Using photo references
I haven't been drawing "seriously" for a very long time and haven't been posting art online for that long either. As such, I don't really know the ... rules? of using references. I understand that you have to cite them though, obviously.
But if you're just searching in google images, for example: "blue jay flying" and find a good picture ([url=http://www.wunderground.com/wximage/cshirsch/40]this[/url]), how would you use this? You'd have to cite it, but is that it?
Also, how much can you get from the picture for it not to be considered too similar or tracing?
For example, with the blue jay picture, I had it in a window beside a small photoshop window and was drawing by looking at it like so: [url=http://oi50.tinypic.com/vgu89h.jpg]setup[/url]. I didn't trace but I didn't come up with any of it from my mind, so copying. If you overlayed the two images, it'd be pretty similar. To avoid this, would you maybe look up several pictures of a blue jay? But then you'd have quite a few references? Or perhaps you'd look up many pictures, but then close them and draw from the newly acquired knowledge in your mind?
This photo too: [url=http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2534/4221632218_4e12943dcb.jpg]chickadee[/url]. It has a watermark on it. Would this make it unusable?
Sorry if this is hard to understand and also sorry for my ignorance. A lot of these questions are probably stupid. But I've been wanting to draw a picture with quite a few birds in it and really don't know how to draw birds so references are inevitable.
2 Comments • Newest first
@Noirel Thanks a lot for answering! It helped a lot.
I think you're over analyzing and worrying too much about plagiarism and citing sources There are a lot of contradictory rules/IT DEPENDS situations for it, but in general...
What you're doing right now would be considered a eyeballing/studying. It's a perfectly good way to improve your art skills and/or draw something personal, but AVOID it if you want to draw an original piece that you'll be claiming/showing off as your own (drawing) and possibly be selling in a professional setting. Especially if it's copyrighted. [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_HOPE_poster]You can get in a lot of trouble for that.[/url] But you CAN get away with it under Fair Use.
[quote=Wikipedia]Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time. [b]Generally, it is "the right to copy",[/b] but also gives the copyright holder the [b]right to be credited for the work, to determine who may adapt the work to other forms,[/b] who may perform the work, who may financially benefit from it, and other related rights
Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that [b]permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders[/b][/quote]
If you go on dA and look at photo manipulation, the stock image creators normally claim copyright and request credit. Most people who put their work on the internet expect credit/to be sourced if other artists are going to reference them. The chickadee photo is usable, but you have to acknowledged that Edward Mistarka created it in 2009 and you're using it.
DRAWING WISE! And this is probably your answer:
If it looks too similar to the original thing it doesn't matter if it's eyeballed or traced or referenced really heavily because it WILL still look like you're copying the drawing to viewers no matter how you made it, because you are copying. So if it's obviously referenced, then you should credit.
Now it begins to get into slippery slope gray wait-but-you-just-said territory: If you make it look different enough no one will know and you don't have to bother with all that reference and citing sources nonsense! Not something as simple as changing the colors, but maybe changing the way the head and tail is turned, to referencing a picture of an eagle and drawing the eagle in the same pose as the blue jay. You can look at multiple blue jay photos and build them into one or more blue jays. You can still look at all the references, but you made something new out of those existing pictures. Just like photo manipulation. Except you don't have to credit because you drew something entirely new without editing someone elses existing copyright photos into your work.
What.
Actually why did I even bother writing the earlier paragraphs.
I'm not sure if this answered the question at all ahhhh
Oh man I was writing what I knew but the more I wrote and double checked the more confused I got is this about plagiarism because that's more of a moral thing of "don't steal" and I totally went on a tangent haha this is a convoluted mess oh gosh.
(I almost wrote another paragraph about exceptions to this but I'm tired and I'm going to regret this when I wake up)
NGL this is the internet and I assume this isn't a professional thing, so Teal Deer is "Don't worry. You don't have to because those google pictures fall under Fair Use and doesn't even break any rules".