[ SECRET POST #3267 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3267 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 050 secrets from Secret Submission Post #467.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - random advertisement for porcelain doves ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[raspberryrain]

That's called being a good artist. Do you realise how valuable it is to a professional artist to copy the designer's style exactly? Animation, comics, packaging art--that's what you're supposed to do. If there is trademark infringement going on, the skill of the artist in duplicating the style isn't what makes it actionable.

Good for them for getting it right.

[sachiko_san]

This.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, when OP mentioned that the artist has done this with multiple fandoms/styles, all I could think was "wow, this person has a future as a professional illustrator if they want to pursue that"

[(Anonymous)]

Agreed.

[kamino_neko]

Seriously. If they are, in fact, seriously pulling it off for multiple styles, they have got, to use a phrase that friggin' carbon dates me, the skills that pay the bills.

[(Anonymous)]

Eh, not the OP of this secret and my feelings on this matter are more...mixed, by virtue of being an artist myself, but every time I see this argument crop up I see this same excuse for it like "omg it's so HARD they're so TALENTED" and like...no, no it's not. It's much easier to ape a style once you've studied it than to make your own original style that isn't obviously ripped off from two or three sources smashed together. I did it at one point. Here's the thing though, it becomes really obvious, especially if you completely mimic a style, where you've basically just cut and pasted several original pictures together to make yours. But, make a style that people recognize as your work immediately? That is talent. I could sit and ape Dragon Ball or One Piece or Marvel or whatever and while that does take some talent, it's still not the same level as applying yourself and creating something unique, and I cringe every time people laud this as a job-worthy talent like people are falling all over themselves to hire artists like this. The professional job market is filled with people who can do this. You'll make better bank if you have something besides mimicry to offer a potential boss. It's all well and good if you can copy this style exactly, but the thing I notice with most of these "mimic artists" is that the moment they can't find a base photo to literally copy off of, their own lack of artistic talent comes through with the figures being stiff, the style breaking down in places, etc. It becomes obvious which ones have actual talent, and which ones are using a stolen style to compensate.


I'm not trying to shit on artists who mimic. But I think it's important that we stop treating it like the Ultimate Artistic Skill in these arguments/conversations/whatever. It's simply one skill in a vast repertoire that clients prefer you have, and you need to have a solid grasp of the basics.

[ketita]

I would argue that many, many artists, even very good ones, don't have a style that's "instantly recognizable".
Why are you assuming they're copying off a base photo? I assumed that "learning a style" means that you pay close attention to the drawings, and can then create art from your own head which will look like that style. It's about understanding the proportions and shapes, not about copying. I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing.

[(Anonymous)]

Most artists that mimic seem to have a base storage folder/drawer/whatever of reference of poses and shit from the style they're copying from. It's hard to explain without examples but I'll try:

Original artist: Can draw a character in a new, never-before-seen-in-canon pose/angle/etc, because they're familiar with the style.

Mimic artist: Cannot draw a new angle or pose because they've never seen how the original artist draws that angle/pose.

It becomes really obvious, if you're adept at spotting it, which artists have the basics down at this point. There are a few mimic artists in my current fandom, and one has some obvious heavy-duty skills beneath just mimicking the art style, but the other I'm thinking of just completely falls apart and you can kind of see where they've sort of "cut n' pasted" to fill in the gaps in their knowledge.

[ketita]

Okay, but I thought this post was more talking about what you'd call "original artists". As in, people who know how to create new art, but are familiar with the style. I don't think anybody here was talking about tracers or people who just copy from official art.

Uhhh...

[(Anonymous)]

I think you're missing the point. A commercial artist who can draw in different styles is better than one who can't.

And then there are artists like Alan Davis. He has his own distinctive style, but keeps reusing the same tropes and forms. Is he lazy? Is he ripping himself off? He'd say he's found the right way to represent a given action, and just able to do it over again instead of reinventing the wheel.

Or there's Greg Land, king of the trace-monkeys. His style is distinctive and immediately recognizable, but relies way, way, way too much on traced photo reference.

Re: Uhhh...

[kamino_neko]

Those last two points are not unrelated, of course.

(It doesn't help that he keeps reusing the same (wildly inappropriate) ones.)

[sachiko_san]

If you can completely mimic a style by freedrawing it, it's not cutting and pasting. Like at all.

There are still certain jobs where mimicking the original style is wanted and important, like storyboarding for example. The boards are typically sent overseas and used as keys for the actual animation. And guess what? Cutting and pasting are not required, but knowing your anatomy is because while board artists use reference, it's from official model sheets detailing how to draw the style correctly and do's and don't's of the style.

You are likely referring to people who trace or eyeball things. Back when I was into Yugioh, one of the more popular doujinshi groups emulated the style really well and the things they drew were nothing they could copy from the source material.

[(Anonymous)]

Storyboard artists have to have other talent along with that though, that was my point. They work off of a base model, but they certainly have to have the talent to back it up. Not to mention most artists don't start mimicking styles like that until they've completely got the basics down.

Many of these artists do not.

RE: Doujinshi, copying the canon style is frowned upon in doujinshi circles as well. It's why you'll generally see a ton of artists with their own unique styles, generally a style that is very different from the source material. Even the ones who like to skirt the line generally have something that makes their stuff unique.

[sachiko_san]

Usually when it comes to this issue, I don't include people who trace or eyeball because it's obvious they aren't going anywhere doing that anytime soon and it seems other people agree with me that no one is including anyone who does that.

I'm not Japanese and I don't know what doujinshi authors/artists think about the issue, I am just retelling my experience.

[(Anonymous)]

"RE: Doujinshi, copying the canon style is frowned upon in doujinshi circles as well."

I didn't know that. Well, that explains a lot, and why I find doujinshi generally wrong-looking and unsatisfying even when it's clear the artist has talent.

In western fandoms, I'd say as a general rule of thumb that being able to copy the original style would be seen as a big plus.

Perhaps the OP of this secret is more familiar with the doujinshi way of doing things, and so becomes annoyed when they come up across the other, and probably more common, viewpoint.

[(Anonymous)]

"RE: Doujinshi, copying the canon style is frowned upon in doujinshi circles as well."

Eh, I would argue that. In one of my fandoms there is a doujinshi artist who is incredibly popular for her amazingly on-model art of the characters. She even ended up getting hired to do illustrations for some of the official novels because of it.

[ketita]

are you talking about the doujinka who did The Queens of Kabukicho and those

[sachiko_san]

Yes. I actually own a doujin from the same group, Route 666. I was a huge Malik fan lol.

[ketita]

I still am a huge Malik fan, and I read that doujin too. omg this is a blast from the past XDDDD even if nowadays I no longer really express my love of him in any significant way.
Those doujins are hella good looking.

[sachiko_san]

I moved on from it, but I can't hate Pegasus.

They were, I thought they had the best art and I was kinda obsessed with reading them all.

[(Anonymous)]

Meh. I'm a professional artist/graphic designer, I have my own style, but it takes me WAY longer to be able to draw something that perfectly emulates the style of another artist. YMMV *shrug*

[world_eater]

It's like that thing where you don't need to bother sending Disney an application with a portfolio full of Disney style art.