Help finding originals

[thaily.livejournal.com]

This guy is obviously a tracer: http://www.furaffinity.net/gallery/poltergeist/

It's easy to tell by the lines in his pencil pieces; he claims they're sketches but the lines are single shakey lines, deviating and erased/corrected only where he slipped while trying to trace the original work. There's no construction lines or smudges even though he's obviously not very adept at sharpening lines and cleaning noise digitally.
Not to mention the fact his style and skill-level varies hugely from a Gendy Tartakovsky style to anime and Disney.

Subjects: Wolf's rain(?), Inu Yasha (a fangirl favorite), Balto (same as Inu Yasha), Danny Phantom and Sonic.
If you could find the original screenshots/artwork I'd appreciate it a lot.

I already found a screenshot of the TLK trace, it's the scene before "I can't wait to be a king" where Zazu tells Simba and Nala that they're betrothed.
You can see it in action here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FcwxJUwRiU&search=lion%20king%20simba%20nala%20

Edit:
Arshes-Nei found this original: http://evabeast.com/4images/details.php?image_id=5691
For this copy: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/117683/

Edit:
Preyfar discretely contacted the tracer and it would seem that he took his traces down.
Doesn't look like he's banned to let's hope that he'll start uploading his own art.

Comments

[go--banana.livejournal.com]

i think considering their age, we should ease off of him. honestly, who here, prior to taking your artistry seriously, did not trace your favorite films/animes/etc? at 14, i traced sailor moon and pokemon. as time progresses, your style will change; hopefully (and most likely) it will change for this individual when they're 18 or more.

but hey, maybe i'm an idiot.

[thaily.livejournal.com]

Ease off him?

As far as I can see no-one's been commenting about his uploads or being mean to him, I'm just collecting proof so the admins can debate on wether or not to take action and if they do, treat him like anyone else.

He's old enough to be told that tracing art and uploading it as your own is wrong and against the site's rules. You know, the ones he agreed to follow when he signed up for FA?

How's treating him like every other FA member unfair?

[fishbowlfrenzy.livejournal.com]

but hey, maybe i'm an idiot.

What, for not wanting to rip this kid a new one? hardly.

Most of us went through that "tracing" stage when we were younger, I'd like to think it may just be a part of this person's learning process.

[thaily.livejournal.com]

Who's ripping??

Jeez, dramawhores.

[art-batty.livejournal.com]

I think they are meant to be pre-emptive statements. Stop it before it starts.

[fishbowlfrenzy.livejournal.com]

Exactly.
I didn’t accuse anyone of anything.
I however agree with go__banana in that this really isn’t a big issue considering this kid is probably just starting to evolve as an artist.

[fishbowlfrenzy.livejournal.com]

Though Preyfar brings up a good point about posting the images as their own.

It's not so much the act here as it is taking credit for somehting that isn't theirs.

[thaily.livejournal.com]

"I think they are meant to be pre-emptive statements."

x_x

No words.

[fishbowlfrenzy.livejournal.com]

?

I didn’t say anyone was- I simply don’t think Poof is an “idiot” for not wanting to jump down someone’s throat.
(Not that anyone did)
Neither one of us stated that there was any bashing/flaming/ripping whatever you want to call it involved.
I think Poof was referring to the post when she said “ease off him” and not anything that may have been said outside of this community.

I’m sorry if it came off sounding that way.

[industrialwolf.livejournal.com]

hahaha you can't read!

[thaily.livejournal.com]

Haha, you can't capitalize.

[industrialwolf.livejournal.com]

AT LEAST I AM LITERATE LOLOLOLOLOLOL

[thaily.livejournal.com]

I'll have to take your word for it.

[industrialwolf.livejournal.com]

Precisely, because unlike you I actually know how to USE and COMPREHEND these things called 'words'.

