Cris Ortega - Plagiarism

[Arshes Nei]

I am sorry if I have made you angry. I was just asking why digital artists are so often accused of cheating while traditional artists are not

WTF are you talking about? Comic book artists have been primarily traditional for eons, and there have been many that have been accused of theft/swipes.

[dpaint]

I am sorry if I have made you angry. I was just asking why digital artists are so often accused of cheating while traditional artists are not and if there are clear ways to tell that digital artists are less skilled than traditionalists. The answers I received so far, to summarize it was "Well, digitally it is easy to trace, so people trace."
OK, so I asked: Does this mean noone working digitally does work on his own then anymore? Or how can you tell that one traces and the other one doesn't?
I asked that out of pure curiosity.

I apologize we had a misunderstanding there. I did not mean to offend you by my honest interest. o___o

And also I apologize for my previous answer as when you said "it is only a crime when you sell it". I thought it was not the selling alone, but the theft, too, which makes it a crime.

But you are free to have a different opinion from me. And please let me know if we got another misunderstanding there, I am ready to listen.

I'm not angry.

There are only two kinds of art good art and bad art, how you create it doesn't matter as long as you are creating it

Both types of artists get accused traditional and digital.

It not an opinion I copied the statute from the Governments site The US Copyright Office Website.

[EzioAuditore]

Nei:
I was just asking a question. Please don't be rude with me.

dpaint:
I do understand you, and why you are angry, and the copyright issues but please try to understand me, too, in return.
I am one of Norma's customers. I buy these books, therefore I supported these artists.

And now I sit here and feel totally lost.

What can somebody like me do, who is not a professional artist, to see if I can purchase a product (in the future) now or not?
I feel really lost that is why I was seeking for answers. I don't know how to express it anymore, sorry. I am really just looking for help, and I feel terribly insecure now. :/

[Elwell]

Nei:
I was just asking a question. Please don't be rude with me.

dpaint:
I do understand you, and why you are angry, and the copyright issues but please try to understand me, too, in return.
I am one of Norma's customers. I buy these books, therefore I supported these artists.

And now I sit here and feel totally lost.

What can somebody like me do, who is not a professional artist, to see if I can purchase a product (in the future) now or not?
I feel really lost that is why I was seeking for answers. I don't know how to express it anymore, sorry. I am really just looking for help, and I feel terribly insecure now. :/

Oh, so you're a disgruntled consumer.
Like what you like and be happy. Or really thoroughly educate yourself about art and process (and that doesn't mean asking a few message board questions).

[Arshes Nei]

Nei:
I was just asking a question. Please don't be rude with me.

dpaint:
I do understand you, and why you are angry, and the copyright issues but please try to understand me, too, in return.
I am one of Norma's customers. I buy these books, therefore I supported these artists.

And now I sit here and feel totally lost.

What can somebody like me do, who is not a professional artist, to see if I can purchase a product (in the future) now or not?
I feel really lost that is why I was seeking for answers. I don't know how to express it anymore, sorry. I am really just looking for help, and I feel terribly insecure now. :/

He just said he wasn't angry. He keeps saying so but you keep needling him insisting he is. That's rude.

I'm asking what are you talking about because if you're making arguments on a subject you know nothing about - causing you to look stupid and silly. I'm sorry if that's rude but you decided to come in on this board just to hijack this topic with something else. How rude is that?

It's not that I don't welcome new people I encourage people to sign up to CA to learn what it has to offer, but lately people who have no interest in bettering themselves at being artists think it's ok to start doing this. I find it rude, and much more rude than my response to you.

[EzioAuditore]

Ok I apologise for signing up and asking some questions.

I thought this is what forums are for: That people who don't know better, for instance, can let themselves being educated by others who do.

I apologized to him meaning it so, because I didn't know if I offended him, and to make clear that I had no bad intentions.

If you still see that as being rude then I don't know what else to say further on other than that I am sorry!


The only thing I wanted to know is how I, as a consumer, can learn from you to be more aware. Because you must see, we fans, we consumers, are what support artists that sell such artbooks.

And I don't see that as a hijack, or as being off topic, because when you present an artist to me that is fraud, but I purchased books from this artist in the past, then it is naturally that I want to learn how to be aware.

I just want to learn, I am insecure and sad, and I am looking for right words and all I face is accusations of being rude. I just asked some questions, and I am sorry for daring!


And I think I will be like hundrets of other consumers who will then just continue to buy artbooks of pretty things they like because they can't tell when it's traced, when it's copy pasted, and when it's just referenced.

So well, thank you for making me aware that I shouldn't have spent money on these books. It's just too late for me, I already bought them.

And I also don't want to stop buying artbooks because I collect them.
So what can I do? Where should I go? Whom can I ask how to learn to spot frauds when this is the wrong place? :/

[Stoat]

You, consumer, probably can't. Go enjoy your art book collection.

[Arshes Nei]

I'm not angry.

Nei:
dpaint:
I do understand you, and why you are angry, and the copyright issues but please try to understand me, too, in return.

Your quote and immediate reply say otherwise :/

[Select]

EzioAuditore-

Personally...

I do not think you are asking stupid questions, and I think this thread "should" be a proper place to ask such question, I think as a consumer you have every right to know if what your buying is not made the way it is claimed to be. I think it is a noble gesture to want to boycott artwork that uses stolen art and over paints it ect.. that's great.

sadly, I dont have a magic bullet answer l can give you regarding detecting fraud, but that doesn't mean your question is stupid, this forum has changed TOO much in attitude since I first attended it in 2002-2003, the question you asked wouldn't have been met with such friction back then.

[Arshes Nei]

EzioAuditore-

Personally...

sadly, I dont have a magic bullet answer l can give you regarding detecting fraud, but that doesn't mean your question is stupid,

Did not say his questions were stupid. I said his arguments were when not listening to what the response was. His claims that only digital artists trace.

