Tracing art--is it okay or not?

TwilightEL

TwilightEL

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Yeah, we all know who I'm thinking about. Land. He's* a plagiarizer. It's rumored that he traces porn. He's not the only one.*

My opinion? **** him. He traces photos and art that don't belong to him, his composition and the flow from panel to panel are **** and completely ruin fight scenes for me, his characters never look the same from panel to panel, and he (and EVERY OTHER TRACER) are lazy, cheating everyone who reads their work, and should be fired. Marvel issued a statement about tracing what doesn't belong to you. Maybe Land hasn't traced since then. We'll see. But this isn't all about Land.

ProjectX2 said:
I loved Millar's run the most. I even love Land. I don't care that he copies pictures or whatever. It still looks great and that's what matters.
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Anyone else agree with this viewpoint? I acknowledge there is a VAST UNIVERSE of difference between photoreferencing and/or taking your own photos and what Land does.

*Scroll all the way to the bottom.
 
That Marvel thing was a joke some retailer did.

I don't agree with tracing, but I like his art. All he does is photo reference, just like a lot of other artists.
 
ProjectX2 said:
That Marvel thing was a joke some retailer did.

I don't agree with tracing, but I like his art. All he does is photo reference, just like a lot of other artists.
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NO.

g.jpg


HE DOES NOT.
 
Two old guys with different hair styles, different ears, different noses, and a similar facial feature (but with different lips/tongues)?

Has anyone actually proven he's traced? All I can tell is that he photo references - a lot. And I don't think that's a crime. And if he is tracing - he's still changing the final product.

**** it. I don't even care. He traces and he's giving you cancer. I like his art. There.
 
ProjectX2 said:
Two old guys with different hair styles, different ears, different noses, and a similar facial feature (but with different lips/tongues)?

Has anyone actually proven he's traced? All I can tell is that he photo references - a lot. And I don't think that's a crime. And if he is tracing - he's still changing the final product.

**** it. I don't even care. He traces and he's giving you cancer. I like his art. There.
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He traces! They're exactly the same! It's not whether his art is good or bad, it's whether the art is worth the shameless tracing.

hmmmmm4kt.gif


And he has a list of maybe five expressions for women which he reuses a billion times.
 
Joe Kalicki said:
I miss Sojourn.
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Me too. It was his best work.

And one thing that annoys me - when people always ***** about Land tracing, they always use the same three examples. Go through his art and find other examples.
 
TwilightEL said:
NO.

g.jpg


HE DOES NOT.
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I completely dislike Land's work, more for the fact that it feels like he doesn't add anything interesting to his photo-referencing the way Maleev or Ross do.

But tracing? I have no idea how we can prove this. Tracing to me, is taking the photograph and over-laying a transparent/translucent layer over it to copy the details.

But how do prove that Land did this? What if he just put the damn cover next to him and just copied it detail by detail? I've done it before. You don't need to 'trace' to be a perfect plagiarist.

Second, who's to say that he doesn't computer copy his images or cut and past them over another panel then cut and paste additional material over it. It's been done by other artists before --- I found it highly visible among the work Michael Avon Oeming on Powers and Alex Maleev on Daredevil.

I'm not defending Land here, though. I'm just saying that it's highly possible for him to do this stuff without tracing.
 
It's not plagiarism if the photo being used is cited, used in parody or satire, or is royalty free. I think is may be okay to use references as long as the end result is different enough. Internet copy right laws are in a weird place. Basically the second you click copy on an image you break the law. I'm not sure is Land did or did not but if Marvel doesnt have policies on penalties for their artist to plagiarize and none of the owners file a lawsuit than he can get a way with it. Personally I can't really get made because all of my UC fan fic covers used refernces, but hey I'm not being payed for it at all. In my opinion its okay to use other image as a reference but to trace right over the image and do it constantly is wrong
 
Dr.Strangefate said:
Seriously... if you want to make your case, the Apollo action figure/reed richards action figure drawing is NOT the way to go.
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Aha! I just saw that one. Now that's an example. :roll:

TwilightEL said:
There are THIRTEEN in my links. Here's another.

