dA How-to: #4 Finding and Using Resources

Originally, these how-to journals were supposed to come out every Friday, however I feel like it might be better to only do it every other Friday/every Friday IF I have a topic instead.
Hence why there was none last week.
I have a few topics I want to cover, however I am open for suggestions from others if there's anything you want to see~

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Finding and Using Resources:

Introduction:

Resources. Now there's a very broad term. But basically, resources is anything and everything you might make use of in your art. Be it brushes that other artists have put online, textures, fonts, stock images, visual references, tutorials, free-to-use lineart, etc. etc. In any case, resources are anything that someone has put up free for use by others, usually asking for credit in return. Granted, there are also resources you need to pay for. Some stock photos, fonts or PS brushes for example do cost something. But you can find some pretty good resources for free as well. That is, if you know how and where to look.
That's basically what this journal will be about. Where can you find good resources and how should you use them. Are there any things you need to consider when using them? Any general rules?

1. Give Credit where Credit is due!

So you found the resource you were looking for and it's awesome and you decide to use it right away. You upload your art where you've made use of the resource.
Give credit!!!
No seriously. Many resource providers actually put in their rules that they want you to link back to the source, but even if they don't mention it explicitly, it's the right and polite thing to do. Because it gives others the chance to find that resource as well and make use of it if they find it useful. And again, it's only fair towards the resource-maker, who has invested time into creating it.
Of course, this also means that you should never claim a resource as your own if you didn't make it. No matter the resource, that would be considered stealing.

2. Do not use something as a resource when the creator doesn't want you to!

With that, I mean the following:
Say you're a photo-manipulator and you just found a really nice photo you want to use. If the artist states that you are not to use their work in manipulations, then don't do it, no matter how much you like it.
In addition to this, you might find resources that are pay to use. Do not reupload these elsewhere so people can get them for free. This is stealing and it is taking away the creator's money. There's a reason they made their resource pay-to-use and you reuploading it isn't right.

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1) How to find resources

You're stuck. You really need to find the perfect stock photo, the right texture, the best pose ref, etc. But where?
Well, you have a few options. There are sites that have a wide variety of poses and even allow you to move them into different angles and perspectives, like posemaniacs, which is completely free but accepts donations.  There are also sites that randomly generate prompts or ideas for you, like the front page of Wysp, writingexercises or magatsu's random prompt generator. In addition, you can also find tumblr pages dedicated to color palettes .
Of course, you honestly don't even need to leave deviantART in order to find some nice resources.
There are thousands of tutorials, free-to-use linearts, stock images, fonts, etc. etc.

If you want to look for something, it's best to select the category you want (Click the deviantART logo --> click the "browse" tab, click "Resources and Stock Images", pick the category you need) and go from there.
Try to be specific. Of course you could type in "digital art" in the tutorial section if you're looking for a tutorial on digital art. But if you're looking for something more specific like coloring hair, maybe you could search for "digital art coloring hair", etc.

Sometimes, it might also take a bit of searching to find what you're looking for, but don't give up. Sometimes you might need to try a lot of keywords before you find a resource you're looking for.

2) How to use resources

Before anything else, make sure the resource you've found is just that. Sometimes people might accidentally put something in the wrong category on dA.
Next, check if there is any note of rules. Some people might post the rules to the resource directly in the description of the deviation, others might have a link leading to a journal entry, etc.
In either case, make sure you read those rules and follow them. If the artist says you should send them your finished work with their resource, do it. If they tell you not to use their resources for commercial art, then don't sell prints of that picture you made. If the resource maker, specifically when you're working with stock photography that includes models, tells people to not use their stock pics for NSFW art, for god's sake don't do it! And if you're unsure if the art you made is considered NSFW or sexual content, message the stock image creator before uploading the picture and make sure it's alright with them. It's better to ask a question too many than to make someone uncomfortable or angry. Seriously.

Once you've read the rules and cleared up any potential questions, time to make your art!
And when you've done that, you're probably going to want to upload it.
Just make sure that the resource creator doesn't have any rules on uploading the thing you made on offsite locations.
And, as mentioned above, whether or not they asked for it, it's always good and polite to give credit!

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So, this journal turned out a bit shorter than the usual ones, so I'd like to end with a few of my bookmarked resources.

Pose/Stock photo related:

Posemaniacs
AdorkaStock
pixelovely
Loads of face refs

Palette/Prompt related:

Writingexercises
Color palette generator
Colourpod
Colourlovers
Random art prompt generator
Seventhsanctum
CreativityCards
DailyArtHero
Random idea generator

Some tutorials:

Ten 5-Step tutorials
Nashi's Tutorials
Booporials (a tumblr page with loads of tutorials basically)
A masterpost of loads of tutorials for everything!
A super easy kissing tutorial (this changed my life tbh)

And last but not least this method that teaches you how to draw anything.
It's called the Shrimp Method.

I hope this journal and the list of resources might've been helpful to you~