Is heavy art style referencing/copying ok for you?

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Keintor's avatar
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Edit 13:00: To make everything clear here are my points and the situation which I am refering to:

  • Having similar art style by coincidence exists, and is absolutely fine in my opinion, but it is not the case I am discussing here. By heavily referencing/copying art style I mean the situation when a person reference/copy others art style (almost bit for bit or feature for feature) on purpose, not by coincidence, not tracing but referencing heavily;

  • If an artist say its alright to copy their art style, then its okay to do so of course; but if the artist dont want others to copy it, then people should not do it for whatever reason (learning purpose included);

  • Although art styles are not protected by copyright or law, people still ought not to copy a style when the artist refuse to let them do so. Not because one will get sued by doing so, but out of the respect for the artist (which is well-deserved)

  • For me, I am not okay with people taking heavily reference or copying my art style. The reason is stated below and in the comment section. I think most artists who aren't okay with the act is mainly because that they spent years and much effort into the development of their own unique art style, and they don't want to see it being copied by other people, which will make the unique art style they spent forever developing looking unoriginal, making all their effort wasted, and it is unfair for them;

I hope this will aviod confusion or misunderstanding!
It is completely fine to have different opinions, please feel free to share below!


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Are you okay with people heavily reference on/copy your art style?

I am just wondering bc this happended to me more than once and everytime people are just acting like its all normal or nothing at all

Personally I dont really like it bc i dont think its a right thing to do when people spend many years developing their own style and someone else just copy it straight away taking all the credit?? Also when two artists have the same art style it just look sort of unoriginal i think, especially when the person who takes heavy reference used to have very unique art style of thier own too((((( Its a waste and I just dont really understand why people would want to do that ((and also it makes everyone feel uncomfortable in addition :c

But of course I know some artists are completely okay with that but for me I dont like it, it does no good to anyone in my opinion

I also understand that people copy/take heavy reference off your art style is because they like your art style, but isnt that almost the same as "I steal your arts because i like them, its my way of showing support and you should be greatful" thing bUT it dosent work like thaaaat

But overall I think it still depends on the artists, bc if they are okay with it then it will be okay to do so, but if they disapprove then it shouldnt be done, but ofc people cannot report you just because you heavily reference on their art style, so it still depends on yourself ((just look at what I say above about the harms you will see what I mean

((since i cant post polls so i will just submit it as a journal, I want to know what other artists think of this act,, I know it may cause disagreement but please understand that what I have said above is just my opinion as an artist whose art style have been taken heavy reference by others, I dont mean to offend anyone and if you have different thoughts, please do share!! thats the point of posting this journal anyway !! )))

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breadscientist's avatar
i personally don't like it when people heavily reference off of my art style, simply for the reason that it's not really helping to find your own style
the reason why im saying this is because i used to heavily reference (and trace whoops) under some old persona and i didn't improve nor found a style through it
like, i'm trying to teach someone the basics of sai on discord and they straight up heavily referenced my style, i told them "hey don't do that, it's kinda disrespectful imo" because 
strong similarities are bothering me a lot ;;
so that's probably a no from me