The kids are afraid to reference now....

[pseudomanitou.livejournal.com]

Just as the title says -- I have recently been running into a brick wall with people who catch me on AIM and ask me for advice on improving their illustration skills. The immediate problem that I see is that they do not draw from any observations.

They are afraid to look at anything as reference because they believe this would be 'stealing' or cheating to some degree. They mistakenly believe other artists draw strictly from what they can formulate in their minds. They do not understand that observations of such things as fabric and muscle tension in a pose, are essential as either learning tools or needed to work out details in existing compositions.

...I think this is a good place to bring this topic. I am very frustrated with having to tell new artists that they have bad habits to break -- and a fear of reference as a bad habit is a high one on my list.

It all brings a lot of issues to light...

Has the anti-theft mentality created myths of taboos that simply do not exist?

Are the guidelines too unclear for beginning artists to understand? What should we tell newer artists who do not know when they are crossing a line?

What can be done or said to make new artists understand that referencing is a necessary and useful tool? -- Is it a problem with confusion of WHAT KIND of materials they should be referencing? (IE -- look at photos taken by you, not other artist's works).

What other problems exist?

...Hash it out for yourselves.

Comments

[lyosha.livejournal.com]

I would argue that the problem is not so simple. It's not just that new artists are afraid to reference photos/real life/etc, but that they too easily reference (or are simply influenced by, even if they do not 'copy') other artists. As Dr. Lecter says, "we begin by coveting what we see every day." I have seen anatomical errors passed down like a beloved heirloom from one artist to another to another in this fashion.

Artists look at what they like, and if they like it, they tend to be influenced by it either consciously or unconsciously. The result is often a young artist having a hybrid mish-mash style with no knowledge to back it up. As to how to fix it? Who knows. It's nothing new in art; similar things have been happening for decades. The internet just makes it easier and faster, and thus more apparent.

[verix.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this is something that's bothered me too. A lot of people seem to think of it as a sort of taboo to use reference for practice. As if the true skill of the artist comes from just yanking all the data from their subconscious and not actually having the "crutch" of reference.

In fact I think the taboos of supposed theft on top of the possibility of ego are to blame here. Ego, of course, being the "good artists don't use reference, and I'll only be a good artist if I follow the same path..." mentality.

[the-lest.livejournal.com]

I'm sure the "good" artists DO use references, they just don't always mention it XD i mean, everyone uses reference to a certain extent, even if its just looking at real life people and objects to get the pose and backdrop right

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

I think referencing from photo or real life is the best way to learn. I do not believe that referencing another artists' drawn work is something they should do if they're learning.

When it comes to mediums like pastels, it's the only way to learn certain techniques - to reference artist's existing works. An anatomy book can only take you so far, but it's only once you start observing existing pastel works that you see how soft pastels in particular can be used to create certain affects etc.

I agree that if a person just wants to create realistic portrait or picture or illustration, photos are perfectly adequate. But sometimes the trick is recreating not just an image, but a technique, a way of blending colours, using linework, or applying a medium. In that sense - observation and pulling from referenced artworks works better than a photograph.

I also believe that mimicry is a basic building block in learning how to become original. Babies learn how to speak by mimicking everyone else around them - you can't take that fundamental building block from the learning curve. Eventually they use cognitive processes to turn that language into new sentences, thoughts etc. For me, art is like learning a language. At it's very basic, you must learn - through a degree - through mimicry, before you can adapt the cognitive processes necessary to create something 'original.'

[starrydance.livejournal.com]

I reference stock photos and thats it - and people have in the past given me grief over 'using reference'.

How am I supposed to learn how stuff looks if I dont LOOK at it?

I have on occasion looked at art-I-love to try to figure out 'how they did that' but try to not even look during the drawing / painting process which is possibly being TOO careful but better safe than sorry =3

[the-lest.livejournal.com]

There's nothing wrong with using other artists work as a reference, but if you really feel that bad why not use artwork by people who are not part of the fandom/furry-anime-cartoony-scene, even artists who are dead now. I often use the work of Egon Schiele as reference, for example.