Would you like me to provide examples of him tracing himself, too?
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Sorry, I was referring to threads on other forums this topic comes across. And all they show is the Troy/Magneto picture and it annoys me. What if I just kept posting the picture of Steve Rogers looking like Bruce Willis that Alex Ross drew? Does that mean he traces too? Of course he doesn't - he photo references. It's just Land does it to the extreme.
 
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I think tracing is a tool of art like any other. For certain styles it's helpful, it's also helpful as a learning process (it's pretty much how I learned to draw).

However, a tool, if relied on solely, becomes a crutch. Greg Land isn't a bad artist because he uses a lightbox (and he does - some people who used to work with him told me so), but because he's so bad with it.

A lightbox is a wonderful thing. I know professional artists who use it for things like likenesses. When you're drawing a well-known celebrity like Harrison Ford, using a lightbox to get their features makes sense - it keeps them consistent and looking like the person its meant to and thus doesn't intrude on the story. I think many people would like it if the current Buffy artist did this as his faces sometimes are unrecognizable or too inconsistent and it hurts the story.

Other people use lightboxes to compose various sketches they've done into a finished picture (though, this is from start to finish their original work).

Lightboxing is just like photo-referencing. What, you can copy the composition of a photographer's work to your heart's content so long as you don't use a lightbox? Nonsense.

It's about what you do with the references and tools you use. Greg Land is just unoriginal, inconsistent, and lazy in his artwork. It has nothing to do with his lightboxing. Before he lightboxed he was unheard of precisely because he was unoriginal, inconsistent, and lazy in his artwork.

The problem is that now, he's being credited as someone who's really good. If he wasn't tracing, if his work was as it was, and people said he was good, people would just scream he's bad anyway.

Scott McCloud says there are 6 steps to any creative process. The 6th is surface. A lot of people think it's the only one, and if art were an apple and you were to bite into such an artwork, it would be hollow. Greg Land, on the surface looks GREAT. But it becomes apparent the more you look into it, that it is a hollow work. It's just not very good. It's all style, no substance. But that's because he's Greg Land, not because he used a lightbox.

Lightboxes are useful tools for all kinds of draftsmanship.
 
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Bass said:
I think tracing is a tool of art like any other. For certain styles it's helpful, it's also helpful as a learning process (it's pretty much how I learned to draw).

However, a tool, if relied on solely, becomes a crutch. Greg Land isn't a bad artist because he uses a lightbox (and he does - some people who used to work with him told me so), but because he's so bad with it.

A lightbox is a wonderful thing. I know professional artists who use it for things like likenesses. When you're drawing a well-known celebrity like Harrison Ford, using a lightbox to get their features makes sense - it keeps them consistent and looking like the person its meant to and thus doesn't intrude on the story. I think many people would like it if the current Buffy artist did this as his faces sometimes are unrecognizable or too inconsistent and it hurts the story.

Other people use lightboxes to compose various sketches they've done into a finished picture (though, this is from start to finish their original work).

Lightboxing is just like photo-referencing. What, you can copy the composition of a photographer's work to your heart's content so long as you don't use a lightbox? Nonsense.

It's about what you do with the references and tools you use. Greg Land is just unoriginal, inconsistent, and lazy in his artwork. It has nothing to do with his lightboxing. Before he lightboxed he was unheard of precisely because he was unoriginal, inconsistent, and lazy in his artwork.

The problem is that now, he's being credited as someone who's really good. If he wasn't tracing, if his work was as it was, and people said he was good, people would just scream he's bad anyway.

Scott McCloud says there are 6 steps to any creative process. The 6th is surface. A lot of people think it's the only one, and if art were an apple and you were to bite into such an artwork, it would be hollow. Greg Land, on the surface looks GREAT. But it becomes apparent the more you look into it, that it is a hollow work. It's just not very good. It's all style, no substance. But that's because he's Greg Land, not because he used a lightbox.

Lightboxes are useful tools for all kinds of draftsmanship.
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Well said.

Twilight has some points but but that same token---shouldn't we hate Bradstreet for tracing over photos for his artwork? Well I guess since Bradstreet took the photos himself, it's not really a problem.

Oh DAMN THESE SEMANTICS!





For the record----I will NEVER hate Bradstreet.
 
I hate Land with a passion that almost rivals TwilightEL's. Almost. Bravo, I've been meaning to make a thread like this for awhile; I'm sick of these shenanigans.
 
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