ARTWORK SWIPES - TAC Policy and Information

HEY EVERYONE! It's time for an episode of 'Swipes and what to do about them' here at The Art Corner, as well as some Lorelai Confession... O_O In other word's we REFF would like to discuss swipes and TAC's Swipe Policy with you. Please read EVERYTHING, CAREFULLY! And please don't hesitate to use our BBS's Questions/Comments forum to discuss anything you don't understand.

"...If we find any pictures in our queue that we believe are 'swiped,' and the artist does not...give any credit, we will DELETE the picture from the queue...."

Whenever we critique artworks as REFFs, we constantly deal with one problem: SWIPES. Our ACS processes critique submissions every day, most of these being of the fan artwork or anime genre, and our biggest concern, especially lately, is the presence of swipes among them.

A 'swipe' is defined by the REFFs as an artwork that is *heavily* based on an existing artwork. As artists, we use 'references' all the time - for clothing, for body structure, and for tutorial purposes (as in, I can't get this guy to look manly..better go check out a fanart of Solid Snake) ... and references are totally OK. However, a SWIPE crosses the line...a swipe means that you import an ENTIRE concept into your own artwork, so much that it can be considered as 'copying' the original artwork.

Artists swipe all the time, professional and amateur alike. There isn't anything wrong with with swiping for the sake of learning. While the REFFs believe that swipes can be beneficial, and help you improve on your artwork...it is for PRACTICE ONLY. Most often, it's not meant to be posted on your webpage as fanart, and it's most CERTAINLY not for you to claim as your own creation.

There are two main types of swipes I want to discuss...the 'Xerox' Swipe, and the 'Borrowing' Swipe.

Xerox Swipe

The first one's obvious: a Copy means that the entire artwork is simply copied. This is found often in fan artwork: the picture is replicated in its entirety.

[Example] - provided by Keiiii and Lorelai

Borrowing Swipe

The second one is slightly less obvious...a 'Borrowing' swipe means you 'borrow' the body (organic) or layout (inorganic) of ANY existing picture, be it official art or fan art. You may change details such as hair, jewelry, and stuff they're holding in your hands, but if someone were to put the pictures side by side, you could immediately tell that the general shape of the pictures are identical. Note all the detail changes in Example1, and the completely different reflection in Example 2: Despite these, the pieces are *still* swiped.

The most common swipes in this category are muscle structure, hair, clothing folds, armor, weaponry, and body poses in general. Additionally, for some cases, it is ok to post this type of artwork publicly as long as there is ample CREDIT given for the source of your drawing. However, restrictions get tighter if you're drawing your own characters, as opposed to fan artwork. When in doubt, just don't do it.

[Example 1] - A confession from Lorelai
[Example 2] - Another Lorelai confession!

Note: The above two are two of my early fan artworks. It was WRONG me to use Ahikiro Kimura's work as I did, and not credit the original piece, which I'd like to take the opportunity now to apologize for! We all live and learn, yeah!?

Our Stand on Swipes. As REFFs, we acknowledge that copying/swiping art is one of the methods of learning how to draw. However, there's not much we can critique about copied artworks...everything that you are learning by copying the artwork, you can critique yourself by comparing your version to the original version. Since we don't necessarily HAVE the original picture, you are your own best critiquer in that situation.

Additionally, there are artworks in our queue that are done by artists who have 'graduated' to their own 'original' artwork. These people have already done their copy-based learning and are now either learning or practicing drawing stuff on their own. These are the people we can help *better* since we're viewing them from a similar reference point as them. Put it this way: if someone asked you to critique their drawing of a flower vase, couldn't you critique it better if you had that exact flower vase in front of you? Same goes for 'swiped' artwork.

Our Policy on Swipes (as of March 2002). Beginning in March 2002, if we find any pictures in our queue that we believe are 'swiped,' and the artist does not mention any references used or give any credit, we will DELETE the picture from the queue. Up until now, we've spent a lot of time just trying to determine if a picture is a 'swipe' ... about as much time as we spend on critiquing! Obviously, this is pushing our workload up. To make things easier, we're going to crack down a little harder on potential swipes. If we believe it's a swipe...we will delete it to make room for others in the queue.

+++ Was your artwork removed reasons mentioned above? Please visit this page for more information! +++