[moonvoice.livejournal.com]

I have no problems with people using artworks (and anatomy books and such) as references to learn - I have problems when they then display that artwork publicly on places like DeviantArt, and seek to make profits off it, or simply don't pay credit to the original artists they're referencing.

I learnt how to do pastel artwork by copying other artists, since it is one of those skills that requires a lot of observation to learn what other artists are doing - how they're combining colour, blending soft pastels etc. Something you just can't learn in an anatomy book, and that can't be explained as well as it can be observed. But those pictures won't go up as 'originals' of my own work, they'll be kept as examples of me learning a trade.

I think the problem is when students start seeking to gain all the credit for works that may be wholly influenced or even copied from other artists. In that sense, if a student wanted to put their art on DeviantArt for a critique, I think it would be good if they could provide credit and hopefully get permission first before putting it up as an example of student work or techniques they're learning...

[the-lest.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why people are saying you need to observe pastal work to learn. I figured it out for myself without any reference :\

[acrimonius.livejournal.com]

In a lot of cases, the artists that say "referencing is theft" are either well-meaning but clueless as to what proper referencing really is, or they are using it as a shield to refuse to improve. The latter seems to stem from listening to other equally well-meaning but clueless artists, or due to being jaded by art theives who use "referenced" as a euphemism for "traced." The rabid theft-haters kinda don't help, either, when they say "cite your references." Or maybe that was just me. :(

What I've been taught about real referencing is this: It involves collecting a stack of (stock/personally taken/specifically photographs or images of something you'd like to draw, in various angles or environments, which you study to better understand your subject matter, but don't specifically rip from when you create your final image. Referencing is a learning tool. It only becomes a crutch if you're no longer able to draw anything WITHOUT a reference, but that particular breed of danger shouldn't be new to anybody who's set out to really learn how to draw.

A lot of photographers explicitly state that their photographs are NOT to be used for reference, either at all or without permission -- I'm willing to bet that's also scared a lot of artists off. Not that I blame the photographers; it's probably just as disconcerting to find their photo repainted in Photoshop by some moron who's having sex with the dodge/burn tool as it is for an artist to find that some fifteen year old yahoo is making money by tracing their art and passing it off as "commission work" to the naive.

Hope that all made sense. I've never really run into people asking me for advice -- if you want people to stop bugging you, revive Yerf and get put into rotation on the review team ... uh, maybe my take on it will help you?

[acrimonius.livejournal.com]

will help you deal with them, rather. I ARE VARY SMRUT

[lilenth.livejournal.com]

The problem is in how referencing is used.

Referencing is not the wholesale copying/tracing of another copyrighted picture, it's the use of several stock images to give you a reference point for a work.

The wholesale copying/tracing of another copyrighted picture is producing derivative work which is a violation of copyright. Therefore it's theft.

I find many young artists do not want to use reference because often it reminds them of how much they still have to learn or because they want to draw things straight out of their head without realising they need something real to base those things on.

Referencing has always been an issue and always will be, I don't think it's caused by people not wanting to be stolen from because -legitimate reference- material can't be stolen since it's often licensed for reuse/reference. I think it's caused by a lack of understanding as to what referencing is, why it's so important and a reluctance on the part of many young artists to move out of their comfortable ruts of drawing stylised wolf pictures.

[lilenth.livejournal.com]

Note, I did not address reproduction often practised in academic circles, that usually involves works done by the old masters which are under public domain. Still that's not really relevant to the level of people who are "afraid" to reference since most of them are not usually in that kind of academic setting where reproduction of the old masters work for learning and gaining a greater understanding of it is encouraged.

[foxhack.livejournal.com]

I know it's unrelated... but don't get me started on Greg Land... the man started tracing and he's suddenly famous for doing so.

[pseudomanitou.livejournal.com]

...refer to my article link in my response to Verix (second comment in this thread)...

[fallimar.livejournal.com]

To get away from the theft mentality side and back to a simplet time when INTERNET ART THEFTZORS wasn't such a huge problem (IE 8 or so years ago when I started drawing!) I was always leery of using photo references as I felt that a study/copy of a photo wasn't being 'creative' enough. As a beginner, you've generally got huge expectations and a largish art ego, which gets popped as soon as you start seeing the techniques used to produce really good artwork and learn about the journey that's needed to get there.

