In one of the topics about this earlier today someone said something along the lines of 'give redditors a month and they'll find other art Dalton copied' and I thought 'pfft how about 48 hours'
Shoulda known it'd be less than a day
Oh yeah, they've found almost all of the composite pieces of Trouble in Pairs, too. All that's left is the axes. I give that by the start of next week.
After a real quick Google search, it does very much look quite a bit like a power axe from 40k just minus some of the "power" parts/details which if that's all that was omitted would explain the stupid blocky shape at the top
Edit:
Upon further wasting my time as the adderall starts to set in, a Beastman axe from Warhammer looks pretty promising...
That person greatly underestimated the obsessiveness of Magic players who not only pore over Magic content on the internet but discuss it/read about it on Reddit. Add in the subset of Magic art nerds and their additional degree of passion and encyclopedic knowledge and the information gathering vs time graph goes parabolic.
“It’s just my style”
It’s always what people say when they don’t practice enough to overcome their shortcomings (e.g. hands, poses, anatomy, whatever).
To be fair he isn't the worst artist ever and he had some revolutionary ideas. He just got an ego about him for being a middle of the road artist. I don't think it was lying. It's just not being as good as you try to claim.
He did bring a portfolio to a convention where Marvel was hiring and legitimately get hired back in the day when they hired through direct portfolio evaluation.
Same. This one is kinda close [1983 Fleer Tony Gwynn Rookie Card](https://www.google.com/search?q=tony%20gwynn%20baseball%20card&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1-m#vhid=WK58bEqh8oid6M&vssid=l)
As an art professor I really think this is much less offensive. I think it does look traced, but its also undergone quite a stylistic transformation that to me is more interesting than the original painting. I think this is less gratuitous than the trouble in pairs which kept the color scheme and mood - a more severe offence.
A good thing to note with this vs the other art aswell is that this is supposed to be a lion. Yes it match’s up to an existing painting of a lion, however the painting of the lion is doing the same thing to a photo of a lion. I highly doubt the original painter created that lion out of their head and/or took the photo themself. Which I am not knocking at all either. I am an artist who does a lot of realism pieces and replicating photo’s is kinda the name of the game. Granted there is a big difference between replicating a photo and replicating someone else’s creation. But it is worth noting.
It’s possible, but I think Dalton has lost the benefit of the doubt. I might believe that if there weren’t already more than one instance of plagiarism.
I thought the same, and looked up Lucie's work to see if she'd mentioned a reference. In fact, she had: "Here's my painting "Portrait of a Lion". It's an oil on canvas, 14 inches x 11 inches. I completed it in February, 2008. It was inspired from a picture I took of a gorgeous Barbary African lion, in 2006." (From a Facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/LucieBilodeauArtist/photos/a.399305973419482/3543967585619956/?type=3 .)
So, you know. Not exactly public archive.
I also don't agree that it's okay because there were some changes made - it is plain that parts were copied directly, very possibly because Fay liked how Lucie had handled textures and lighting (her brushwork is lovely), and definitely not because the internet is lacking in cool photos of lions.
Woah, great find! This was exactly what I was trying to figure out!
I wanted to give Fay the benefit of the doubt by going "maybe they both somehow chose the same reference image," but... yikes. If this was an old public domain painting it'd be one thing, but... ugh. How disappointing. I don't want people to think this is a normal thing for artists to do.
I mean yea, she is replicating the reference. If you were to create an image of a lion would you not do the same? Would you create your own textures/lighting or follow the reference?
I should also note. Again as an artist who does realism. Replicating the textures/shadows there is pretty straight forward. I can easily do that from just looking at a photo of a lion. Sure to the un trained eye it looks “photo bashed” but honestly it’s not 100% accurate. It match’s up to 90-95% but not 100%.
