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TJ09

2017-02-14 - Valentine's Day!

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thanks for the explanation TJ, it's one thing to reference and make sure what you have is anatomically correct, but it's completely something else to outright trace...

 

Though this particular case does still strike me as a bit odd. The poses picked out here are common - one's even part of a movement cycle.

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Maybe we could overlay something? To demonstrate how it does or does not line up?

There's a slight overlay for the taurus leg and the horse, but they don't seem to match up (at least to me).

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Maybe we could overlay something? To demonstrate how it does or does not line up?

I guess my challenge to you would be to find a picture of a horse rearing someone drew, and spend a minute looking up "horse rearing" on google.

 

You'll surely find at least one if not multiple that look like the artist traced in the lower legs, and perhaps even in the lower/upper legs both.

 

Every leg looks the same. Most mammals have the same basic set up - and heck, even birds have the same bones in their legs, just a bit edited.

 

The fact that the second photograph is only one leg that they specifically put in place to make it look traced is my biggest pet peeve here? The other leg doesn't match up at all.

 

 

Again, I can see playing safe with the second stage, but my god.

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A little unfair IMO. People are allowed to make mistakes and then learn from them.

Yeah, but after tracing on ToD and getting caught, Tazzay went and got caught for tracing in Dragon Requests. Evidently, they only learned to fudge things around to hide it better.

 

And if even JUST the s2 is traced, you can't trust that they won't submit other traced or copied sprites to the cave in the future...

Edited by TheCompleteAnimorph

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I still don’t understand why we couldn’t have gotten complete replacements? Even if it would have taken longer. I do see similarities between the original sprites and the images posted, but what is essentially being said is that the artists’ concept was good enough to be used but not their art. And our talented mystery spriter made new sprites that were clearly intended to RESEMBLE the originals, so in essence we’ve now got a copy of a copy. How is that better?

I think there would have been two options to handle this.

 

First would be to replace the entire dragon with the runner up from the valentines submissions.

 

Second would be what happened: a quick replacement, trying to keep the essence of the original.

 

 

It probably happened the way it did because people were already exclaiming that they were exited for a purple Valentines dragon. Replacing purple with purple would theoretically have had less of a backlash than having something completely different. And chances are the pre-made replacements would have not been purple, and so the artists would have had to have given permission for their pink (or whatever) dragon to be recolored.

 

TJ also made it clear why we didn't have a fog. The artist agreement required there to be a replacement sprite set before the old ones could be pulled. Replacing the images with a placeholder is not a replacement set.

 

 

 

 

Thank you for sharing, TJ. That explains a lot.

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I sorta get the resemblance for the back legs a little tiny bit for the adult sprite when you compare both pictures. With one picture, it looks like one leg is similar, and with the other it looks like the other leg is similar. With that said though the poses and position for both legs when they connect to the main body doesn't match, and unless you Photoshop both back legs together from both pictures it's hard to spot... It looks like pictures were definitely looked at for reference, but I kinda doubt they were sketched over top of both pictures, especially since you'd have to overlay two separate images over top of each other and at that point they might as well did the upper body the same way if they're going through that much effort, and the upper body doesn't match anything. As for the stage 1 sprite it... honestly it kinda looks more like a dog walking than it does the picture.

 

I'm very sorry, I know I'm a novice and everything but... it doesn't really look similar enough to each of them to really be plagiarized, even with the sketch, which probably shouldn't have been up.

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Honestly, despite some frustration, this was me when I came into the thread yesterday:

 

user posted image

 

I will still keep/love my feather butts, despite it all. Thank you spriters. :]

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Yeah, but after tracing on ToD and getting caught, Tazzay went and got caught for tracing in Dragon Requests. Evidently, they only learned to fudge things around to hide it better.

 

And if even JUST the s2 is traced, you can't trust that they won't submit other traced or copied sprites to the cave in the future...

Perhaps so, and if it was something recognisable and unique from another sprite/sketch I could understand being harsh about it but as others have said these are very generic poses for rearing(S3)/walking(S2) horses/deer. unsure.gif In this particular situation I would give Benefit of the Doubt myself.