Personally, I think it's a big mixture of people just not knowing the necessity of studies and referencing, and the mentality that it's 'cheating', though that thought disappears into nothing once you learn the value.

That said, The legality of it all is always a bit sketchy - I know for a fact I've used copyrighted photos as references for paintings and studies without a clue that it was illegal or frowned upon - though I also knew that tracing or copying other artists' work without giving them credit (and praise!) for their original artwork was completely out of the question.

So - ignorance mainly. Lessons and practice to pop the ego bubble. :)

[pseudomanitou.livejournal.com]

The art college I attended had a philosophy: learn all the rules, only then can break them.

...the thought there was that, in order to know what you were doing in creating a style or a theme, you had to first understand what rules you were ignoring or manipulating. Otherwise, you would not be in control of your process.

And to that end, it was okay to closely follow reference -- because these things would be closely discussed later. But never was this work to be sold or had any claim laid to it. My college forbid ownership of art produced for/from class.

[oltri.livejournal.com]

I think we have to clear up what referencing really means before we fix any problems. Too often people use the term referencing as copying/eyeballing or tracing, when it's supposed to be looking at pictures or photos to get an idea of how something works.

It really doesn't help when tracers and copiers call what they do "referencing" and confuse people who don't intend to steal -_-

[fallimar.livejournal.com]

very good point, but truthfully it's a pretty commonsense kind of thing if you're not being an idiot about it.
Making a copy of, or heavily referencing from something is most often fine as long as if it's posted publically, the original artist/photographer is credited and NO money is made from the image or any part thereof. If the original artist is known for not liking their work copied even with credit, it's prudent to ask first (well, it's always prudent to ask no matter what, but we all know politeness levels on the internet these days!).

It gets stupid when no credit is given, the work is claimed as one's own or money is made from copied work (referenced work, as long as the reference is copyright-free or the artist has rights to it, or anything like that, is fine to be sold of course) - basically, when any lying is involved.

Lying is a really crappy thing to do, and that's really the crux of the problem, along with impoliteness and ego.

[growly.livejournal.com]

Referencing is fine and should be encouraged. Copying is not.
There is in fact a distinct difference between the two, and people need to understand that.

[allykat.livejournal.com]

Referencing other artists is not wrong and its not theft. There is nothing inherently wrong with, say, coming to some kind of conundrum like 'how to draw dragon eye ridges' and then looking at several dragon artists in addition to lizard and horse photos. Or wanting to draw Art Nuveu and therefore staring at Mucha for several hours.

I always suggest referencing artists outside the fandom (aka published ones.) They're more likely to be secure enough in themselves that they're not going to wig out if they detect that ObscureFurryArtist27 draws ears like they draw ears. I also suggest VARIETY when using artistic refs (and photo too actually but yeah.) We're derivative of each other enough as it is, no need to limit oneself to the old standbys.

Avoid direct copying, avoid pose copying from peer artwork (you can pose copy if you're like drawing a furry Venus de Medici) and use LOTS of reference. The more the merrier! All those separate pieces will distill eventually into a style unique unto the budding artist.

[pseudomanitou.livejournal.com]

When referencing other artists though -- it is important to be sure we have knowledge of the wide range of artists. It may not be like theft in that regard, but it can cause stagnation in art styles if the referencing is too narrow in focus.

For example -- many tell me my style is very original. The fact is, it is not -- but the artists I have studied are not familiar to most furry artists -- so it seems new to them.

Anyone who tells me I am very original, needs to look much further into other professional and historical artists.

[hellebore.livejournal.com]

I see nothing wrong with Referencing a photograph or real life. Referencing a drawn image isn't going to help them, unless they intend on drawing that same image (come on, I used to copy coloring Books 15 years ago when I wanted to draw Disney Characters, it wasn't a huge deal).

When I started my art classes we were encouraged to sift through magazines and cut out images we could put in our "morgue". Told by many teachers that it was a good idea to keep a photographic morgue so that one day, if we must draw the Pyramids and do not know what they look like - we can go to the morgue. Taking a Camera with you is a good idea. Digital cameras make it so easy now for quick and easy references.

