Art "inspiration"?

FAT_CAP

So, I recently got a mail from a friend asking me to check out a link to a CGHub profile and asking if I recognized the work. Intrigued, and expecting it to be a link to a co-workers old work or something similar, I clicked the link and was pretty shocked to see this guy staring back at me:



...which bears a "striking" similarity to one of my own characters, which you can also find on CGHub here:



as well as a similar turnaround of the character here:

http://cghub.com/images/view/703531/

and mine:
http://cghub.com/images/view/146172/

To be honest, I don't know whether to be flattered or annoyed! A courtesy e-mail or a link to my original would have been nice, but, as they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery... I think! I guess as far as he isn't making money from it I don't really mind, and think it's quite cool in a way.

I sent a message asking what was up and am still waiting for a reply. Has anybody else had a similar encounter, and how did it turn out?

kaptainkernals

Not only your work, also polygoo's work:

His
http://cghub.com/images/view/700111/

Polygoo's (Original)
http://polygoo.com/charger

I think it's safe to say, a majority of his other work takes heavy inspiration from others art (literal copies)

At least he recreates, and doesn't just rip the images and call it his own, but he's copying wholesale.

leslievdb

yeah its a hard one to judge, he`s producing a lot at a very reasonable to good quality.
Nothing is really original though, Also things like these make me think he has a hard time copying styles and proportions





I wouldn`t feel threatened or offended that he copied your work as long as he`s not selling it but it would be nice to have the original artists credited too.

McGreed

I wonder how he could miss that thumb go through the gun like that, seems a bit weird that he didn't fix that, like the model was static made.

FAT_CAP

Yeah - I think it's quite cool to see one of my characters being re-made to be honest! It was just the initial shock of seeing it without being contacted first that was slightly strange I guess.

As pointed out, now that I've looked through his folio, a load of his other work are re-creations of "famous" pieces - there's stuff similar to big games like Gears Of War, The Witcher and WOW which is to be expected, but then other pieces like:

http://s.cghub.com/files/Image/710001-711000/710545/227_max.jpg

...which is remarkably similar to Mike Knowland/ Catstyle's cowboy character and, as mentioned, his post-apocolyptic vehicle being very similar to Polygoo's work which, with them being singular artists, seems to be a more morally grey area.

McGreed

Why would you recreate something from a 3D model, instead of a concept art? There can't be much satisfaction in that, imo, at least put a spin on it, not just 100% create the same. But at least it's much better then someone just taking the images/or meshes and say they made it.

Kilkus

Noticed this guy earlier this week, It seems that every piece of his work is based off another Artists work. nothing wrong taking styles/techniques etc from another artist but a one to one copy just seems a little odd.

Bal

I think I read multiple times how some Chinese art schools ask their students to recreate as-close-as-possible pieces from already existing 3D art, kinda looks like this here.
I remember a few years back there were a few copies of Slipgate's Dominance War piece (the cyborg roller-blade lady) going around like this as well.

leslievdb

visiting the site metioned on the images it seems to be an artschool which does that exact thing Bal. I think this is work by a range of different students

xvampire

Ravenslayer wrote: »

visiting the site metioned on the images it seems to be an artschool which does that exact thing Bal. I think this is work by a range of different students

yeah its look like advertising for a school

check out the website http://px.game798.com/

and officially supported by your local outsource company
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fpx.game798.com%2Fkcjs.asp%3Fid%3D653&act=url

good for learning though. but i hope they have more creativity involved for the final project.



but again some school also produced great graduates that
values deep original potrait art research like this
http://blog.sina.com.cn/cgradiation

Neox

there are more

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=74780

http://cghub.com/images/view/710545/

jus recognized the wrinkles, but really we have 2 cultures clashing here, the western one, where innovation and idea drives the art and the chinese where beeing great at copying is considered a very very good thing.

spiderDude

I'm glad I wasn't the only one that noticed lol.

Kind of a redundant way to learn in my opinion because no matter what it will be compared to the source and the source is always better. But what do I know, apparently they're working for EA now. go figure.

Edit:
Neox- that is a very good point.

