2 for u thieving off of Enayla

[rickets]

Xeon_Black : What do you mean when you mentioned her art comes from Poser renders? Is it as in, her digital paintings were painted-on Poser pictures?

She overpaints which is a strange word that digital artists use when they paint over the top of a source image.   She has been accused of painting on top of Poser images, photos and pretty much everything you can think to paint over.  It's all played out a couple times on gfxartist and her guestbook on cgsociety.

When I saw that someone had lifted her skins it actually made me laugh.

[flyingpigeon]

Well...

I know for a fact that Enayla uses parts from Louis's skins very subtly, but still. Its mainly the elbows and the knees.

As for her painting over poser... uhm... no. I'm pretty sure that she doesn't anyway. Could anybody link to where she was called out for doing this?

And Andymy, a fairly well-known member of S2C, did this...
http://forums.sims2community.com/member.php?u=149050

[Xeon_Black]

She overpaints which is a strange word that digital artists use when they paint over the top of a source image.   She has been accused of painting on top of Poser images, photos and pretty much everything you can think to paint over.  It's all played out a couple times on gfxartist and her guestbook on cgsociety.

When I saw that someone had lifted her skins it actually made me laugh.

It's hard to believe if it really was so. I must admit some of her art does look a tad "Poser"-ish, like Songs Under the Apple Tree, Porcelain, Autumn Whisperlings, and especially http://enayla.cgsociety.org/gallery/378248/.

Also, I just happen to have found a link that discusses her technique. Utterly... speechless now. I think I'm convinced... this post nailed it for me --> http://conceptart.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1286070&postcount=41 I still admire her for being able to pass her art off as genuine though. If she really did do paint-overs, I doubt she did it for all her art since there are others that look genuine paintings.

If anyone's interested, the thread that discussed her art technique is here --> http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=68448
As an aspiring artist, I'm a little disappointed in her since I've always admired her skill. But ah well, we always learn something new in life. Sorry for going off-topic.

[Anouk]

She paints them herself.

Otherwise people would have said something a long time ago, and her (very popular) art probably wouldn't be available anymore, without people yelling about stolen textures and shit. Things like that just don't stay hidden in an artist community

[PirateOfMashedPotatoes]

Wow, I am amazed at how people cannot resist tearing others down--especially if they are the least bit talented.  You know, some people are far more talented than me in some areas, and I am far more talented than they are in other areas.  I am in awe of their talents, but to tear them down?  Sheesh.  I've seen it over and over.  It makes one sick.  

Linda herself has said, "When I work, I sometimes reference from photography – sometimes, not. When I was younger, this was regularly fashion photography (and quite heavily, at that! We all learn from our mistakes though, huh?) but I now take my own pictures  and stick only loosely to them."

Guess what?  Many digital artist do this!  I know.  I am around them constantly.  I know someone who is an artist for Marvel comics.  He got started by first copying other illustrations of Spiderman when he was younger.  Eventually, he got good enough to draw on his own and put his own personal spin on things.

Guess what else?  In the Renaissance period, do you know how artists learned?  By directly copying the masters' paintings.

slickgreekgeo is a very jealous bitter person who often tries to defame others to make himself feel better.  You notice he is banned from concept art?!  Why are his post more valid than all the ones from people who know her work better?  And using a picture of a horse to help draw a saddle, etc. is hardly a crime.

[mando]

It doesn't surprise me at all that people who make sim skintones use an existant photo as a reference (or paint over it digitally), it's actually a pretty standard method for texture creation (I do it myself from time to time).

No matter how fantastic an artist you may be, it's pretty difficult to get your textures seamless and matched up by just eyeballing them. Much easier to take body front and body back from a photo (such as the 3Dsk images), set up the alignment and then paint over top of it. The artistry in this case, anyway, is in how you paint the texture over top and will likely only bear a slight resemblence to the original photos you used. It still requires some skill to get the texture looking okay, no matter how many "corners" you supposedly cut.

Frankly I think the only part that's a lie is someone saying that they can do this without using any base reference at all. Sorry, I don't care how hot you are at this, but no way.

[dr.philthy]

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[missangelica]

They all "steal" from each other.. even HP's great new skins she admitted to using some of Louis' as a base.  This is a problem many artists (including in the "real" art world) are faced with including the hypocrisy of their own actions.  I guess to many it would matter the extent.  Where the line is drawn from inspired to derivative to plain out copying is an extremely hazy one.

