I am shocked...

[Cowie]

I was sitting at work today, looking through some old interior design magazines for no particular reason, when I turned a page on to this...

http://www.bollektivet.dk/ko/Gucci_orig.jpg

Do you recognice it? I saw it right away, as I'm a very visually perceptive guy, who happen to play way too much NwN :D

Compare with this...

http://www.bollektivet.dk/ko/NwN_Portrait.jpg

That portrait is a total overpaint of the girl in that ad.
Just look at the proportions, and the strands of hair match one by one. (The magazine was from October 1999)

What about the other portraits in NwN? All made in the same fashion? yuck...

I just had to share this... >:

[sin]

that makes me sad:(

[Lono]

oh whatever..
plenty of great artists use photo refference when painting.
theres nothing wrong with that.
and, yah yah,, he probably did just paint right on top of the picture,, but until the artist actually comes into these forums and proclaims this to be an origional piece born from his mind alone, lets not attempt to discredit him.

-Lono

[R_M]

Cowie don't be so shocked...
As Lono sais many use photoreference.

Would it have made any difference if the artist had taken the photo himself?

[tyboogie]

does anyone know the legalities of using published photos as reference like that?

[Cowie]

We are not even talking about reference here...
Look closely at the hair, every hair on that head is identical!
And the proportions match up perfectly... this is a manipulated (copyrighted) photo with an overpaint.

And look at that big hand that was painted in, totally out of proportion with the rest...

[egerie]

...and the copyrights don't apply because it's a repaint (redone) piece and it's changed more than 10 % from the original. Have a nice day.

[Lono]

there are plenty of people on this forum in partictular who use photo manips in there artwork. published copyrighted photos.. the law says,, if you chainge it enough, its yours.

theres nothing wrong with it in my opinion.

now, i know how everybody likes to jump around and make a big stink when somebody comes in here with an obvious photo manip that they claim to have painted with no ref,, but in this situation, that is not the case. the artist made no such statement and is not even present to defend himself.

-Lono

[Jason Manley]

the ten percent urban legend is not enough to keep an artist from being sued. People do get sued for that...and lose.


if you are going to use photo ref to that degree be sure it is in PUBLIC DOMAIN.

[egerie]

:o it's an urban legend really ? So what about repainting over the photo detail per detail WITHOUT being a photomanipulation ? In the sense that there's absolutely 0 pixels from the original photo ?
"changing it enough" is so subjective tho.. I guess all it boils down to is either
a) do everything from scratch despite time pressures from your bosses (i.e. be a god) or
b) Have a plethora of good lawyers :)

[Lono]

copyright battles are always going to be a case by case issue. period. but the argument here is not wether or not this piece is legal,, its wether or not its ART.

but yes,, using copyrighted photos is always a very risky buisness, so watch your butts.

-Lono

[Erik]

I think the parts that are added look weird.

Weird nose, weird hand, weird shoulder ... Looks not like ref painting to me - more like a copy with a few pieces added that are not on the same level as the rest ...

The rest is great though!

Well, overpaint, tracing, whatever -- stuff happens when deadlines close in i guess... :-/ it's wrong to trace in my book though i like to paint after a ref picture an overpaint or trace is definite nono. But hey, i'm happy and have no deadlines to meet!

[WildSpruceMoose]

If I put myself to tracing it wouldn't be right and it would be poorly learned for a long time. Like if you can't find the right material you need to trace, your work would seriously suffer.

I don't know, I don't really care all that much in this case in particular. Yet if when I get out of art college me and some guy go for the same job at some big company and he traced most of his works and I didn't, and he gets it...
How would everyone here feel? Losing a job to someone who put in half the effort...hmmm "I feel great. Better luck next time." ?
Heh. Yeah right.

[pibb991]

its one thing to use a photoreference that is copyrighted and not yours as a spring board but to make an identitical copy seems like a cop out. im not in the professional world and haven't had to deal with crazy deadlines yet, but i wouldnt feel right copying mark for mark.

[wronghand]

Beyond the question of artistic integrity, I would certainly worry about the legality of
any artist using someone else's intellectually property so liberally.

It's also quite possible that if this is in fact copyright infringement, it's not the
photographer who is being infringed upon but it could be the photographers client.
(corporations are big on buying out copyrights).

And lawyers for big companies often seem to be eager to sue.

Paranoidly,
W. Hand

[R_M]

Originally posted by Lono
copyright battles are always going to be a case by case issue. period. but the argument here is not wether or not this piece is legal,, its wether or not its ART.

but yes,, using copyrighted photos is always a very risky buisness, so watch your butts.

-Lono

Agree fully,

and in my opinion it is! oh boy here it comes...
Granted it is a paintover, or wahtever it is it is not important now.
granted some parts are weird (the nose)

but this particular picture makes you dream, there isn't much more to it than that.
It is all about creating somthing special, and it does not matter what your source material is. this one has artistic integrity, the photo is used as reference for a character but that is it.
the image conveys a completley different message from the photo, it is an other world, an other story.
Now I ask again, would it have made a difference if the original pic was taken by the Bioware artist himself.
I say NO! the original is just a background face onto wich a story has been painted, and that is where the artist comes in. the original photo isn't important for the image itself.
Knowing how to draw anything from scratch is essential for any artist, and we should all exercise our perceptive skills all the time, but that does not mean that we cannot take advantage of what photos can offer us compared to life drawing.

[Tedsuo]

I agree with Lono. If the artist were to claim that this was done entirely from imagination, I would have a problem with it because he would be LYING to me. But as it is, my guess is the real world of production art and all of it's horrible deadlines had come 'a calling, and the artist was working in "whatever works, just get it out the door" mode. Production art is not a reasonable excuse for delaying a game, I imagine he was just trying to pump these out as fast as possible. Not as nice as if it had been original... but that's the way it is sometimes.

Now as for copyright, he could be in trouble. And not just him personally, I imagine it would be Bioware that would take the hit were this to go to trial. But the chances of that are probably pretty slim.

[Rad]

I don't like using photo references for final drawings, only preliminaries because you loose so much life.

[Jason Manley]

just so ya know..all bioware baldurs gate games and neverwinter nights used photos as the base for their portraits.

for baldurs gate its all employees of bioware etc...even the secretary i think.

they snap the shot...and paint on it in photoshop.

most video game companies try to get their art done as quickly as possible. doing it that way is a quick and dirty way to get them done.

Though, it doesnt teach you how to paint a head.....


j