I'm no painted but I have a Fine Arts degree and painters I know always used references, they put the reference *next to* what they were making, and used it to get proportions right, rather than get the *exact brushstrokes* right. And honestly reading people discussing tracing this being fine is pretty damn weird, it's a level of tracing you can only really do in digital art and is effectively no different than photobashing, sometimes she recolors their stroke, sometimes she adds her own, but it is not an original work.
Also the more I look for similarities the worse and worse those braids look, wonder where she copy-pasted those from.
You have no understanding of what a reference is and what desaturating a copy and pasted image is and that blows my mind.
To answer your first question. Yes you would create your own brush strokes and lighting, that's how references are used. Have a good day.
This isn't traced. It's photobashed. You can zoom in and see that every spot, every highlight, every hair... they all have the exact same brushstrokes as the original, just recolored. There is no way a human would take the time to do that, especially given tracing is a tactic to save time.
Tracing is fine. Digitally copying and pasting isn't.
Photorealistic painting isn't far removed from tracing. If they paint down to the pixel do the rights refer back to the photographer? If what's important is the fidelity to detail shouldn't the camera and it's makers be given credit for every photo as well?
My personal opinion is I don't think anyone actually gives a shit about generic details. We want just enough to convince us of plausibility, which is why artist feel compelled to get reference images, but we really want the impossible on top of it. We want wonder, and that's where artistry fills the gaps. If the image is interesting and the reference was not (like this example) I side with wonder.
Agreed, I work with illustrators and this is pretty standard especially for something likely on such a fast turn around and low budget. This is just using it as reference - maybe it could have been done better, but wouldn't say its plagiarism.
>Wait till they learn about the camera lucida
I got a "Neolucida" for my artsy niece for christmas! Whether or not "old masters" actually used it, it's a nifty tool.
>this is pretty standard especially for something likely on such a fast turn around and low budget
I'd agree with this if it wasn't a secret lair. Where the primary draw is the artwork itself.
I am absolutely not an expert in this area, so I will take my own opinion with a grain of salt, but I disagree that this is just using another image as a reference. If you look at the details and the structure of the lion heads, it seems pretty certain that she is pasting someone else's art into her own piece and then painting over top of it. To me that seems entirely different from using something as a reference.
I also think its pretty clear that this is what she did with double trouble as well.
I mean the OG [[Kird Ape|3ED]] art is a near copy of a National Geographic photo. I found that back in the later half of the 90s. IIRC even the leaves matched up. I don't know if that's been discussed yet. It might be harder to catch since it was pre-internet for that Nat Geo issue. I remember flipping through it (we had issues going back to the 70s) and **immediately** recognizing it as *Kird Ape*. I thought, "Cool! I found the reference for the art!" At the time, I didn't think there was anything malicious or unprofessional about it. I'm curious how it would be received today. Oh, snap, I found an interview with artist Ken Meyer, Jr. on it.
(EDIT: reddit didn't like the youtube link I posted. Just Google "ken meyer kird ape mtg" and it should pop up.
Maybe it will be OK with this regular link:
https://magicuntapped.com/index.php/features/magic-artist-ken-meyer-jr-talks-about-his-favorite-mtg-art-pieces
From the article:
"Another piece of Magic: The Gathering art he's done for the game that stands out to him is his work for the card Kird Ape. It's a card he painted from a reference photograph he found."
I remember that I got it in National Geographic," he recalls.
As for which issue, Meyer, Jr. says "it was actually [from] the year Magic came out.")
The article and the video don't show the original picture. My folks *may* have kept the NG issues - i'd have to search their attic lol. I haven't found the original picture on the internet yet, but if I do I'll update.
Im fine with tracing, but this isnt just tracing. Shes photobashing and passing it off as her own art.
Photobashing is already a kind of controversial practice and thats when it’s just for concept art and it’s not going out into the general public.
Especially not as its own product sold solely for the artistry of it, like this Secret Lair was.
The Warhol Foundation lost a lawsuit last year over a painting Andy made of Prince that was based on a copyrighted photo he didn't get permission to use.
