i admit, i am influenced by many artists, and i often find myself emulating part of that style. with you, for example loish, i -adore- your colouring, and have a great admiration for what you do. i take on your advice about trying to prevent flat colouring by using a variety of colours rather than just a darker tone. however, i don't want to be replicating your style, as much as i love it. also, because i've recently moved away from more anime-styled work and been looking at lot of art nouveau pictures, i've adopted drawing in that form, making it less cartoon-like and more semi-realistic. again, i love the sinuous line and form of art nouveau, but i don't desire to be able to draw exactly the same as that - after all, if i'm just adopting and replicating the exact same style, then it stops becoming my work (at least in my eyes).

ps. i hope this is coherent, it's about 4am ^^'

i believe reality is and should be an artist's strongest reference. Learning from someones else style is okay but your just learning to mimic someone who has mimiced reality and twisted it into there own vision and by merely copying someone elses style your losing out on the framework and the basis of all art which is reality. becuase if there is a "higher power" then this higher power is the one artist we should mimic and learn from.

There's like a gazillion comments here so sorry if someone already said this but I think an important option you're missing is that imitation can be the highest form of flattery - though that person is only being sincere if they fully credit the said artist in their own work. If they attempt to just steal the look and claim it as there own then they deserve a rigorous beating and to eat a plate of cat poop.

I'll occasionally draw in someone else's style (almost never online, though, or if I do I'll go ahead and point out whose it is so nobody gets antsy about me "stealing" their style) but I use it as a learning tool...draw a bit in someone else's style, get familiar with the good and bad points, and keep what I like and work it into my own style. It's people that just wholesale copy someone else's style without trying to understand it or do anything new that bother me.

Yah I couldnt just pick one either, I have to admit that I have 'imitated' other peoples styles, but with me its more of a 'try-it-on-for-size' type thing to see how I could use the things that I like about another artists work to improve my own style. Like I did once do a 'Loish Style' pic, but decided that as much as I like looking at her work, she has a totally different style that just isn't compatible with my own work. (though in saying that, I did learn how to do feet better in the course of my research) I like to emulate a persons style so I can see how they put it together BUT in saying that, I dont post an emulated work, its only for my own benefit.

I would also like to point out how many of these 'snobby' artists actually do tutorials. I feel that if you do a tutorial then you are bound to impart some of your style onto your students. Im not saying that this excuses people copying other pieces directly, all Im saying is that if you show someone how to draw/color the way you do, then dont get all weepy when a whole bunch of pics done in your 'style' start circulating throughout DA.

I dont encourage art/style theft, I encourage research, if you ARE going to post a pic that you have knowingly emulated, DO give credit where credit is due. Origionality comes with time.

(I have to admit as well that despite what I said above I too am very origionality based, I cant stand to post a piece of work that is 'unorigional', which is probably why I dont have anything in my gallery at the moment. I am currently working on a manga series and am tearing my hair out because my characters and storyline seem so cliche. I am highly critical of my own work, striving for a perfection that can never be achieved, never mind the fact that its my first Manga)

My friends style is exactly like yours, and she didnt even see your drawings until the begginning of this year.

So i think alot of the time its just coincidence.

Mimicking someone's style to test the waters is one thing. Trying to draw a pose that someone else did because you thought it was interesting is also one thing. Stealing is a crime, and tracing another person's art will get you nowhere in life. Some artists blow the whole thing out of proportion. I got chewed out for stealing once because I was drawing personifications of the Seven Deadly Sins. Drawing the seven deadly sins isn't new. Artists have been doing it since the Rennaisance. Another thing is, was that my versions looked entirely different from the artists whom I was accused of stealing from. Calling an idea your own and saying you were the first person to ever think of doing it just like that is egotism at work. Which really doesn't win you points either.

Although I am of the opinion that credit where credit's due, but don't limit yourself to the point of stagnation. Everyone needs to grow sometime.

(Pardon my monologue)

it's kinda iffy, i think.

i honestly think that everyone is guilty of copying another person or style. i mean, i don't mean it in a bad way.. it's just that when you see wonderful and beautiful things, you tend to want to emulate it. isn't it the fundamental er.... notion? premise? of art. you see something, you feel something, you hear something, you touch something, you taste something, you want to emulate it. show the world how it rubbed off on you.

i'd like to think that i have my own more-or-less unique style, but i have to admit that around 90% of it was derived from probably three main sources - Bryan lee o malley, Reyyy, and the guy that does the Breath of Fire art. i think that synergy has given birth to what i call my 'own style'. one may look at the pieces i've put up on my gallery and say 'hey, this is totally reyy-ish', or 'this is scott pilgrim-y', and i wouldn't blame them.

i sorta take this as a given. i mean, it's hard to deny that a whole lot of galleries here on dA have the Gorillaz or Jhonen Vasquez written all over them, but the beauty of it is that each of these galleries have their own little additions and variations to well, the source. sure, we can look at someone else's work and say that their gallery is totally ripping off someone else's style, but i think it's a little unfair to the artist that we only saw the emulated style, and nothing more. maybe it's something that's tasked to the person viewing the art.. a request to look past the emulation, and see what's really behind? i just see all of this style-copying as, more often than not, a means to an end. the end-point being a message from the artist to the audience.

hahaha, i don't mean to bombard you with philosophical banter here. i just tend to ramble on.

i mean, don't get me wrong, i know that there are jillions upon jillions that don't give these things a second thought and just blatantly trace over cool pictures for the accolade, but there are some people that emulate in a tasteful manner. or, as a person trying to learn the ropes of art from someone they look up to.

so yeah. i hope i haven't sounded like a pretentious bastard here. i just feel that the term 'copying' is rather vague, and thus, the term 'copycats' is equally vague.

this was a great poll topic, by the way. it got me all thinky-like. i'd fave this poll if i could!

I put: "is not the worst thing that can happen to a DA gallery but is admittedly an occasional problem" After I almost chose "good learning experience"

I agree, it is a problem, and I get so mad when I see it happen. It is a good learning experience, but it's something that, in that case, in the name of learning, should be confined to the individual artist's sketchbook while they try to develop their own style. Not posted everywhere on the internet while claiming it was their own. That's what I have the problem with.

I understand why someone would dislike having their style stolen, especially because a rather close friend of mine just so happens to be a repeat-offender who gets so much attention at school because of her very "original" wetmoon-like art.

It's a form of ultimate admiration, incase anyone would like to try being positive about it, since it simply CAN NOT be stopped.


I don't really care, either way.
I know someone who clearly acts like me, but I think it's just because I'm a sort of hero to her. So looking on the positive side of this thefting is all a person can do.