which can be halfed into two "half notes" which can halfed in "quarter notes" which can halfed into ...
Then we measure time in beats per minute and "voila" we have got the western scale system. And this western (european) system is used in pretty much everything: Of course european music, american music (no matter if "black" or "white", both use it, live with it, but do not fred dear brothers of colour: You did not have a choice!). My favourite asian bands use them as well, though they can be called "folk rock bands", but they use the european system. Then in middle eastern music, arabic music, south asian music ...

What I wanted to say with this: In music we only have a variety of 12 notes in combination to a (mostly used) variety of 9 note values. As such the usable amount of figures and themes are much more limited. This though of course isn't a sign to say that someone is free to use stuff he did not create just because of that.
Copying always was something people did, and your example @vothnthorvaldson was pretty good! The question though is: Where is the border of stealing compared to homage? I know for instance that Mozart used a theme of Bach's "Matthäus Passion" in his 42. Simphony. Probably as homage. Bach's own son (I think it was Wilhelm Friedemann) even wrote music in name of his father so he could pay bills (because of course compositions of his father had a much higher worth than Wilhelm's).
And then there is John Williams who pretty much LOVES using themes from Dvorak, Stravinsky and many others in his works (We can hear themes of both componitsts in both: "Jaws" and "War of The Worlds" for example).

Of course this is a topic to discuss about for many evenings (lol and I already did <.< like I said once: I am a musiciologist, that is all we do, lol) but I think I can say: Tracing art pretty much is like using the same theme by every note equally (hence ripping off). It's much easier to do so in music (and maybe even more obvious, I think, but maybe that is just me), but unfair it is both!

---

Sources:
- Listen here for Dvorak's 9th symphony, 4th movement. You can hear "jaws" at the beginning and if you keep listening you even hear Star Wars. Not kidding! https://youtu.be/_9RT2nHD6CQ?t=2365
- And here for Stravinskys "Firebird". In this case: More Star Wars! https://youtu.be/MHmk7yccvws?t=2178
- Here is Gustav Holst's "Planets". First movement "Mars" shows us who the Klingons (Star Trel) got their icony movie-music, but Mr. Williams also took some uhm .. "inspiration". https://youtu.be/Isic2Z2e2xs
- War of Worlds (no, I mean The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky :-P) https://youtu.be/rP42C-4zL3w?t=209

Enough is enough now, I annoyed you lot enough already.

[baasinsimple]

Kinda the nature of amateur comics though. Most of us don't really know how to do anything super cool or convenient.

[RiidDisBuk]

If I ever used a reference, it's because when I write something on a script, it would sometimes look like from other comics regardless if it was intentional or not (not that I have a comic up and going)

But I do get where you're coming from. It's a shame to have known for a while that there are people who actually do this.