To me, this is just as egregious, because she chose not to use a photograph of a lion (which one could certainly find with creative commons licensing), but an almost-photorealistic painting of a lion by another artist.
I DID NOT REALIZE IT WAS A PAINTING!
My brain just saw a "photo of a lion" and didn't processed the title.
Either she 100% deliberately traced over a piece she was aware off, or she was the same as me, thought it was a photo and just traced over it. I'd be inclined to go with the 2nd one, if it wasn't for trouble in pairs.
If it's worth anything, [here](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/lion-face) is at least dozens of stock photos of a lion that look identical to both Lucie's work and the piece being called a stolen image. Look through and you will find three-quarter perspective shots of male lions that match up to both paintings.
In fact, I'm fairly certain the one that was used for at least Lucies painting is there, too.
Which begs the question; if lucies art is identical to this photo, then was the piece above a trace of lucies art, or the stock art?
Yeah this one is pretty goofy to me. The overlay doesn't even really line up, and the parts they circled don't really look that similar except that they are features lions have? You could probably make the OP with a bunch of similar pics and people thirsty for their next hit of outrage will smash upvote as fast as their pitchforks will allow.
Posted above by another user, but Lucie wrote on her Facebook post about her lion painting that it was based on a photograph of a lion she took herself.
I feel like as an art professor, the first thing that should be mentioned is that … you know, don’t blatantly steal other people’s work under any circumstances. Even for “reference” you should never be copy/pasting someone else’s work unless you are specifically telling people “hey, I do photo bashing collage work made up of other people’s pieces” <- which, while not awesome is at least honest about what you’re doing.
It’s a strange take to say “well this blatant plagiarism isn’t as bad as this other blatant plagiarism because they spent any extra twenty minutes drawing some lines on it” - for a teacher especially. If you rip off someone’s work, without credit, and claim it as your own, it’s wrong.
Yeah this is a lot closer to just using a picture of a lion as reference. For all we know that's what happened, I bet you could find a ton of pictures of lions that "match".
You can say that there's a stylistic transformation, but I've overlaid the lips on top of one another. It's a one to one match. Fact is this person is building a career off of somebody else's hard work. It really doesn't matter what excuses that you want to make because we feel the need to be lenient or empathetic.
In these threads it is sounding more and more like digital artists rely heavily on tracing and photoshop-based photobashing and retouching for their creations. That seems quite ironic given the popular social media outcry against the use of generative AI tools that are inherently more transformative than a verbatim tracing.
Professional artist with unlimited time and money do not, but corporate artists with unrealistic deadlines do.
And the sad thing is they are manipulated to justify it.
As an art professor, if someone turned in the baseball card and told you flat out "I traced the face from a really pretty lion picture I saw online" would you consider that plagiarism? from my non art degree artist friends I've been told that tracing a reference picture for sketches or for linework is very common, even more so when trying to draw animals.
This was found by u/funktasticdog
https://old.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1bq9duf/the_fay_dalton_saga_continues/kx1pat5/
Reposted because of a typo in the title.
edit: Just noticed the tuft of hair to the right of the left eye(the scarred one on the card art) is the same on both.
Thanks for the credit! :) Wish I could say it was hard to find, but it really wasn't. If you google: "Lion Art" Lucie Bilodeau's paintings are among the first that show up.
See, the fact she stole Giancola's art when he was doing art for the very same set reeks to me of "Found this image on google and didnt bother to check the source." This little tidbit kind of confirms that must be her process, lol
What's important here, for everyone that don't have experience producing art, is that you can tell she slaps stuff together and hides it poorly. Going through her stuff, the only common trait i see is really bad sense of composition, and very crudely drawn details for covering up.
She is really not that good at actual painting, but she sure has a knack for making collages and blending the seams.
She didn't paint the lion, she assembled it.
Composition in so many of her "paintings" look off, trouble in pairs was just probably the most egregious one that ended up on a good card so more people looked at it to eventually find it but there's a lot of weird shit that is probably plagiarized.