FAT_CAP

@Neox - Hehe - yeah I noticed that one as well

I've just recieved a message back on CGHub from the owner of the page saying that, as you guys worked out, it is a page where a teacher from a CG school posts it's student's work. I don't mind them using my concept at all, but did ask that they put a link back to my site, or mention that I am the original artist, jsut so I don't get accused of copying THEM sometime down the line

I've got to say that I do find it strange straight up copying somebody's work from concept to completion, but I always find more fun in the initial creative burst of design and concepting than parts of the final execution anyway.

MagicSugar

FAT_CAP wrote: »

I've got to say that I do find it strange straight up copying somebody's work from concept to completion,

Well...if you're associated with an outsourcing joint and you're trying to get contracts from a culture not your own you might expect something like this from "a place like that", especially if they swipe from individuals instead of big studios where they'll face legal action for sure.

Xoliul

This has been going on for ages. I remember seeing them remaking almost all the UT3 vehicles.
It's super weird, but apparently that's what the school wants the students to do...

MagicSugar

I won't be surprised if the school is just a front. So they could use freebie student licenses and claim fair use educational attribution if they get busted with their copies.

They have used prison labor for gold farming so...anything's possible.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/25/china-prisoners-internet-gaming-scam

whois http://px.game798.com.ipaddress.com/

Snader

If I'm correct it's because many Asian cultures highly value being able to copy art as closely as possible. It's not that weird a concept, really. It's like how we keep repeating that you first need to be able to make an accurate anatomy study, and only after that you should try stylizing things and playing with proportions.

What is bothersome, though, is the lack of attribution of the reference/original artwork. Even for stuff like Gears, which is recognizable, you should add appropriate links to whoever made them. For example "squid pirate captain - based on work by Sam Chester" or bulky space marine - originally from Gears of War. If that's done all is fine.

I suggest you contact that game798 guy and tell them to include your name (and Epic/Blizzard, while you're at it) explaining that re-modeling something is okay as long as the original sources are linked/mentioned.

Ruz

They are kind of pale imitation, much prefer the originals.

pior

While I agree that it there is a bit of a cultural thing going on (and indeed, master studies are great tools to learn from anyways), I don't see any excuse for the lack of credit, regardless of the country the copy is coming from.

After all, if in this context their pride comes from the accuracy of the copy, not showing the original is kind of missing the point, right ?

Visum

If the school uses it for advertising thats what i find wrong.

Mask_Salesman

I'm sure I saw an "ịphone" for sale on there...

Heh there's like 5 slipgate replicas on there. As I scrolled through their gallery I found myself uncontrollebly saying aloud "nooooo not that guy's aswell..." every few seconds or so...

Even with the cultural difference, shouldn't this fall into a legal grey area since they are essentially profiting from other peoples work?


Also it feels like when you see someones traced a figure when they have no knowledge of anatomy... Everything is out of wack, like your inside some weird dream and you know something is off with reality.

ExcessiveZero

dustinbrown wrote: »

I wouldn't want someone stealing my thunder like that. Major faux pas IMO.



I feel like when a 3D artist makes an original piece, anyone attempting to copy it is inadvertently devaluing the original artist's work. Now, instead of there being one version of it, there are two or three or more versions of it floating around on the net. The original artist is now just "one of" the people who have done that piece instead of "the" person who did it.

IMO this is different from doing a master study, since most of the time those artists are long dead and worked in completely different mediums (marble, oil, etc).

I guess I just don't understand why the instructors wouldn't have their students work off of concept art. 1) It's a more relevant exercise since that's what you do on the job, and 2) you're less likely to be creating a piece in 3D that someone else has already made. You can still set a quality bar to hit by showing examples of well-made 3D works and pointing out what about them is great and why. Teach a man to fish, etc.



Agreed. Professional common courtesy.

Beyond that though a study should be just that, a study, the same way I and I hope you wouldn't put a tutorial piece you can follow step by step in a portfolio of work.

stepping on someone's work as any kind of presented piece, without permission and credit, which even with id be kind of unimpressed with is kind of disgusting to me as an artist, they may be able to copy very well, but theres a clear difference between a comic book artist and a tracer.