A young artist, who may be posting an image on DA that is obviously copied from another drawing or photograph, shouldn't be attacked. I see a lot of harshness towards them, and I can see why people are afraid to reference - they aren't sure what is okay and what isn't, and if they make a mistake they'll have people jumping all over them screaming 'theft! credit references!' Who wants that? It is discouraging. So why bother referencing?

Just explaining without being overly bitchy, help them out. Helping is a part of teaching, and for cripe's sake would it hurt someone to be nice and helpful once in awhile instead of snide?

[the-lest.livejournal.com]

One thing i think can be even better than referencing a photograph, is referencing a video. It depends on the artwork, but if you were drawing, say, a person running, looking at videos of runners and watching it in slow motion can really help not only get the anatomy right, but help an artist to understand how each body part came to be where it is :) and with youtube, this is something that can now be easily done :)

[snapesgirl34.livejournal.com]

Ah man. :/ While I'm glad they're concerned about not stealing it also sucks that they're terrified to draw anything without a reference. Of course with all the drama concerning art theft, I'd say some artists can be overly paranoid (for example the recent DA drama regarding the artists who claimed Disney had stolen her generic looking character) and will scream "Art Theft!!" at anyone who draws art that even vaugely resembles their's.

I don't think a lot of new artists understand the difference between "copying" and "referencing," which may explain the confusion. I've seen a lot of people copy another artist's work exactly (eyeballing), changing only a few minor details, and then insisting that they've done nothing wrong because it's a reference. I bet many young artists also don't realize that there are many stock photos are available for referencing, or even know what a stock photo is. :/

[circlemeats.livejournal.com]

I think part of the problem is, a lot of artists, namely on deviantart, are like 12-16. I have a painting I did in High School that was a completely copied pose from the Sonic Adventure 2: Battle instruction booklet. Do I still do that? No. But I will say that even though I was kind of unaware I was doing something "bad," it did help me a bit. I have an entire sketchbook from 9th grade where I redrew the poses on Pokemon cards. I could even tell WHICH pokemon cards I was copying. It's funny to look at. But later on in the sketchbook I have a comic I did using Pokemon, that weren't copied from pokemon cards at all. They were my own poses and expressions.

I don't believe in pose stealing, for the most part, unless it's a blatant trace. A pose is a pose, you can't INVENT a pose, unless it's a crazy super stylized pose where the left foot is like 300 feet in the background and the head is under the crotch, etc. People who flip out on others for copying a pose are ridiculous. I hate that.

I think borrowing bits and pieces of others' "styles" and techniques is a lovely way to develop your own unique (I shudder at the abuse of this word) "style." Unless you REALLY REALLY TRY to copy another artist, you'll more than likely develop a unique way of drawing things, a quick, cute little style that inhabits your drawings. This isn't saying that developing a style and then STRICTLY sticking with it is okay, you should explore many mediums and ways of drawing to better improve your art. There's no way to improve your weaknesses unless you go outside your comfort zone.

Mainly, I think it's the huge mass of people who suddenly want to be artists because they can get a lot of attention from the internet doing so. There are so many preteen "artists" these days just drawing what's popular. Some will get away with it and make money off it (A curse of the time we're living in) Some will get disinterested and wander back over to myspace, and some will realize what it takes to become a dedicated artist. :P I don't think it's worth losing too much sleep over, though. DeviantArt and other art posting sites are becoming the scum of the internet these days.. I don't even visit dA anymore it's so full of crap.

My animation professor was once trying to improve a character design I had on a dinosaur. He suggested I make the eyes smaller and the chin larger. He brought in a book of character designs someone did of certain animals and pointed out a crocodile that had similar features as to how he described I changed my character design. I asked, "But isn't that stealing?" He said, "If you're drawing it, it's already yours. If you draw it your way, it's not copying. You're animating this character, you're putting life into it. It'll be yours no matter what you do." After he told me that, I loosened up a little bit over the fear of stealing character designs. After all, he was right. I'm not drawing a crocodile, I'm drawing a dinosaur. If I mimic how that artist pulled off exactly what I want out of my character, where is the harm in that?