I just wonder how you even get so far in the industry without anybody noticing...
It's crazy. I've been looking through her James Bond covers, and most of them are characters in different styles, mashed together and covered up with foggy surroundings or fading blending to cover up the patchwork. Some of her covers show women under sheets and under water, where you can clearly see her skills being basic at best. It's just bad anatomy, crudely sketched and covered up with blur.
Shading and light sources are off on all her things, and some characters look super weird, because she flipped pieces that weren't originally made digitally (so you can't mirror check them when making them), so they look super odd when flipped.
I read an interview with her, where she says she is an illustrator, and it's just so exhausting to me that she got away with this. She's made a career out of stealing work for her collage. She's basically a small scale AI tool, with bad composition code.
Edit: A good example is a picture she provided for "from russia with love". It shows a woman and a man on a beach. The man is laying down with direct sunlight on him, but for some reason the shadows under his nose and on his neck would only make sense, if he was standing up against a wall, with a top->down lightsource.
Not to mention perspective being off in all her covers, because she can't fix the different perspectives of the originals she stole and mashed together.
Elements of the mane are also a direct match, albeit moved around a little. There's this little spot directly below the mouth where two bits of fur curve in opposite directions like parentheses - it's identical to a corresponding segment of the source image.
Lmaaaaaoo! It just keeps getting funnier and funnier. I was wondering who this artist was that got commissioned for a bunch of secret lairs and, eventually, some MKM cards. Is she the beneficiary of nepotism? Because it can't be due to skill if so much of their art is just taken from others.
Imagine having your lucky break as a professional artist getting some solid paying work for a major business and just shitting all over it, explosive diarrhea style.
I think you might be misunderstanding why artists plagiarize. It’s not necessarily that they’re not talented, its often more about deadlines and pay than anything else. I saw one post by another artist who was caught plagiarizing and their explanation was along the lines of “I know it was wrong, but the reason I did it was that wotc has short turn around times and I can’t afford to not get paid”. The reality is that it is exceptionally faster to copy other works or use ai
For sure, not everyone is a James Somerton who can't hack it without plagiarism. People under a lot of pressure frequently take short cuts and make poor decisions just to meet their deadlines.
explaining the misunderstanding does not excuse whoever did it just because it was out of work pressure. unless they got hired against their will to do the job, which is doubtful, they were aware of what they were getting into beforehand. it's entirely on them for getting into something they couldn't handle and instead of backing out when they realized it was too much choosing to commit theft.
To be clear, I’m obviously not defending the artist. Although understanding why artists do it makes it pretty obvious that this is likely way more prevalent than anyone thinks
I couldn't tell if this was shitposting or not because lions just look like that, then I saw the one on the right was a painting and not an actual photo of a lion.
This is getting crazier.
Seeing that the style of the head of a ajani is so different from the body and clothes makes it stand out to me even more. I think this was a really good catch I wouldn't have noticed it until pointed out.
Never noticed the arm before, but you’re right. It doesn’t match the style of the head, and honestly kinda makes the head looks like it was “slapped on” a different design like a sticker.
Actually, her tracing is so precise that it exactly 1:1 replicates parts of the original down to individual hairs!
One might even suspect that it's not traced, but rather copied and pasted digitally!
I thought I might be crazy, so I hesitated on posting it, but at certain parts it's just identical.
Look at the mouth and especially the coloration, the pores around the whiskers. It's the same painting, hell there are even little blemishes that carry over 1:1.
When I was in high school art class, almost ALL of my "ART" was taking composites from pictures, etc I had seen and putting them together lol.
I can't believe a professional does it.
Doubtful. If it was one instance, and the instance was quite obscure, they miiiiight have been able to keep her around. But she’s plagarised from a prominent artist, had multiple bits of irrefutable proof against her, shown she’s done it more than once, and the community is extremely aware of her now.
Unless there’s some severe nepotism or blackmail going on, she’s done.
