Art is important · 9:23am Apr 19th, 2015
Briefly: When I posted the Versebreaker anthology yesterday, I did make an effort to source its cover art, but screwed up along the way. (Those with sharp eyes might have noticed I originally sourced the cover art to where I found it on derpibooru — and in the original blog post where I first used the image, I didn't source it at all, because I was being an idiot. You can see in my other stories and blog posts that I don't usually fail that hard.)
The artist contacted me, and though they've been very gracious and offered me retroactive permission, they shouldn't have had to. It was even worse of me not to give them the credit they deserve. We're all creators here: we should know how important it is to be recognized for our work.
So, thank you to alittleofsomething for that excellent image of singing Rarity and disapproving Sweetie Belle, and for being a good person in general. You can find the original source here, which is on their primary tumblr account, and also has links to their "Ask Pegasus Lola" askblog and their other artblogs (pony and otherwise).
Also speaking of art, you might notice a second change in my usericon! Fellow author and all-around cool creative dude arcum42 saw the new image I posted, and retraced and recolored it to make the figure really pop against the background. It's amazing work! There are also a lot of details added in, such as the eartuft and shading, and a new interpretation of the eye that is marginally subtler. Full-sized version here, and it looks even better at high resolution.
I like your profile pic. What's the name of your OC?
And would it be a crime if I drew him?
I like the retooled user icon. And I'm sure there's no significance to the fact that you keep changing appearance on us. None whatsoever.
2996453
Thanks! I'm quite fond of the pic as well.
The pony in the avatar is in fact named Horizon, who is not a changeling. If the OC inspires you, please go for it!
I'd offer art references but the one linked in the post above is really the best one I've got.
2996494
Oh, no significance whatsoever. I assure you that perfectly normal ponies such as myself are often in the habit of making trivial alterations to such minutiae as their facial expression, manestyle, or shape of their pupils.
2996508 I shall
2996508
I'm glad you like it, and I quite like how it came out myself. It might have been more difficult if I'd tried to draw more than actually shows on your avatar, of course. As it stands, I drew the feathers that were hidden by your mane myself. The background helps, too. Here's what it looks like sans background.
i.imgur.com/FU8kyCJ.png
http://i.imgur.com/FU8kyCJ.png
2996494
No significance whatsoever, naturally. Neither did the dinosaur I caught a glimpse of while I was up there that talked with his voice.
--arcum42
Ah, good. Your avatar isn't staring into my soul quite as much.
Yeah, I should probably go source the 2/3rds of my stories with unsourced cover art. Wait, does having it go to the original picture when you click on it count as sourcing?
Do you think it was improper for you to post the image in the blog post? If so, it is because it referred to a story? I don't think ponies would expect you to credit an image in a message or blog post.
2996557 I like the new avatar! It really does pop, and tufts in the fur and ears always improve a pony image.
Can I make a suggestion? There's too much brighter negative space behind him that draws my eye there, where you should be it's the eye that pulls me in. Shifting pony to the right by 1/3 to 1/2 that gap between the wing and frame would pull the viewer's eye much closer to the his eye.
2996591
Yeah, I got full.2996809
The basic principle of sourcing is to credit the artist. If you click on the link for your story art, you should be able to figure out who drew it. So linking to the page containing the original picture is great, but doing a direct hotlink to a higher-res version of the art doesn't help the artist at all.
2996928
Different artists have different levels of tolerance for reuse of their work in a fan/free context, but in this context, generally accepted practice is that if you're going to use a piece of original art - even for incidental purposes, like sprucing up a blog post - provide a link to where the creator originally posted it. (The idea is to honor the time invested into an original work. Screenshots of the show, and memes/reaction images, don't need sourcing.) If you're using the art for significant fanfic purposes, like a story cover, the line is a little muddier, but enough artists prefer being asked in advance for permission that that should be your default — unless they've made their preferences known, for example by licensing it under Creative Commons, or by forbidding reuse.
I don't think I screwed up by using the image, and in this case (where there was no possibility of money involved) I think very few people would argue otherwise. It was a fanwork released for free, and I was using it for the same reason. I screwed up by not crediting, which costs the author the only reward (publicity) that they get out of their free work.
2997308
That could be easy to fix by re-cropping.
2997526 Of course, which I tried in PS before posting. My suggestion was made with the thought of keeping the aspect ratio similar to fill out the avatar frame, but cropping works. Either way, I like the avatar.
2997526
That's very interesting.