Wow sorry this is so TL;DR. lol

[the-lest.livejournal.com]

Good words :)

I don't think copying is really wrong so long as there is a good intention behind it. By that i mean the artist is copying as a way to improve their skills rather than improve their ego or their purse. In fact, direct copies CAN be helpful. I bet you can draw pokemon perfectly even now. I can't.

If I wanted to draw a fan art of an official character that I find quite hard to draw, lets say for argument's sake... Amy Rose. The way I would go about it would be to make some sketches directly copied from official artwork of Amy. I probably wouldn't post the sketches online and I certainly wouldnt claim them as my own work. But it would help get an understanding of how this particular character should look and how the official artists achieve the look they do with Amy Rose. :)

What I forgot to say originally is that i wouldn't USE those sketches directly in the finished article. I'd simply use them as a way to getting to grips with the character, assimilate the knowledge and techniques before going on to do my original artwork, from scratch.

[kriscynical.livejournal.com]

That is something that my Illustration professors had to beat into our skulls in college. It wasn't because we were afraid of theft, though, it was because we somehow thought that was "cheating". It makes no sense to me in hindsight, but it was definitely there. I think it stems from the fact that everyone always tells us when we're young to use our imaginations and to be creative, and using reference seems to cancel that out in our heads.

I've had more than one run-in with people on DA who were "referencing" my work but actually just eyeballing it and then calling it their own piece (although once I talked to her about it in private she took it down because she sincerely didn't realize what she did wasn't right). There is a HUGE problem of people not knowing the difference between copying and referencing.

[pseudomanitou.livejournal.com]

"I think it stems from the fact that everyone always tells us when we're young to use our imaginations and to be creative"

I'd say it is because, as kids, we're not taught were such ideas came from. We're not taught art history or the progression of illustration styles and ideologies. We have no idea that what we see in animation and illustration grew from other work done long before it.

It would be nice if someone tried to do this for the kids out there -- it would only take a flip-book for them to see the evolution of such things.

[xianjaguar.livejournal.com]

Is it a problem with confusion of WHAT KIND of materials they should be referencing? (IE -- look at photos taken by you, not other artist's works).

This.
Kids need to know that 'referencing' is NOT looking at another artist's work and eyeballing it or tracing it and changing the colors. That's just copying someone else's work.

Referencing is viewing a bunch of elements from various sources to further educate yourself on how to create your own picture....as you said, "observations of such things as fabric and muscle tension in a pose, are essential as either learning tools or needed to work out details in existing compositions."

[dineegla.livejournal.com]

In all the art courses I took and that I taught, "referencing" (a new word for me) was never frowned on. However, BLATANT COPYING of another's work (like Xianjaguar's beautiful pieces) is still tantamount to Stealing. To note: a few years ago, a famous design contest was skewed because the winner used a "portion" of a copywritten design (an indian head) in a montage, thereby declaring him null & void. The cash prize was by no means a skimpy one, either.

All throughout history, famous artists copied styles and techniques from their mentors and guilds, and from that developed their own STYLE. THIS is what we should encourage. If you read about Art History, you will see things like the Dadaist style, the Bauhause Style, Minimalism, Rococo, Realism and Super-realism, etc. Artists DID their work in that style. On FA especially, I see a lot of poorly done styles of realism, anime, cartoons, etc. What the student needs is some sort of basic guideline for drawing, not just copying and recopying. Heck, when I was younger, I could draw the whole Peanuts gang (by Charles Shultz) from memory. Yet I developed my own style, and it's still evolving.

There are myriads of art classes that teach "draw what you see." Especially Human life drawing classes. That is referencing, no doubt. BUT how you manipulate what you see to make the creation totally yours (and possibly your trademark in the future) is what should count.

A professor once told me: "If Imitation is the sincerist form of Flattery, then Copying is the worst form of Plagiarism."

[foofers.livejournal.com]

They mistakenly believe other artists draw strictly from what they can formulate in their minds.

I would simply point out to such people the artistic traditions of still life or life drawing, both of which are based on immediate real-world observation. The greatest artists throughout human history - people who, with one hand tied behind their back, could still paint or sculpt something of such beauty that it would make you cry - and who could do so without any reference if they so chose - typically preferred having props and/or live models to work from. Most of the priceless works hanging in art museums today was done in such manner. So what is these peoples' problem?