At least the Wayfarers Bauble artist apologized. This is multiple pieces stolen from multiple artists to make multiple cards, and Dalton is staying completely silent.
Shes waiting to see how many people will catch her for, and then shell apologize for those specific pieces, and pretend she did everything else herself.
Wow, choosing to trace over another artist’s *photorealistic drawing* is just bizarrely disrespectful. Like, I get it, you’ve got to do a lot of art for a lot of cards. I wouldn’t have remotely faulted anyone for, say, tracing a public-domain *photograph* of a lion. But to actively choose to find someone else’s *drawing* and copy that? What the fuck?
I don't think it was as simple as recolouring. We need to be more accurate as we accuse people of things, else we can lose the strength of the argument.
This isn't a case of them being pulled from the same source photo. If you overlap Lucie's lions mouth over Fay's its a perfect match, brushstroke for brushstroke. The shading is the the exact same. The hairs are the exact same.
This one gets a pass from me. Not only has the original painting been *significantly* altered (one could make a good case for derivative), but the mane appears to have been redrawn entirely, and the lighting has been softened and slightly moved.
~~I am sure Tracing is a technique that is used in a lot more MtG art than we know of,~~ Fay Dalton's work is just under immense scrutiny right now. If we scrutinized every piece of MtG art we'd find a lot of cases similar to this. And I think criticizing this technique might make other MtG artists, and prospective artists, more wary than necessary.
How much a work needs to be altered to be considered derivative and not plagiarised is subjective. There is no right or wrong answer, only a sith deals in absolutes. But imo, the other works are much more egregious.
Edit: I'm a freelance graphic designer in case that matters. My perspective on this technique might be different from that of a traditional artist.
This isn't traced. It's digitally copied. You can zoom in and the exact brushstrokes match, just differently colored. They took the base and drew over it. That's not tracing, that's photobashing.
I'm not king of all artists or anything, but IMO a good habit to have is only painting over/tracing photographs you have a license to use.
If you take a photo, it's yours — tracing/photobashing is fine. If you pay for stock photography, you have a license to use it in your art — go for it. I don't feel this is a morally complicated or difficult thing to do, and gives artists a ton of flexibility if they're short on time.
"How much can one stock photo cost, Michael? $10?"
This one is closer to just source imagery.
It's the point of source images. This is more transformative than the other previous ones that sourced commercial works.
Not all artists draw everything from memory.
Source imagery is to trace over.
This isn't traced; it's copied and digitally recolored. Every hair around the mouth is a 1:1 match other than being white.
Something that has been really bugging me with the Fay Dalton stuff: how did she find this art?
It's actually really hard to find references or specific poses by just looking things up, and these are from a WIDE variety of sources. It's not like she just opened a cyberpunk book and started copying. You try googling "right hand gripping axe" and find usable art
I did some googling, and I am genuinely wondering if they used the 'Cover art' or 'fantasy art' tag on Tumblr. It's the only place I seem to be able to find Donato Giancola, Mort Künstle, Boris Vallejo, and Will Hulsey in one place.
A lot of artists are big into art history. She might have annuals like Spectrum lying around, making it easy to quickly reference old/awesome paintings.
How did she even get hired by WOTC if she does copying like this in her portfolio and artwork too?
Meanwhile there are so many highly skilled/talented artists won’t even get a commission from WOTC…
I've created a simple discord to find more art fay dalton has stolen and compare it to art on magic cards she's
"Made"
https://discord.gg/scFnjHfn
I'm hoping we can find more people she's stolen from so more lawsuits can be sent her way
In one of the topics about this earlier today someone said something along the lines of 'give redditors a month and they'll find other art Dalton copied' and I thought 'pfft how about 48 hours' Shoulda known it'd be less than a day
Oh yeah, they've found almost all of the composite pieces of Trouble in Pairs, too. All that's left is the axes. I give that by the start of next week.