[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMwhZryRUr4"]Chasing Amy - Tracer - YouTube[/ame]

MrHobo

Does cghub even allow a company (or school in this case) to post up multiple peoples work? I thought a gallery had to be your own work or work you contributed to.

Racer445

i don't really see a problem here to be honest

the works in any portfolio are simply examples to show employers how well you can perform the tasks they give you. the "infringing" artist's execution is worse than the originals and that's really all that matters. they still had to follow a "concept" and execute it from scratch--which is all anyone in a production environment is really doing anyway. can they follow a client's concepts? can you do it better? if you can, then you shouldn't be worried.

they're not selling the assets, nor is a company making a game with "copied" designs. a link to the original designs might be nice to help illustrate how closely it follows the concept, but i don't really see how it benefits the original artist in any way other than a tiny amount of publicity?

it would be like a car company (like BYD Auto and other chinese companies do) being "inspired by" the design of a car then making it. the design might have been "copied", but they aren't going to 1:1 copy every single part, so they still had to engineer a damn car. if they literally copied every part 1 for 1 and sold it as new work, yeah that would be a problem. however, in our case that's the equivalent of ripping a game model and billing it as original work, which is not what's happening here.

tldr; this person still had to breakdown the original assets, study it, and remake it from scratch. and they didn't do it horribly!

the bigger issue here to me is any school asking students to "copy" existing 3d art. that's just a bad idea for numerous other reasons.

Steve Schulze

If they're coming from a single school, it would seem to be a simple enough task for one of our Chinese members to send them a polite note explaining that people would like their work to be credited. I can't see any particular reason why they wouldn't then pass this on to students.

SnowInChina

well. nothing wrong with making a copy in my opinion
especially if you are learning, this seems like not the worst method
all we do most of the time is making copys of reallife items anyway

Art begins in imitation and ends in innovation

mason cooley

pior

Yeah, nothing wrong with making a copy indeed. That's not really the point tho - my personal problem is the lack of given credit, which basically means passing the whole piece (research, design, execution) as ones own when the only effort involved was mere execution, which is by far the least challenging part of any creative process.

Making a master copy, sure. Passively taking credit for the design but omitting the source : not so cool.

FAT_CAP

pior wrote: »

Making a master copy, sure. Passively taking credit for the design but omitting the source : not so cool.

Yep - that's exactly my point as well Pior. Making a study of a classic Michelangelo sculpture or something similar is great for artistic advancement, but the difference here is that it should be fairly obvious when somebody has done a master study as the original work is very well known and famous in it's own right, and the original source fairly obvious. If they had put a link to the original artworks, then this explanation would hold more water, as then we could judge it as a true study, seeing how well it fares against the original in all areas of it's execution.

Copying one of my pieces, that very few people will know of anyway, pulled from a dark corner of the internet without giving credit seems slightly different. I'd say that here, the Gears Of War/ Blizzard etc. copies are almost like the master studies, as the source material is so well known - it is the "studies" of lesser known artists personal pieces that falls more into this grey area.

By not giving credit to the artists, they're almost taking credit for the whole piece itself, from concept to finished piece, thus negating all of the hard work that the artists put in to come up with these original creations.

I've asked the owner of the CGHub page to credit the original authors and/ or link to their original works, but so far have not had a reply...hopefully he'll agree and we can get a list of all the original artists and get all the pieces updated accordingly.

Shiniku

Weird!

Yeah, I agree with the others, i think it is very important that you cite the inspiration for your piece if you're going to follow it that closely, and give credit to the original artist.

Malus

The school stands to gain students from the PR based off of the original works...therefore they arguably make money from the unsolicited use of the original piece.

Also, if you came across both images independently you'd certainly know the better version however there is no way of knowing who came up with the original concept so it does lessen the acknowledgment of the original piece as a whole.

Bad form if you ask me, especially when a small line of text would suffice on each image.

*Reproduction Assessment: - Original concept created by 'AnotherArtist'

MitchTharp

Selaznog

Mitch you posted in the wrong thread.

(this is Julio btw)

Stinger88

hmmm. The works good, but he should definately be crediting people.

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?106297-Guardian

http://cghub.com/images/view/707435/

also, pretty sure this is a Karanak concept
http://cghub.com/images/view/697747/