Did not say he couldn't ask questions but rather, it's getting to be people just sign up accounts to use the Lounge portion of CA to become "political debates ahoy".

As a consumer his questions are valid. If he just simply asked that bolded question in the first place than the other allegations, the answers would be better.

That's not how it started out tho, when that topic surfaced, did it?

[vineris]

So when I got o your house and steal something it only then becomes a crime when I sell it? Now THAT cannot be true.

But copyright violation is NOT THEFT. When I steal your TV you can no longer look at it. You have been deprived of the use of your TV. When I copy your picture you have one and I also have one. You have been deprived of nothing. Please don't ever use the two things in comparison again because they are not even remotely the same thing.

However, I'm pretty sure it's illegal to distrbute copyrighted work even for free. It may be illegal to make the copy period, but if you don't sell and you don't distribute then no corporation is going to waste their time and money in court prosecuting you. Trademarks may be a different kettle of fish, a corporation is legally obligated to protect a trademark.

In Canada, though, at this point it's legal to make a copy of something for your own personal use.

[Select]

Things I look for when investigating if an digital artwork is fake, if the level of quality in the artwork exceeded the norm for this type of artwork, yet has novice errors that a person who is actually able to produce that level of rendering would never do...

Example, : the subject matter is of a fairy standing in the woods, the character and all its light sources are photo perfect (meaning they are all coming from the same direction)...yet the leaves directly at the feet of the character have their main light coming from the opposite direction. a lot of these really good faked artworks will hide their understanding of light direction and just use photos that don't cast shadows, so in one scene the tree is casting a hard shadow..but the frog in the characters hair has no shadow, a detail normally an artist of that caliber would more then likely not let happen. in fact most of the decorating objects in these painting seem to not cast shadows, but the character will.

I also will take the image into a photo editing program and tweak the gamma and contrast values as it sometimes exposes the grain in the photos used underneath sometimes you can find a whole host of fragmented and missed cut up edge work because the fake artist`s monitor was dark enough they didn't notice they left the artifacts behind...this has helped bust a few frauds now.

Also a usual dead give a way for me is when the image is impeccably smooth and soft in composition and rendering but the artist has left sloppy or rough painted strokes on the ends of the characters hair, wings, tattered cloth, or certain grasses. its the result of the artist trying their hardest to paint the parts they think they can because they are seemingly easier to paint things, but the fake artist isnt aware that brush work in itself is a form of art, and how the paint is laid down shows a tremendous insight into the skill level of the artist.

another dead give away for me is the speed at which an artist can produce this level of work, yet it is possible to have a gifted artist who can produce great works at an alarming speed most of these artists have galleries full of work that would have taken a normal artist more decades to produce then the specific artist has been a live.

Lastly very sub par pencil work or in very recent previous work. when the artist goes from novice to master in the span of a day, this should trigger questions.

one more thing for me is the quality of the tutorial these artists produce. often you will learn nothing from them as they have nothing to teach, the bulk of the rendering is hidden and you will mainly get a lot of talking at the planning stage and then a pile of talking at the finishing stage, they have no material to fill the working middle point of their creation process..because they have not had the experience to do so.

there are lots more, but the truth is sometimes its almost impossible to tell. because the one area the fake artist will improve is their ability to hide their methods.

[EzioAuditore]

Arshes_Nei: I apologize.

Select: I am very thankful that you are trying to help me out as a consumer.

I will not make this reply any longer since I feel very insecure and stratled right now. But I wanted to let you know that I am thankful.

[dierat]

Things I look for when investigating if an digital artwork is fake, if the level of quality in the artwork exceeded the norm for this type of artwork, yet has novice errors that a person who is actually able to produce that level of rendering would never do...

Example, : the subject matter is of a fairy standing in the woods, the character and all its light sources are photo perfect (meaning they are all coming from the same direction)...yet the leaves directly at the feet of the character have their main light coming from the opposite direction...

That doesn't necessarily mean it's a rip, though. There are a lot of learning artists who will lean on photography (their own photos or stock photos, not necessarily photos used without permission) to achieve very well finished results; however, the lack of fundamental understanding will show through in wonky anatomy, proportions, perspective, lighting, etc in the overall image. (Not trying to be argumentative; just sayin'.)

[Lithriel]

Crap like this makes it hard for people like me who actually like doing this type of art to be taken seriously.

I liked Cris' work overall though I didn't consider her a master. It's still a let down. First Linda, then Azurelle, now Cris. *Shakes head*. EDIT: Wow, she ripped one of mine too.

I use reference all the time, but I look at it, learn from it, and create something different if I must use online reference. I think so many people who can't do this, like Cris, suffer from copy cat syndrome. They can only reproduce, not create. The only way to get past this stage is to learn art foundational principles and most kids just want the easy way out.

[Select]

That doesn't necessarily mean it's a rip, though. There are a lot of learning artists who will lean on photography (their own photos or stock photos, not necessarily photos used without permission) to achieve very well finished results; however, the lack of fundamental understanding will show through in wonky anatomy, proportions, perspective, lighting, etc in the overall image. (Not trying to be argumentative; just sayin'.)

Of course you can do what ever you want, especially when learning, I myself to learn more used to take land scape shots, and practice extending the scene of the photo with my own painting so in the end the left half was a photo the right half painted, but I never posted or sold this learning material claiming it to be from scratch, purposely trying to deceive the viewer into thinking the photographic elements were my own artwork.

its only a rip off when you claim you didn't use photos. they may as well wow and amaze people on art forums by saying the photo is actually made of nothing more then Popsicle sticks, now wouldn't that be amazing. the bullet issue with these certain practices is deception.