Did the jacket get found while I was asleep? Or is that still missing too
Someone said that was posted in Twitter comments and appears to be from Warhammer 40k art
After a real quick Google search, it does very much look quite a bit like a power axe from 40k just minus some of the "power" parts/details which if that's all that was omitted would explain the stupid blocky shape at the top Edit: Upon further wasting my time as the adderall starts to set in, a Beastman axe from Warhammer looks pretty promising...
My money's on a Kroot Rifle, actually
That person greatly underestimated the obsessiveness of Magic players who not only pore over Magic content on the internet but discuss it/read about it on Reddit. Add in the subset of Magic art nerds and their additional degree of passion and encyclopedic knowledge and the information gathering vs time graph goes parabolic.
Reddit detectives on the case! :P Also, at this point she should just come out and rebrand herself as a collage artist or smth lol
“It’s just my style” It’s always what people say when they don’t practice enough to overcome their shortcomings (e.g. hands, poses, anatomy, whatever).
Looking at you Rob Liefeld.
Pouches
Pouches, no feet, bad anatomy... it really is a style. A style of bad.
He still got hired by marvel and was paid handsomely. Made me realize anyone could be a famous artist if you lie hard enough.
To be fair he isn't the worst artist ever and he had some revolutionary ideas. He just got an ego about him for being a middle of the road artist. I don't think it was lying. It's just not being as good as you try to claim. He did bring a portfolio to a convention where Marvel was hiring and legitimately get hired back in the day when they hired through direct portfolio evaluation.
His entire portfolio was tracings.
YOUR MOTHER’S A TRACER!!!
Captain America's giant bazongas take offense to your statement.
Hey, at least rob liefeld drew those shitty feet himself
I never thought I would say it, but give the man props for doing it himself. It's bad, but it's original.
Deadpool and his goofy feet!!
At least with him you can chalk it up to the super-charged cancer.
Her style is Greg Land
For sure, then you ask them why they aren’t taking their own photos and tracing those….. silence
What Fay did for Trouble in Pairs is what I do to make for a joke image and I am not even an artist in any capacity.
Let’s… not call it that it has another meaning
And it's a better investigation and by far more interesting than MKM
I thought this was a shitpost at first and then did a double take. Just wow.
I've been looking through old baseball cards for the bodies
*You do not recognize the bodies in the baseball cards*
Unexpected SCP.
“I’ll take ‘lines from a missing episode of Columbo’ for $200, Alex.”
Same. This one is kinda close [1983 Fleer Tony Gwynn Rookie Card](https://www.google.com/search?q=tony%20gwynn%20baseball%20card&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1-m#vhid=WK58bEqh8oid6M&vssid=l)
As a baseball card enjoyer my first thought was that those are absolutely from actual baseball cards
Same. I was thinking that someone is just joking.
same. so this is real?
... are they trying to go for an 100% plagiarism rate?
Honestly, it makes way more sense now.
Plagiarism speedrun 100%
As an art professor I really think this is much less offensive. I think it does look traced, but its also undergone quite a stylistic transformation that to me is more interesting than the original painting. I think this is less gratuitous than the trouble in pairs which kept the color scheme and mood - a more severe offence.
A good thing to note with this vs the other art aswell is that this is supposed to be a lion. Yes it match’s up to an existing painting of a lion, however the painting of the lion is doing the same thing to a photo of a lion. I highly doubt the original painter created that lion out of their head and/or took the photo themself. Which I am not knocking at all either. I am an artist who does a lot of realism pieces and replicating photo’s is kinda the name of the game. Granted there is a big difference between replicating a photo and replicating someone else’s creation. But it is worth noting.
Maybe they both used the same reference image?
It’s possible, but I think Dalton has lost the benefit of the doubt. I might believe that if there weren’t already more than one instance of plagiarism.
