After recently coming across a thread on Reddit regarding artists tracing and citing credit/link sources, as well as often seeing on twitter or instagram people having their work being shared/posted without credit,etc I want to share my thoughts about the topic on tracing and citing and crediting sources, particularly with digital art and art shared via social media.
Me and my work:
As people may or may not know, I work heavily from reference images-I don't trace, despite heavily working from reference I believe that the work I create is my own and isn't neccessarily derivative of the reference images used.
When using reference images I've used them as a techical exercise of sorts to try to repleciate as close as possible-particularly with photos of animals, or to experiment with my drawing/overall art style as well as aiding me with certain aspects of like lighting, shadows, textures, poses or as basis for the composition.
I've only traced once as far as I can remember, only because I couldn't get the right proportions of what I was trying to sketch. I didn't go very far with that sketch and haven't used it in any capacity. I don't trace as a rule, because for me working free hand allows me to improve my overall sketching and further refine my line work, as well as improve and further refine amongst other things-proportions.
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I'm going to explain the overall situation as concisely as I can but I will link the orginal imgur post about the artist and their traced works.
Tracing:
A thread on Reddit was what prompted this journal. Essentially an artist on twitter who was popular within the subreddit's community was exposed for having traced alot of his works, especially those pertaining to the community. Some of his works appeared more traced than others, various paintings/sketches would line up perfectly with the orginal source photo.
One of his newest works is what prompted the thread. Whilst people could see that he had added to the work, the rest seemed to be completely traced.
People within the subredit and on twitter began to discuss the ethics behind tracing and how it was unfair and disengenous for the artist to claim his works original and totally his own. Although there were some individuals who said that it was obvious and clear that he had traced. The artist as far as I gather has defended his work and denied use of tracing.
I can understand how tracing can be helpful for people, but it's not right to trace a work in it's entirety and claim it as your own wholly original unique work and sholdn't be used for professional/paid work or even shown as a demonstrative work for use in a portfolio for example.
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Crediting, Sources:
After having some time to think about the thread, I came to the decision that I was not neccessarily being clear if I worked from reference images and therefore I should state if I did, but after thinking about it some more as well as various responses on the thread, I came to the conclusion that I hadn't been misleading but should still make sure to link/source/credit artists/art/photos where possible.
Something I've come across various times on twitter and instagram is someone's work being reposted without credit to the creator as well as without their permission. Obviously when reposting someone else's work you shold properly credit them and as a general rule ask their permission to repost ( not the same as retweeting). Lastly it's not fair to the creator and to their work to crop/edit out their own watermark/signature from the work when reposting too and to subsequently claim the work as your own.
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Original Post on Imgur explaining the artist's traced works;
imgur.com/a/5uCjNReddit thread about the imgur post;
www.reddit.com/r/roosterteeth/…