Commissioning Art of Characters He doesn't Have Permission For

[furinari.livejournal.com]

(Links go to FurAffinity.net)

I can't post the offending commission because it's not mine and the artist removed it from online presence. Not that I would want to.

Dreamweaver4121 is one of my good friends and took a commission from someone who calls himself "Matthew Brandon" or "MatthewBrandonBlue." DW (as I call him) is kinda naive like I am to the way some "shady" commissioners operate and did the commission under the assumption that the three characters he had specified were being commissioned with permission.

Sydak Oboro's Umbri,
Kulli's/Syberstyk's K2
and my character, Rhyna.

I am also good friends with both Sydak and Kulli, and Dreamweaver, in his picture description, apologized for using our characters.

Now, Kulli isn't really a bad person, she tells us in her journal that it's okay to do fanart of her K2 character, as long as we ask first.

Which is fine with me, not an unreasonable request, and 99% of the time she says yes.

But Matthew Brandon never asked her permission.

I showed her the piece and she was surprised to see her character in the offending picture and no one had asked her, like she specified.

Through some correspondence with Kulli and Dreamweaver it turns out Matthew had conned DW into doing it, even though he was getting paid for it.

I mean, i know DW can't very well refund the money to Matthew, because then he'd have his artwork AND his money back.

Watch out for Matthew Brandon. he's quite shady.

Comments

[fix-the-spade.livejournal.com]

Wow, plagarism by proxy, never encountered that before.

That's a weird thing for someone to do.

[fix-the-spade.livejournal.com]

I like to think people won't stoop that low. Faint hope maybe but it's one I like to cling to...

BAAAHAHAHAHA!

[snobahr.livejournal.com]

In the Society for Creative Anachronism (http://www.sca.org), a friend of mine, who does lovely historical couture (it's not "costuming" if it's completely functional and follows the perceived historical methods, in my opinion), did an Elizabethan corset for somebody. This person later tried to pass this corset off as hir own work. Word of this got back to my friend, and when the plageriser commissioned her for another corset (shi had gained weight), my friend happily took the commission (and the money), and gave hir a beautifully-fitted corset - with my friend's very distinct personal arms embroidered on the front. Even though the plageriser picked the embroidery off, there was no mistaking that the arms had been removed and one could get a good estimate of what the charges were.

Delivery was a few days before a large event where the plageriser had promised to have a new outfit of hir own making, and my friend knew that the corset was going to be claimed to be made by Hir.

So, yeah. People will stoop that low, and not just in furry fandom.

[thegentilcat.livejournal.com]

This is why, as an artist, in the rare occassions that I have someone commission me for characters that belong to someone else, I seek out the original owners of the characters and verify that consent was given to use them - just in the off chance that the commissioner is lying about having received consent in the first place.

Better to be safe than sorry, right?

[furinari.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

[jooki.livejournal.com]

I've had an issue of my character being commissioned into a porn pic without my permission. :/ Not by the same guy though. It's not a pleasant surprise, to say the least.

[taasla.livejournal.com]

I had someone approach me to do that. Someone's weird fox dog thing and my lion character. It was... really weird and creepy.

[thaily.livejournal.com]

Ironic, I've just had someone try to commission me for a pic of a character in a drawing made by someone who didn't give permission, commissioned by someone who didn't give permission, of a character of someone who also didn't give permission.

As an artist it pays to check if people are able to give you permission to draw those characters.

[furinari.livejournal.com]

Maybe I should try and be a good friend and donate some cash to Kulli?