Turns out it's actually been awhile since I've shown off my (personal) art, so here's my favorite pieces from the last month!
As usual, I'm open for commissions. Check out my
etsy to buy your own personalized portrait or blog header, or just email me at ohavalanche@gmail.com, I do tons of stuff!
(At the end of this I've got a nice long rant about copyright infringement, so enjoy!)
I'm probably going to turn this mermaid into a print for sale.
This is actually from last year! I just never put it online anywhere.
Truth.
Sassy ladies <3 <3 <3
I've always been into sunflowers!
A couple blog header commissions!
Okay so I did promise myself that the next time I made an art post I would talk about something that bothers me. Copyright infringement. Now I'm not going to pretend to know any complexities about copyright law, but art theft is something that matters a lot to me, as an artist.
There are a lot of forms of art theft that I think a lot of people don't think about. There're more offenses than claiming someone's art as your own. I've come across a lot of my art (and the art of others) on tumblr that someone has copied from one of my posts into their own so that it links back to them. The only thing that accomplishes is taking credit away from the artist, and it's mean.
Another thing I see a lot of is intellectual property theft from major companies. A lot of people, for example on sites like etsy, will draw or make jewelry of characters created by someone else. There's a lot of fandom art out there that you can buy that's not made by the company. Think Harry Potter necklaces, drawings of characters from Adventuretime, or Mario earrings. There's nothing wrong with fanart, but when you put it up for sale, you're making money off of someone else's idea.
I understand that there are grey areas on this subject, like that the artist is putting creative work into their jewelry or interpretation (most of the time. I have seen stuff on etsy where people literally just take a photo from their fave fandom and slap it on a bracelet and sell it). There's also the issue that the money a single crafter will make off of their stuff wouldn't be a drop in the bucket to Cartoon Network or Nintendo. A lot of my beef with it may just be jealousy. I feel like if I drew Homestuck characters and put them up for sale, I'd make a lot more money than just selling my own original content, since Homestucks would be tag searching for merch and it's such a large fandom.
I'm certain that most of the people who sell fan art aren't intentionally being rude. I think it's just something that most people don't consider. I mostly feel like this sort of behavior is cheating the system. If you truly respect the work someone else has done, as an artist, don't use it for your own personal gain, and as a consumer, pay the person who thought of it!
I understand i'ts a hard thing to get around. There's really cool art out there that has copyrighted characters in it, and it's fun to make art of your favorite characters and spread the love around. But it's not always that easy. Just something to think about!