OMG MICHELANGELO USED REFERENCE HE IS TEH SUXX0RZ!!!!11!!1

[the-lest.livejournal.com]

Nothing can be drawn, sculpted or otherwise created strictly from what we can form in our minds. I wouldn't know what a dog looked like if I had never seen a dog or a picture of a dog, yet I can draw one without a direct reference in front of me. I still have a reference for the dog nevertheless - my memory of dogs I have seen before.

Even if someone created a dragon with six legs and four wings and seven eyes and fire coming out of its arse, the body parts are all drawn from previous observations of real animals and other artwork.

You cannot NOT use reference, it just becomes an issue as to whether artists conciously or subconciously.

[wereblood.livejournal.com]

When I started drawing I had the same problem, I had seen so many people get called out for 'art theft' and yelled at about it that I was afraid to even reference a real photo. I drew only from my mind, and it did not help.

About two years after I started major drawing my father paid for a watercolor teacher and she kicked me straight, and I was lucky to have had her.

I guess that's the reason why I think the whole 'this person used my pose as a reference, so they stole,' is out of wack and dumb. To me, unless it's downright traced or copied without any 'Hey, I traced *instert name here*'s work to get a feel for such and such' then it's stealing, otherwise it's not.

There are to many people running around screaming "STOLEN" so they can get a good word in with an artist and hopefully become bestest friends with said artist. It's not as bad as it was when I got online, but it's still out there, and it's still pretty bad and dumb. When I was younger I used a picture of Kyoht's for reference to a drawing of mine, said in the description that I had used it, and someone still tried to say I was stealing. It's pathetic.

Anyway, I don't think people should use OTHER artist's work for drawing, what if that artist isn't that great or has a mistake they do a lot? Then you are adopting that same mistake.

Meh, I know I'm not that smart, but that's my two cents.

[jademare.livejournal.com]

Referencing photographs is actually how I got more into getting the hang of lighting and shading, so I don't see much wrong with it. But that's just me. =/

When it comes to direct tracing of someone else's work AND claiming it as your own hard work, that's when I'd call someone out for theft. Using other artists' work for drawing isn't exactly the smartest way to go, in my opinion. I mean, how are you going to develop your own unique style if you keep using someone else's?

Meh, just my opinion.

[ironbadger.livejournal.com]

This is the same peer pressure crap I ran into on the vcl forum back around '97 or so.
A few skilled and intensely over-territorial young artists began this by ranting that no one should ever use referrence materials because its "not honest" or "stealing", and absolutely refused to hear anything that contradicted this soapbox stance even when it came from professional artists who had been making a living drawing since before even I even born...

I gave up in sheer disgust eventually, and I was under the impression this horseshit attitude had been allowed to die at last.
I am deeply saddened and more than a little shocked that this is still going on, frankly- since copying reference material is a standard learning practice taught in art schools and the like, and any experienced professional will tel you that its a valid tool for learning.

I won't even bother to go into the arguments that the artist who started this went into- they amounted to teenaged high school angst camoflaged as justification, and I got disgusted with it rather quickly when it became apparent that this person was beyond listening to anything that was not sycophantic agreement to her position.

-Badger-

[dustmeat.livejournal.com]

So agreed.

[thaily.livejournal.com]

I don't know of any artist who says referencing is theft, but I know of a lot of non-artists who get reference and theft confused. Probably because they don't understand the process.

The process is an artist having an idea, finding one or several reference pieces to help them refine the idea on paper and then elaborating on that until they think they're finished.

The end result should never look exactly like the reference they used.

[solace-eternal.livejournal.com]

Joining the artistic community killed my ability to draw.

Funny how things work.

[blondierule.livejournal.com]

lol I am the complete opposite, but I have never been sucked into any of the "groups" Or taken notice of any of the drama. It's easy to get caught up in that though, mostly when you're young!

[saeto15.livejournal.com]

People need to pull themselves out of their fandoms and realize that true artists need to use photo references and study from life. They may need to figure things out the hard way by making some mistakes and being called on them, but they'll be better for it in the end.