Makes sense
I thought the same, and looked up Lucie's work to see if she'd mentioned a reference. In fact, she had: "Here's my painting "Portrait of a Lion". It's an oil on canvas, 14 inches x 11 inches. I completed it in February, 2008. It was inspired from a picture I took of a gorgeous Barbary African lion, in 2006." (From a Facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/LucieBilodeauArtist/photos/a.399305973419482/3543967585619956/?type=3 .) So, you know. Not exactly public archive. I also don't agree that it's okay because there were some changes made - it is plain that parts were copied directly, very possibly because Fay liked how Lucie had handled textures and lighting (her brushwork is lovely), and definitely not because the internet is lacking in cool photos of lions.
Well that answers that!
Woah, great find! This was exactly what I was trying to figure out! I wanted to give Fay the benefit of the doubt by going "maybe they both somehow chose the same reference image," but... yikes. If this was an old public domain painting it'd be one thing, but... ugh. How disappointing. I don't want people to think this is a normal thing for artists to do.
Yeah I agree. Art works entirely differently than people think.
The top circle I agree. It's been changed. I think thats fine. The mouth though is exactly stroke for stroke identical.
I mean yea, she is replicating the reference. If you were to create an image of a lion would you not do the same? Would you create your own textures/lighting or follow the reference? I should also note. Again as an artist who does realism. Replicating the textures/shadows there is pretty straight forward. I can easily do that from just looking at a photo of a lion. Sure to the un trained eye it looks “photo bashed” but honestly it’s not 100% accurate. It match’s up to 90-95% but not 100%.
I'm no painted but I have a Fine Arts degree and painters I know always used references, they put the reference *next to* what they were making, and used it to get proportions right, rather than get the *exact brushstrokes* right. And honestly reading people discussing tracing this being fine is pretty damn weird, it's a level of tracing you can only really do in digital art and is effectively no different than photobashing, sometimes she recolors their stroke, sometimes she adds her own, but it is not an original work. Also the more I look for similarities the worse and worse those braids look, wonder where she copy-pasted those from.
You have no understanding of what a reference is and what desaturating a copy and pasted image is and that blows my mind. To answer your first question. Yes you would create your own brush strokes and lighting, that's how references are used. Have a good day.
This isn't traced. It's photobashed. You can zoom in and see that every spot, every highlight, every hair... they all have the exact same brushstrokes as the original, just recolored. There is no way a human would take the time to do that, especially given tracing is a tactic to save time. Tracing is fine. Digitally copying and pasting isn't.
Photorealistic painting isn't far removed from tracing. If they paint down to the pixel do the rights refer back to the photographer? If what's important is the fidelity to detail shouldn't the camera and it's makers be given credit for every photo as well? My personal opinion is I don't think anyone actually gives a shit about generic details. We want just enough to convince us of plausibility, which is why artist feel compelled to get reference images, but we really want the impossible on top of it. We want wonder, and that's where artistry fills the gaps. If the image is interesting and the reference was not (like this example) I side with wonder.
Agreed, I work with illustrators and this is pretty standard especially for something likely on such a fast turn around and low budget. This is just using it as reference - maybe it could have been done better, but wouldn't say its plagiarism.
Totally. Professional commercial artists in the thread know. Wait till they learn about the camera lucida lol
>Wait till they learn about the camera lucida I got a "Neolucida" for my artsy niece for christmas! Whether or not "old masters" actually used it, it's a nifty tool.
>this is pretty standard especially for something likely on such a fast turn around and low budget I'd agree with this if it wasn't a secret lair. Where the primary draw is the artwork itself.
I am absolutely not an expert in this area, so I will take my own opinion with a grain of salt, but I disagree that this is just using another image as a reference. If you look at the details and the structure of the lion heads, it seems pretty certain that she is pasting someone else's art into her own piece and then painting over top of it. To me that seems entirely different from using something as a reference. I also think its pretty clear that this is what she did with double trouble as well.
You are correct. These "artists" just want to justify corporate shortcuts or even their own failures. Remember it's always fine until you get caught.
