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Post by rich on Oct 8, 2024 7:04:33 GMT -5
So we'll start with the swipes of his own work, overlayed onto an old X-Men cover he drew. Funny, but minor:  Straight up photoshopping porn faces into the comic. Why trace when you can cut and paste and fiddle a bit on photoshop?:  So yeah, he likes to copy and paste where possible...  But what about when you copy and paste together another creator's drawings, and just pass it off as your own? This isn't a homage, this is just plagiarism. If both weren't created for the same publisher it could be worth a lawsuit. It's also scummy, and entirely indefensible. 'Oh, but he redrew the ribcage area?' Yes, he did change some bits, but he's clearly profiting from another artist's original effort.  'Hmm, I like how John Cassaday draws the X-Men. Cut, paste, cut, paste, cut, paste, la de da. Ooh, Travist Cherest Spidey? That looks cool! Swipe. Insert. Done'  "Oh but Moebius traced a drawing once, that's exactly the same thing":  Is it, though? How else to finish the post, but a bit of Land comedy... does this lady look like she's doing a powerful kick appropriate for the comic book it's drawn for?   |
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Post by rich on Oct 8, 2024 7:17:07 GMT -5
Using any number of models for a female character is another trick, leaving no consistency in appearance. Then again, perhaps none of this matters, if people don't buy his comics to look inside, but just for the variant covers they'll get slabbed.  |
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Post by kirby101 on Oct 8, 2024 7:24:26 GMT -5
I have zero problem with artists' tracing from photos. They don't have to be your own photos. If you can't draw guns, automobiles, fighter jets or horses, find a photo reference and trace it. Land takes it a step further by tracing a Sports Illustrated cover, but if you don't think great artists of the past did the same thing with reference material then I have a bridge to sell you. Artists need reference. Most cannot conjure everything from their head. That said, if they have to always trace, and not just draw from a reference, I would say their skills are less than professional and should not be doing mainstream comics. |
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Post by rich on Oct 8, 2024 7:26:24 GMT -5
While I'm mocking guys called Greg that photoshop images and pass it off as art: Greg Horn must have been happy that day. He found a sexy face ✅ nice tits ✅ arms holding the correct weapons ✅. Perfect. Draw in some cool flames around the edges, blend it all together nicely. Remember Elektra wears a bandana/hat thing. Crap. Draw that over the top of the hair and hope it doesn't look conspicuous.  Drat, hat drawn over photoshopped head looks very conspicuous. |
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Post by rich on Oct 8, 2024 7:31:21 GMT -5
I have zero problem with artists' tracing from photos. They don't have to be your own photos. If you can't draw guns, automobiles, fighter jets or horses, find a photo reference and trace it. Land takes it a step further by tracing a Sports Illustrated cover, but if you don't think great artists of the past did the same thing with reference material then I have a bridge to sell you. Artists need reference. Most cannot conjure everything from their head. That said, if they have to always trace, and not just draw from a reference, I would say their skills are less than professional and should not be doing mainstream comics. 100%. Especially for sequential art. It looks stilted and the suspension of disbelief goes, particularly when tracing isn't even done in favour of a straight photoshop job. |
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Post by commond on Oct 8, 2024 7:32:07 GMT -5
I have zero problem with artists' tracing from photos. They don't have to be your own photos. If you can't draw guns, automobiles, fighter jets or horses, find a photo reference and trace it. Land takes it a step further by tracing a Sports Illustrated cover, but if you don't think great artists of the past did the same thing with reference material then I have a bridge to sell you. Artists need reference. Most cannot conjure everything from their head. That said, if they have to always trace, and not just draw from a reference, I would say their skills are less than professional and should not be doing mainstream comics. Tell that to Neal Adams and every other great artist who traced from photos. It's not a big deal. It's fanboys who are turning it into a major outcry. Evidently this Greg Land fellow is his generation's Rich Buckler. |
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Post by kirby101 on Oct 8, 2024 7:32:42 GMT -5
Nevermind, I was dense.