I asked whether or not it was appropriate to post an image in a blog post without linking to the artist, and everypony who responded (I believe Titanium Dragon was among them) suggested that one should seek permission for story images but agreed with me on blog posts. You're the first pony to suggest to me that this might be improper.
I don't think it's realistic for artists to expect their work won't be linked to in passing when it appears in numerous places on the web already, but I would of course like to know if anypony else agrees with your point of view on this. Because if any reasonable number of ponies do, I should probably delete my blog.
EDIT: I see you meant linkback attribution for blog posts rather than permission, but I haven't seen anypony doing this. It seems like Google image search should be sufficient for sourcing.
2997651
Were the people that you asked about this artists, or were they authors benefiting from artists' hard work?
Just to be clear: I do NOT think that deleting blog posts is the solution (or even that it would help). Just do that Google image search yourself, find the page where the piece came from, and add a little "(picture source)" link underneath the pic (or at the bottom of the post). If Googling an artist really is that simple, then it only costs you a couple of seconds to add the link. That's literally all it takes to do the right thing.
I see a LOT of complaints in artist blogs about unsourced picture usage, and if I were in their shoes and my own hard work were getting lifted in the same way, I'd be pretty discouraged too.
2997721
Well, I'm very interested in knowing whether or not your point of view on this topic is non-rare. If you have any observations, let me know. I'll probably go back and relink a crapton of blog posts regardless.
I'm also an artist, so I do understand the issue. That said, I don't agree that if you release your art on the internet, it is reasonable for you to expect it will not become popular and spread. Clearly it is wrong to post somepony else's artwork with the false implication that the artwork is your own, or that it was produced to represent or support something you are using it for (character design, story cover, etc.). But that's not at all what we're talking about.
2997651 I think what you're talking about - crediting the artist in a situation where the art isn't specifically and permanently tied, such as a blog (and not a story) - is very subjective.
Imagine someone using specific parts of one of your fics as examples of some point or other in their blog post. Would you really mind them doing so without telling you, as long as they didn't post the entire story? I'm guessing probably not, but that's said with the thought that maybe you would be more pleased if they did let you know.
Would it be any different if the artist was inspired by your story and linked to it from the inspired art they created? From my perspective it would be the same answer: It would be nice, but in the end I wouldn't mind if they didn't tell me - not nearly as much as I've been bothered by people using my photography without my permission. If they posted your entire story elsewhere to illustrate their image, though - that's another thing.
The main point here is that in the case of a blog post, artist's works are typically offered to showcase the art itself or to illustrate an example of some point. In the case of a fanfic story, using that art is clearly intended to increase the appeal of the story itself, just like the cover image of any book, and asking for permission to use it as such is a very definite imperative.
Nice new avatar! I didn't recognize you at first. I was thinking "Oh, who's this handsome fellow from whom I am suddenly receiving notifications?"
2997762
I think the larger problem with using artwork for a story cover is something else.
Using artwork for any "official"-looking purpose (e.g. as a user icon, a story cover, perhaps even a charity flyer) strongly suggests the artist approves of that usage. If you don't credit them, and also try to get permission, you are misrepresenting the idea that the artist intended their art to be used that way. I would expect some artists to be unhappy about that.
Beyond that, I think it's unrealistic to be an artist and not expect as your art becomes popular that ponies will reference it in small ways which are clearly not an indication of support. It is nice to credit artists, though, so I'll try to figure out if there's a way I can do that with subtlety without doing a clickthrough on the artwork (because that is awful on blog posts).
Go proper sourcing woohoo!!
Nice avatar btw
2997308
2997526
If you want to try recropping, here it is with background, uncropped.
i.imgur.com/ZlbMBx5.png
This is just the background: (Obviously I didn't go the whole way with the star effect.)
i.imgur.com/Dq1lNeh.png
And in 2996557, I posted it sans background, so if you want to play around with shifting as well, you can.
I just figure if I try it, it might take me a couple more times to get the positioning right.
This gives more of an opportunity to play with it, anyways...
--arcum42
3002574 2997526
I didn't intend on actually editing, myself, but since I opened my big mouth, here it is.
Top one is slightly more cropped by a few pixels, bottom and right, than the other.
i.imgur.com/UAC2rq0.jpg
i.imgur.com/tQPcy82.jpg
3005272
Took me a little while to get around to it, but I did update my icon to the recropped version you provided, and gave you a little hat tip on my user page. Thanks!
3027949 You're very welcome! I hope it works for you - if not, let me know. It'd take me a minute to make a basic change to it.