Dr Zoidberg

A photoshop drawing of our fair Doctor Zoidberg. Took a couple of hours.

Hmm, I'm going to take this opportunity to talk about some trouble I had to do with this drawing. I joined a forum recently (mainly art and animation) and spent a bit of time looking around. There are some good artists there, but I was more interested in learning from the animators, since I'm very much a newb in that department and I personally am much more interested in animation than art, in spite of the fact I haven't as yet got much to show for it. I'm trying to learn animation first, make movies later... I'm starting to go off on a bit of a tangent, back to the point.
I read a large number of the threads on the site and decided I would make my first post in one of the weekly illustration threads. The description of what we were supposed to be drawing went something like 'draw your favourite cartoon character in your own unique style, don't just do a direct copy, make it unique to you'. So I did the Zoidberg drawing. It took me a couple of hours, maybe 2 and a half, but I was fairly proud of it. I was slightly concerned that it mightn't follow the guidelines perfectly, but I assumed that they would tell me if it wasn't, so I would know the next time I posted. Well, when I posted the drawing, I left the forum for about half an hour and went back to read at least two people saying that it was a direct trace, one of them even superimposed the drawing over the original image (or vice versa) to prove that it must have been assisted. This pissed me off quite a bit for a couple of reasons. One is that I didn't trace any of the drawing, just flat out didn't, another is that he was adamant about it being traced, but the lines didn't even match up perfectly. Do it, go ahead, erase the image on 50% and run it over the drawing. Please do, it is far from perfect, the placement is off in a number of places, and it is proven by doing exactly what he did... ironically enough.
After he and at least two other people were posting and discussing this, I said 'I assumed that my word about it not being traced would be accepted...' (this is because you have to receive an invitation to join the forum, so I assumed my work would have already been discussed anyway) and I posted my DA account to prove that I wasn't lying. Considering that I've got a number of work in progress shots in my scraps section, I thought it would be enough.
Later that day I went to bed, and awoke the next morning to a nice big ban message. I couldn't even view any threads let alone post in them. I was bewildered, as I said I thought that posting a link to this account would be enough. So (I say so a lot, I know ) I went to the NGAS and vented about the situation. I was very, very unimpressed to say the least. Of all the things to be banned for, I have time and time again proven that I don't need to trace to produce decent artwork. Everyone in the AS thread was very supportive, although I'm sure a few people were probably annoyed at my rabbiting on and filling up the next couple of pages with discussion rather than artwork. What irritated me most was that I wasn't even granted an opportunity to either prove my ability to draw accurately (I was thinking the previous night that I could say 'well let me draw the same thing on paper to prove that I can') or to even just discuss what I might have done wrong otherwise before I received the ban. A couple of hours or so later I checked my email and read a letter from one of the admins. A summary would be... I'll just post it. Better to be out in the open:

***
Dear AGH,
I regret to inform you that the administration of the ***** Forums has decided that you can no longer participate in our community. This is due to the recent inspection of the art pieces you posted (angrygifthorse.deviantart.com) and the picture posted in the weekly illustration. A recurring trait that we noted was the similarity of the digital paintings and reference pictures. In fact, they were similar to the point of leading us to suspect tracing, paint-overs, or filtering of photographs.
Let me detail why such behavior is offensive to our community. While we encourage individuals to use reference pictures, such photographs are used to inform the artist of the more difficult aspects of anatomy, motion, etc. These photographs are not meant to be copied from directly and reproduced. Art that is identical to its original reference is something that should be avoided. Copying from a photograph does not help increase technical skill nor does it enhance the ability to create original pieces. While it might allow temporary satisfaction, in the long term, it serves no purpose.
To the administration, when an artist creates art so similar to the photograph, the act is equal to that of plagiarism. Since there were multiple incidents of this nature, these acts are severe enough to lead us, after much consideration, to our final decision (mentioned previously). If you disagree with this decision, you are invited to freely consider other communities that might appreciate your efforts. (I just want to add that the phrasing of that particular sentence caused me to laugh out loud)
I apologize for any inconvenience, and do feel free to contact me if there are any further inquiries or commentary. Thank you for your time, and have a nice day.
***

After reading this my immediate reaction was to feel as though I had done something wrong, that there is something with what I do artistically, because I looked up to some of the people on that forum and if that was their opinion, maybe they were right. But Greedom (NG) couldn't have put it better when he said

"But, don't they know that most celebrated and high and mighty artists don't paint portaits or landscapes just off the top of their head. They use cameras to take pictures of landscapes or moments in time that they wish to capture in a photograph and then later use that photograph as a guide to paint or draw it.
Artists have always used photos or pics (or models before the camera or printing press was invented) as reference to reproduce what they see with their media, thats what landscapes and portraits are.
And from what I understand that's what you do, you use existing stills or photos as a guide. Last time I checked that was a worthy form of art. Their logic doesn't make any sense to me, but I guess they are more educated and qualified than me to say what is exceptable art."

A simple way to put it is that he reminded me that I am an artist. I lost a fair bit of respect for a few of the members of that forum through this, not that I'm sure they care. I don't know how they can themselves an art forum when they have such strict standards on what is acceptable. One thing they could have done is removed the 'offending' picture and asked me to only draw things from my imagination in the future. Instead they chose to belittle what I do as an artist by calling it plagiarism and deleted my account. I won't even go into a discussion about art and referencing, I've been through dozens of them in the several years I've attended art school/uni, they get as tiresome as 'what is art' and 'where is art going' discussions. Sigh... so anyway, they could have done a lot of things, but obviously don't care.

Another thing that bothers me about this is that now I know there are probably a large number of regulars at NG (or elsewhere) who are really taking a good look at what I do. In spite of everything I've shown. Who knows, they mightn't have thought that much of my work already. Even I said once 'it's only reproduction' when talking about those pen sketches I did. It was just funny how many people said (after I posted about the banning) 'even if it was traced, it's still a good drawing'. It probably wasn't intended that way at all, but from some people that came across as a statement of 'I don't believe you didn't trace it, but it is still a good drawing'. Eh, a little paranoid sounding I'll bet. It's just made me that much more aware of what other people might be thinking of my work. Digital art... sigh. You can't sell it as a unique artwork, but it is bloody fun to experiment. What makes the situation worse is that I said in a thread recently that I just can't seem to draw with traditional mediums at the moment because there isn't an edit button... I just can't seem to get in the right head space to draw without fucking it up at the moment anyway, but I was concerned at how that might be seen. Ugh, now I know I'm being paranoid, I should stop typing now.
There was one more thing I was going to say. Think of it this way. Imagine if every time you posted a piece of artwork someone said it was stolen. Even though you'd probably have proof, you'd get fucking sick of having to explain that it wasn't almost every time. Just another way to look at it the whole tracing thing. I don't know if it makes much sense in this particular part of this um, essay (lol, I wonder what the word count is. *checks* Almost 1700, it's so easy to write this much when it doesn't have to be an artistic analysis, dammit), I'll have to read it through tomorrow and see.
To anyone who's gone through the effort of reading this, thanks a lot.

School starts on Monday, at least that should be fun.

It's the 15th of July. Thinking about this, all I have to say is that people like that ruin art for everyone.