Edited by Aurae

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What people must understand is, tracing is heavily frowned upon and doesn't make you learn that much for the way of improvement. Come up with your own poses and styles and be inspired by others, not copying or tracing. Images off google and DA are not public domain (unless explicitly stated) and tracing other people's work or photos is explicitly copyright infringement because the licensing of said images might not allow derivative works. It does not fall under fair use this way. Fair use is redistributing the unaltered source material for educational purposes and not just something you can take off and trace/etc. By all means, use images to study in private, but posting them is not allowed unless you own the drawings or they are released for public domain.

 

To use anyone's art that isn't public domain you need to purchase a license or ask permission. Taking images from google doesn't make them free to use.

 

 

You have to realize tracing other people's art (and photos), and heavily referencing poses is art theft (even if "you can't copyright a pose" because while you can't, it's in poor taste to copy someone else exactly instead of being inspired or coming up with stuff on your own since you DO own a brain (at least I'd hope)). I should also mention: the issue isn't "poses". It's the fact that they traced pictures that were not free to use.

 

It does not make it okay in the slightest. Artists put a lot of hard work into their craft and for others to blatantly trace and rip off from others is extremely low and downright deplorable. People who have skills and talents should do their own things, not steal from others. The artists had every right to feel the way they feel because art theft isn't a nice thing to happen to you.

 

I've had my art commissions that I purchased with my own money be copied, traced, and heavily referenced and it hurts because these are all pieces made for me and for no one else's use but my own. Just like these dragons are made FOR ALL OF YOU TO ENJOY OUT OF THE SPARE TIME OF THESE ARTISTS, they have the same feelings of violation of their hard work.

 

So please look at it from an artists' perspective and see that you're undermining their feelings just because you can't "see" what they're feeling upset about.

 

Educate yourself about art theft. Art theft isn't just tracing or referencing. Images can be stolen, altered, sold, reprinted. That's just the start of it.

 

Ignorance isn't an excuse.

Edited by Devyn Star

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I say this as an artist who has seen SO. MANY. stock manga poses and the like where you can see the same damn pose used by many artists but its still different because of what the artist DID with them, and the different characters too and still clearly distinctively different from each other. You have less similarity to that photo than many pictures I've seen have to each other. smile.gif So don't worry about it, is what I'm gonna say.

 

This is a qoute from my mocking wyvern project. It's still incomplete, but some one had used the same exact drawing and redid it to where it would fit the design for the male. However, when someone pointed it out, I pulled it for fear of copyrighting it and replaced it. I later told people about it and that is what Sapphire had to say. She also said that she wouldn't have recognised the dragon otherwise had I not pointed it out

Edited by Raptor of Dragons

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I would totally understand it if something was clearly ripped from another sprite or drawing. But these are stock photos of a generic pose!

 

And if the spriters are to be believed this dragon has been submitted before. This should've been noticed then if it's such a huge and obvious issue. The sketch being up was wrong but that seems like an easy oversight. This seems so drastic over something so little.

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Yeah, but after tracing on ToD and getting caught, Tazzay went and got caught for tracing in Dragon Requests. Evidently, they only learned to fudge things around to hide it better.

Look, I get that you have some beef with me, but could you maybe stop? Yes, I did trace in the past to learn about anatomy. I don't anymore, because I learned and apologised for it. Please stop.

 

By extent, i'll put this here since someone decided to link eef's and my journals (please dont do that, actually)

 

The basis of it was that someone thought we had traced the legs of our sprite, and well...

 

Proceeded to go on a witch-hunt to try and find anything that resembles the legs of our dragon. Going so far as to look 5 pages into eef's deviantart favourites and picking out a piece that she favourited 6 years ago, that vaguely has legs like our dragon. Even if the pose we had was just a standard rearing pose, common for deer-like creatures. I watched eef draw the sketch, the most she did was use a reference for how the legs should be angled.

 

But shame that it had only been pointed out after our dragon got released. By the way things played out, it seems that someone got salty about us getting a holiday release, and immediately tried to smear our names in the dirt. By the way - the dragons have been submitted every year for the past 3 years. Funny how the issue was only brought up after the release, and not the three years before, huh?

 

I'm sorry everything played out like this, I never expected things to blow up like this because of some bloody legs.

