where is the line between inspiration and imitation?
You know, Jessica Hische actually spoke about this very topic.
There are times where I wonder if the line is all that clear. Your art style is an amalgamation of all the influences that have come into your life. There are certainly the two ends of the spectrum.
On one end, you have the people who trace someone’s work and then call it their own, unwittingly stealing the work, like the people Jessica mentions. My husband, who specializes in hand drawn typography, runs into this constantly, because some of his work is very popular. These people are not inspired: they are imitating.
It starts to get weird when artists that you follow start to imitate each other. There’s a Russian artist that calls himself Phobs that has a lot of originality in his old sketch style. Then I found a chunk of artists that, while they were not stealing his content, they were stealing his drawing style. I will refrain the posting of that kind of comparison because it’s not fair to any of the parties involved.
Now, it’s one thing when beginners do it as a learning experience. It’s another when a fucking professional does it. For instance, David Mack.
I am a HUGE fan of David Mack’s Kabuki series. While I kind of dug his Daredevil run, I did notice a little too much repetition of panels. He was getting lazy. Then this happened.
He lightboxed several frames from an issue of Gen13 by Adam Hughes. When the internet inquired about it, Mack said that he had Hughes’s permission, but Hughes’s girlfriend stepped forward and said that was not the case. One of my heroes stole the work of another artist. It has opened a huge discussion regarding ethics in comic art. I discovered this yesterday when looking into “creative twin” stuff. My heart is broken.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have the inadvertent pioneers. Kurt Cobain was trying to do punk when Nirvana was taking off, and he inadvertently created grunge. You have Dana Beaufait Stevens, who bridge belly dance and poi by creating Voi, or Veil poi, which is a style of dance in and of itself now. You’ll notice these people had a jumping point, but they created an entirely new form based off of the influence. They were inspired, but they did not imitate.
Then we have the grey area.
I could write an entire paper on the earning of money from fan art, but I don’t want to be working on this for more than a day. I’ll begin by confessing that while that is where my convention roots are, profiting from fan art makes me feel uneasy. Sure, I’ve got some fan pieces up on Society6, but frankly, it makes me squirm a little. My husband really pushes the idea of profiting from fan art, as do t-shirt sites like YeTee and SnorgTees. Sure, that print is really fucking witty and that’s an excellent execution, but you’re still piggy-backing on someone else’s intellectual property. Great for personal fun work, not great for selling. I’m waiting for Disney!Marvel to come after me.
Some people could argue that heavy use of a particular stock would be considered stealing. On the left is a painting I did in 2011. On the right is the stock that I referenced. It’s a pretty close match, seeing them side by side.
That stock photo is a very popular one. Thousands of people have used it for their own pieces. Some are a little more original than others.
I do not consider some sub-par photomanip or over the top filter-abuse to be “inspired art”. The lady who posted her self-portrait stock specified that her stock was to be used for fun on DA only. I’ve seen some pieces on Society6 that people have posted based on her stock photo, outright violating the rights that she’s given. Then we get into Violation and Theft vs. Inspiration, but let’s leave that as a topic for another time.
Where do you find inspiration?
The short answer? Other people. The reason that illustrators have what are called Art Jams are to reinspire ourselves and each other and be productive while doing it. I still have wistful memories of arting with John Kantz, J.Ro, and Leo Saunders in DC. I feel like I draw better when I’m around those guys.
While I do not have that power team with me all the time, I do have a very carefully tailored Deviantart account, where almost always have 2000-4000 deviations waiting for me from hundreds of artists that I truly admire and feel I can learn from. I’ve started going back through my favorites and removing images that I am no longer inspired by. 13 years (HOLY SHIT WHAT HOW HAS IT BEEN THAT LONG) of carefully tailoring my account saves me from the garbage pit that DA certainly can be.
Is an idea ever really original?
Books have been written on this topic. but i'm tired of working on this. The short answer is no. Not truly. Everything has been done before. The trick is to tweak it and see it or do it from your point of view. That’s what makes it change, or makes it original.
Does the drive to be original stifle or motivate you?
After the previous topics in this post, I am somewhat puzzled by this. I mean, I don’t know that I am stifled or motivated by being me. Sure, I tend to take the path taken by few, so when I find others who have taken similar paths (like belly dancers or poi spinners or comic artists or horror writers), there is an immediate kinship with them. I’m not threatened or discouraged by other artists: I am encouraged by them. Sure, I’d love to think I could have technique as tight as the supernaturally-moving Rachel Brice, but I am limited by my body. I’m sure with decades more of daily and hardcore training, I could sort of do something like that, but never exactly like that. It’s still something I find inspiring and encouraging. There are poi artists who I’d love to think I could have a matching skillset with, but I’m 1.5 years into my practice, and many of them have either a natural knack for it, or have been doing it for 5 + years.