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Post by rich on Oct 8, 2024 7:36:17 GMT -5
This is not a trace, Moebius drew the figures from the photo. If you overlay the art on the photo, you see they don't line up as they would if traced. Yeah, I know. I put it there as sarcasm. ("Is it, though?" Was my next line). Sorry that wasn't clear!  |
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Post by commond on Oct 8, 2024 7:36:33 GMT -5
There are right and wrong ways to do it. If it calls attention to itself, that's not good. That's the key for me. If it looks like someone just traced a photo and then altered a few features, that's a turn-off. I can't remember what Greg Land's art looks like but off the top of my head, Adam Hughes's covers often strike me that way, but possibly it's just an illusion engendered by his style. But someone like Alec Ross, even though I don't like his style at all, has never looked to me like he was simply tracing: it makes sense to me that he would use models and/or photos to get the lighting and shadows effects right, as any working artist would do if they have the time and resources. Swiping poses or compositions from other artists (or from oneself) and drawing from photo-references (as opposed to simply tracing) must be indispensable tools for a comics artist meeting monthly deadlines, I would imagine. With all due respect to Ross, he has ample time to work with models and photos to produce paintings for a cover, poster, etc. Tracing is a common practice in Japanese manga where there are insane weekly deadlines to be met. I will admit that this Land guy is at the extreme edge of this type of behavior, but the big difference between now and the past is the internet. |
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Post by rich on Oct 8, 2024 7:38:29 GMT -5
Artists need reference. Most cannot conjure everything from their head. That said, if they have to always trace, and not just draw from a reference, I would say their skills are less than professional and should not be doing mainstream comics. Tell that to Neal Adams and every other great artist who traced from photos. It's not a big deal. It's fanboys who are turning it into a major outcry. Evidently this Greg Land fellow is his generation's Rich Buckler. Doubling down, eh? Comparing Land to Kirby AND Adams. 🤣🤦♂️ |
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Post by rich on Oct 8, 2024 7:41:42 GMT -5
A show of hands, gentlemen... If Kirby had pasted in a photograph of a random 'sexy face' in place of Sue Storm on a random panel, instead of drawing her, was Kirby's art so photo realistic you wouldn't have been able to spot it?
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Post by commond on Oct 8, 2024 7:43:03 GMT -5
But what about when you copy and paste together another creator's drawings, and just pass it off as your own? This isn't a homage, this is just plagiarism. If both weren't created for the same publisher it could be worth a lawsuit. It's also scummy, and entirely indefensible. 'Oh, but he redrew the ribcage area?' Yes, he did change some bits, but he's clearly profiting from another artist's original effort. As far as I'm aware, the pictures weren't created for the same company. Land did the cover for Marvel using parts of sketches he found on Twitter. I believe the original artist has done work for Dark Horse but not Marvel. Someone claimed to have found the source for the "head" too but it looked somewhat dubious to me. |
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Post by rich on Oct 8, 2024 7:48:32 GMT -5
But what about when you copy and paste together another creator's drawings, and just pass it off as your own? This isn't a homage, this is just plagiarism. If both weren't created for the same publisher it could be worth a lawsuit. It's also scummy, and entirely indefensible. 'Oh, but he redrew the ribcage area?' Yes, he did change some bits, but he's clearly profiting from another artist's original effort. As far as I'm aware, the pictures weren't created for the same company. Land did the cover for Marvel using parts of sketches he found on Twitter. I believe the original artist has done work for Dark Horse but not Marvel. Someone claimed to have found the source for the "head" too but it looked somewhat dubious to me. When Land's version came out, rights to all the Dark Horse comics were now Marvel's. I also read months back about where the head originally came from, but can't remember now. The saliva was lifted from the same artist as the body, though. That's far too similar to be anything but a copy. All the dimensions being identical so that you can overlay the original, is naughty. Look at both hands. He's stuck that drawing in his computer and fiddled with it a bit. |
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Post by commond on Oct 8, 2024 7:51:17 GMT -5
Tell that to Neal Adams and every other great artist who traced from photos. It's not a big deal. It's fanboys who are turning it into a major outcry. Evidently this Greg Land fellow is his generation's Rich Buckler. Doubling down, eh? Comparing Land to Kirby AND Adams. 🤣🤦♂️ Well, Adams was on Kevin Smith's podcast advocating tracing. |
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Post by rich on Oct 8, 2024 7:54:41 GMT -5
Doubling down, eh? Comparing Land to Kirby AND Adams. 🤣🤦♂️ Well, Adams was on Kevin Smith's podcast advocating tracing. A, Are you saying Land 'merely' traces? B, Is Adams' use of tracing distracting and unnatural when you look at his work? |
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