 

As a final note - Funny how TJ removed our sprites because our dragon's legs resembles that of any rearing animal, but these sprites exist on the site already -

 

user posted image - exact same pose

 

user posted image - Legs almost identical, only flipped

 

But we had our sprites removed because the legs looked like that or any rearing animal, and therefor was 'traced'. Go onto the wiki and look at all the dragons, I assure you'll find similarities with a handful of dragons that, by TJ's words, are 'traced', but he hasn't said a peep about it.

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Truly amazing.

 

Also, I have so many questions about their antlers and the pearl. Clearly they can take the pearl out, but how does the floating work? Do they dip their head and grab the pearl with their paw? Can they just turn off this antigravitational field at will? Can they stick other things between their antlers to carry/float them around? Is there a weight limit? What if they whip their head and turn off this antigravitational field- does the pearl (or whatever was floating) go flying? Can they play catch like that?

 

Seriously.

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It probably happened the way it did because people were already exclaiming that they were exited for a purple Valentines dragon.  Replacing purple with purple would theoretically have had less of a backlash than having something completely different.  And chances are the pre-made replacements would have not been purple, and so the artists would have had to have given permission for their pink (or whatever) dragon to be recolored.

I completely understand what you’re saying. However, after 128 pages of people voicing their opinions - many of them negative about the replacement sprites and confusion about what happened - I think it’s safe to say there wasn’t less backlash this way. And again, why is it okay to capture the essence of the original sprites especially if they were traced? Is that not also a form of theft?

Edited by willworkforhugs

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Quick thoughts before I have time to fully read / respond, but you can't copyright a pose, can you? Tons of dragons on D.C. are in similar poses. Again, hellhorses. As long as the work itself is unique, a similar pose shouldn't be a problem. Even if someone copied a horse's pose in a photograph exactly, if they turn it into a dragon with distinct differences in everything but general pose, is there anything bad really bad there? Tons of people use pose / anatomy ref for parts of things.

 

Although hearing one of the spriters had traced before is concerning. Pity all this couldn't have been settled sooner, ah >___<

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Honestly, despite some frustration, this was me when I came into the thread yesterday:

 

user posted image

 

I will still keep/love my feather butts, despite it all. Thank you spriters. :]

ROFL...............

 

and I love my new Valentine dragons too.

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user posted image - Legs almost identical, only flipped

Are you suggesting that Odeen may have plagiarized from...herself?

 

Because those sprites are both by the same person; I'd actually be impressed if someone managed to create an unauthorized ripoff of another work that they own.

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By the way - the dragons have been submitted every year for the past 3 years. Funny how the issue was only brought up after the release, and not the three years before, huh?

Until now, TJ was the only person aware these sprites existed aside from you guys, so nobody else could have brought things up.

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The wings on the new sprite are similar to several other DC dragons - should we start a new witch hunt instead of picking on Tazzay for some generic legs? biggrin.gif (Joking, joking! No more accusations, please!)

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Until now, TJ was the only person aware these sprites existed aside from you guys, so nobody else could have brought things up.

Yet someone who wasn't TJ managed to find the adult sprite, its sketch, and report it before it was even released?

 

Other people were evidently privy to the dragon before release.

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Until now, TJ was the only person aware these sprites existed aside from you guys, so nobody else could have brought things up.

By the same logic only TJ could have called attention to the similarities in the S3 poses, the adults weren't visible yet.

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Yet someone who wasn't TJ managed to find the adult sprite, its sketch, and report it before it was even released?

 

Other people were evidently privy to the dragon before release.

The sketch is what was reported to me, not the sprite.

 

The person who reported it didn't even know if it was actually the same dragon; it was however labeled "Valentine's Dragon Adult," which strongly implied a match to them.

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Until now, TJ was the only person aware these sprites existed aside from you guys, so nobody else could have brought things up.

I did go to other already in-cave artists for crits about these guys over the years. All they pointed out was the dangly bit on the wing was weird before it was edited.

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Yet someone who wasn't TJ managed to find the adult sprite, its sketch, and report it before it was even released?

 

Other people were evidently privy to the dragon before release.

The sketch was on EEF's DA after TJ's eggs hatched, and EEF's name was clearly visible as credited on-site. It'd be super easy for someone who looked at the hatchling credits after they hatched to, say... find EEF's Deviantart, go "huh that's a sketch that says 'Valentine's dragon sketch', I wonder if it's this one? It has the antlers and everything."

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