---

ETA:  I'm an artist of many medias and that would include: painting, computer based graphics/website design and tablet work drawing..  So unfortunately I'm all too aware of the issue. :/

[PirateOfMashedPotatoes]

You bring up good points as well, dr.philthy.  However, one of the things she asks is that her work not be put on a paysite, and that is exactly what they did.  In addition, they didn't even try to make it their own.  It is her skintone just lightened and pixely.  Those are the problems with what they did.  They didn't even alter it enough to make it their own.  So they take someone elses free skintone, claim it as theirs and charge for it.

[missangelica]

PirateOfMashedPotatoes:  I think what some are arguing is that it isn't *hers* enough that she can say what can or cannot be done to it.

ETA:  Feel free to correct me if no one thinks that.  I know you will. ;p

[Xeon_Black]

Linda herself has said, "When I work, I sometimes reference from photography – sometimes, not. When I was younger, this was regularly fashion photography (and quite heavily, at that! We all learn from our mistakes though, huh?) but I now take my own pictures  and stick only loosely to them."

Guess what?  Many digital artist do this!  I know.  I am around them constantly.  I know someone who is an artist for Marvel comics.  He got started by first copying other illustrations of Spiderman when he was younger.  Eventually, he got good enough to draw on his own and put his own personal spin on things.

Guess what else?  In the Renaissance period, do you know how artist learned?  By directly copying the masters' paintings.

Of course artists will need to refer real photos for reference. Nothing wrong with that, in fact, it's encouraged. But tracing over a photo, instead of just using it as a referral, and not mentioning either, is what disturbed me, especially when it gets released to the public, not for personal practice. It's like me taking various sim skintones from Loius, Jirka, Rensim's etc then slapping them up together and upload it to all, claiming it's my original skintone, without properly crediting the original owners. And, I can even get away with it, because I did it so well, that it really looked different from theirs, that is until you start scruntinizing it in depth.

I'm cool with photomanupilation. In fact, I like to see a mergence between  hand-drawn painting and photos, but acting as if the whole thing was hand-drawn by an artist is just misleading.

Now, I'm not all out against Linda, because I still admire her end-results, and her eye for colours are exceptionally good. But I just can't help feeling a little disappointed since she had always been a role-model to me, and I earnestly thought she did everything from scratch. I'm not too concerned with her other works, but I'm more affected by the origins of her Nelicquele since the real photo matches up line-for-line in her art. I guess it's just a little personal thing between her technique and my principle in art.

I'll still say Linda's work is breath-taking, but it doesn't inspire awe in me anymore.

Edit to add: While I may find Linda's technique somewhat shady and hypocritical, I agree whole heartedly with dr.philthy on 2-for-u's unethical action. Selling another's work when it was meant to be free in the first place is just plainly wrong.

[PirateOfMashedPotatoes]

Xeon_Black--You do realize that the painting that was shown was done 5 years ago, right?  

I made a really big mistake some years back.  Did something I would never dream of doing now.  It doesn't make me a forever bad person though.  She said she has learned from mistakes.  Hey, as the saying goes, let he who is without sin cast the first stone, or something like that.
I know that I could have all the photos in the world and I could not create something like she does.  Funny thing, I have no personal relationship with Linda, but I just got tired of the same old person trying to tar and feather her out of his own inadequacies and jealousies.

missangelica--There really hasn't been enough proof that the skintones aren't hers.   Ren's sure don't look anything like Linda's to me.  Those two create the only skintones I use in my game.

What's up here?  I thought everybody here was anti-paysites.  She gives her stuff away and gets upset about a site selling it, and no one here understands that?

[Pescado]

Enayla may be a good artist, but she has grossly misrepresented her actual technique if she claims that they're entirely hand-drawn and is selling tutorials of this nonexistent fake technique. There's nothing wrong with creating art this way, but to sell a fictitious cover technique to obscure what REALLY happens? This is fraud.

[dr.philthy]

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[mando]

Yep, I have to agree with Pescado here. I see nothing wrong with using an overpainting technique to create textures, and I don't think that using one takes anything away from the end product. You're still handpainting the end image, and that still takes a degree of skill that many others do not have.

However, claiming that you do everything by hand, and that you aren't using any references in any way is, I think, a total lie. Maybe, she's worried that people will see it as a cheat because it seems like such an easy method (to people who don't understand it), and so, doesn't like to focus on it because she feels that it will taint her work in some way. I don't know (Frankly I think not admitting it is much more lame).

Using an accepted technique in digital art and, especially, in texture creation is hardly something that needs to be hidden.

Edit: Does she sell those frigging tutorials? Or do people use them for free to set themselves up for failure?