LOL CRITICAL THINKING & READING COMPREHENSION SKILLZZZZZZZZZ

See also: Do you, leik, spend all day on here or something? I mean not only did you respond to the comment I made in reply to yours, you also went back to the original thread and commented on the response I made to this entire post (and totally missed my sarcasm in it, by the way). I don't know where you live (I'm assuming in some 3rd world country that inexplicably has internet access, being that your low-level intelligence is clearly a sign of malnurishment and lack of good hygeine), but in my part of the world it's a beautiful sunny day, and after I'm done telling you off here I intend to enjoy it as such. Perhaps your brain might recover if you go out and get some fresh air as well, hmmm?

[leswamp.livejournal.com]

Agreed with you and with go__banana. Also, I'm in no way expert enough to tell if this kid is actually tracing or not.

Then again I'm a lowly cartoonist, what do I know? :)

[murasadramon.livejournal.com]

I think at age 14 most teens are mentally capable of knowing what's right from wrong. I don't think age warrants more leniancy. Lots of us HAVE traced, but to post them to a public gallery as if they were your own originals... I don't quite think that floats.

[shirikdraguinea.livejournal.com]

the Sonic and Amy one is from an Episode of Sonic X. I can picture it in my head right now... they've just been in a huge fight and Amy runs up to Sonic and clings to him yelling "Sonniku!" and crying. Sonic meanwhile is like "WTF?"

I'll try and find it. I know its reasonably early on in the series

[thaily.livejournal.com]

I considered that, I use a lightbox to trace my dirty sketches onto clean paper, but that would require him to have a dirty sketch he made. If he isn't tracing directly from someone else's work I'm sure he can provide that dirty sketch with construction lines etc.

[murasadramon.livejournal.com]

I am investigating the matter.

[raptonx.livejournal.com]

I hate tracers.......

[gothwings.livejournal.com]

I never did the whole tracing thing. Call it artistic snobbery, but even at a young age I wanted to create my own work rather than tracing or copying that of others.

However, if this person is learning that way then fine. My only criticism would be that there is no mention of where the inspiration for these images came from when they are clearly copied. With a little luck they will evolve as an artist in their own right, learning how to draw from their simple tracing.

[thaily.livejournal.com]

"I never did the whole tracing thing."

I know people will refuse to believe me, but neither did I. Much less pass it off as my own :/

Not sure you can learn much from directly tracing art (or to what extent inspiration actually plays a part), but I imagine he does want to become an artist and not just a tracer, so a gentle nudge in the direction of originality is probably best. I'm sure I can depend on the admins to handle it in a calm and mature way though.

Glad no-one has trolled him (despite of what some people seem to think O_o) because it would probably just make him dig his heels in.

just a thought

[celty.livejournal.com]

Even though I'm in college, my character design teachers still encourage us to copy existing cartoons that we like as practice. It all helps evolve your style, ultimately, by broadening up your style base. Especially at the beginning stages of things.

But yeah, he'd get more benefit from it if he copied rather than traced. And, y'know, giving some credit where credit was due wouldn't hurt either.

Re: just a thought

[crssafox.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there's a big difference between a copied style, and a traced image.

I used to trace things a LONG time ago, and it helped me to be able to "guesstimate" where to place my lines in relation to parts of a character... that is to say, tracing encouraged me to NOT bother with using shapes to build up my characters. And that was a HUGE backward step. I feel like I'm just in beginning stages now, when I could've been so much more advanced....

I hope this kid turns from tracing things, to trying to work out why the characters are built the way that they are. Otherwise, he'll just be stuck in a rut. I wish someone had told ME that when I first began drawing...

[art-batty.livejournal.com]

I never flat out traced an image, but I would sometimes as a young kid (between 7-13) look at another persons drawing or other random image and try to reproduce it as closely as a could. It really only influenced my style more than anything as well as my ability to reference models or photos. But still I never posted them on the internet, and really only showed them to my relatives/friends.

I think yeah, we should nudge him in a direction towards artistic creativeity. I got the same thing before i started doing my stuff. My best friend (who was who I learned all my art stuffs from) suggested that since I could imitate Jhonen Vasquez's style so well, i should start drawing my own images in it. I did and I've been doing my own stuff since.I think this sort of nudge could be just what he needs.

[fareme.livejournal.com]

I did the same thing when I was very young, eyeballing cartoon characters from books and things like that, and trying to draw it myself as closely as possible. It's a start, 'specially for self-tought artists.
Tracing is a different story though, I think. But the kid's pictures are down, and he can be watched to see what he produces himself of course. We had the same problem with someone at DA not too long ago, and I've since watched her upload a lot of her own artwork, which has very much potential. You can even see her own style starting to develop, and she's been delving into animation as well. All it takes is a little encouragement and to firmly let a youngin' know that tracing doesn't fly - really, it only cripples one's artistic ability to create from their own imaginations.

[nightlove.livejournal.com]

I did similar things at a younger age, when I was trying to develop my artistic ability. I wouldn't trace an image, and I wouldn't even reproduce the entire image itself on my paper -- only parts of it. For example, I enjoyed how a certain artist (Michael Whelan) does dragon wings, specifically. So I would reference his images many times in my sketchbooks (just the wings,) and then play with them from there. Other artists would influence this too (or appear in my sketchbook,) different body parts, different animals, etc.
I think the only things I ever copied 'in full' were photographs of animals, when I was trying to learn how to draw them 'correctly,' or at least make them recognisible as that creature.

Even then, however, if I was posting art which had parts I 'copied' from photos/artists, I would mention it. Even at the age of 14/15.

[lilenth.livejournal.com]

Same here, I once copied a piece of super mario box art but never traced it and I only showed the result to my parents.

[razzek.livejournal.com]

I don't know about the rest of his stuff, but I can tell you now he traced that Danny Phantom image. It's from the episode "The Fright Before Christmas" (the site which has the screenshots is down right now, but if anyone watches the show and has seen this ep, the scene he traced occurs right after Danny breaks the Ghost Writer's keyboard and picks up a piece of it). His work is too on-model to not have been traced.

[industrialwolf.livejournal.com]

HEY I DREW FROM THE LION KING ONCE WHEN I WAS LITTLE AND YOU COULD LEIK TELL I WAS LOOKING AT THE LION KING TRADING CARDS WHILE I DID IT IN LEIK I LEARNED HOW TO COLOR AND DRAW AND STUFF FROM THAT MOMENT OK?!?!?

but LET'S KILL THIS SONOFABITCH!!!!!!!!!

[thaily.livejournal.com]

It kinda looks like English, only not.

[growly.livejournal.com]

Danny Phantom is Butch Hartman, not Gennedy Tartakovsky. ;)
But that really is irrelevant.

Technically, tracing is not illegal, only if you are making money off of it. Art students are encouraged to study famous works of art and try to mimick it as best they can to learn the techniques behind how it was made. It is very good practice for beginners to imitate other artists before they find a style of their own.
Tracing, however, doesn't really help your art that much, but no, it isn't illegal, only unethical.

I wouldn't sweat it, however. If he traces one of yours, just ask him to credit you and if he doesn't and it's obviously a rip of your artwork, the admins will remove it.

[thaily.livejournal.com]

"Technically, tracing is not illegal"

Not allowed on FA though.

[growly.livejournal.com]

True, but I don't see the need to post about this here, then. Alert the mods and let them handle it.

[thaily.livejournal.com]

What the...

Did I rejoin and post this to drama_awesome by accident?
It's like nobody read the actual post and no-one here contributed at all.

This is a community also for reporting art-theft, that's what I was doing and asked for more evidence if people had it so I could give it to the mod, with whom I was already in contact with before I made the post.

[growly.livejournal.com]

Fair 'nuff. I just don't feel like we should 'beware' someone who traces Balto.