I mean the OG [[Kird Ape|3ED]] art is a near copy of a National Geographic photo. I found that back in the later half of the 90s. IIRC even the leaves matched up. I don't know if that's been discussed yet. It might be harder to catch since it was pre-internet for that Nat Geo issue. I remember flipping through it (we had issues going back to the 70s) and **immediately** recognizing it as *Kird Ape*. I thought, "Cool! I found the reference for the art!" At the time, I didn't think there was anything malicious or unprofessional about it. I'm curious how it would be received today. Oh, snap, I found an interview with artist Ken Meyer, Jr. on it. (EDIT: reddit didn't like the youtube link I posted. Just Google "ken meyer kird ape mtg" and it should pop up. Maybe it will be OK with this regular link: https://magicuntapped.com/index.php/features/magic-artist-ken-meyer-jr-talks-about-his-favorite-mtg-art-pieces From the article: "Another piece of Magic: The Gathering art he's done for the game that stands out to him is his work for the card Kird Ape. It's a card he painted from a reference photograph he found." I remember that I got it in National Geographic," he recalls. As for which issue, Meyer, Jr. says "it was actually [from] the year Magic came out.") The article and the video don't show the original picture. My folks *may* have kept the NG issues - i'd have to search their attic lol. I haven't found the original picture on the internet yet, but if I do I'll update.
[[Kird Ape|3ED]]? [[Kird Ape|REV]]?
[Kird Ape](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/6/967a26e0-8dca-4215-9935-b77a7dd4dde0.jpg?1559596775) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=1302) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/3ed/161/kird-ape?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/967a26e0-8dca-4215-9935-b77a7dd4dde0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Kird Ape](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/1/e14a5c79-29a3-4415-9b70-b287a474a0e0.jpg?1580014582) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Kird%20Ape) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ema/137/kird-ape?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e14a5c79-29a3-4415-9b70-b287a474a0e0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Im fine with tracing, but this isnt just tracing. Shes photobashing and passing it off as her own art. Photobashing is already a kind of controversial practice and thats when it’s just for concept art and it’s not going out into the general public. Especially not as its own product sold solely for the artistry of it, like this Secret Lair was.
Photobashing is fine if you're transparent about it (credit sources etc.). Dalton wasn't.
And it's actually not fine if you're making magic art. They don't want the hassle.
But it’s not just tracing lol. Do you do this for a living?
You're right, it's not tracing. It's the exact same lion art with some slight alterations.
Photobashing is its own style of art 😃
Things can be art *and* a crime.
"This ain't chemistry. It's *art!*"
Taggers seething rn
As Jet Set Radio put it: Graffiti is art. Vandalism is a crime.
It would at least have been on theme for capenna...
Only if they target an opponent, their creatures or cards in their graveyard
or spells on the stack.
I was thinking of graffiti when I wrote this but actually [[Errant, Street Artist]] is totally fine.
Yea, it's called stealing
What do you think about Andy Worhol's art? Would you consider it theft?
The Warhol Foundation lost a lawsuit last year over a painting Andy made of Prince that was based on a copyrighted photo he didn't get permission to use.
The word theft really has transformed wildly in the past few years to contain a lot of things that are in no way theft.
To me, this is just as egregious, because she chose not to use a photograph of a lion (which one could certainly find with creative commons licensing), but an almost-photorealistic painting of a lion by another artist.
I DID NOT REALIZE IT WAS A PAINTING! My brain just saw a "photo of a lion" and didn't processed the title. Either she 100% deliberately traced over a piece she was aware off, or she was the same as me, thought it was a photo and just traced over it. I'd be inclined to go with the 2nd one, if it wasn't for trouble in pairs.
Are you on your phone? Nothing about it looks like a photo.
disagree. the artist did a really good job with hyperrealism .
If it's worth anything, [here](https://unsplash.com/s/photos/lion-face) is at least dozens of stock photos of a lion that look identical to both Lucie's work and the piece being called a stolen image. Look through and you will find three-quarter perspective shots of male lions that match up to both paintings. In fact, I'm fairly certain the one that was used for at least Lucies painting is there, too. Which begs the question; if lucies art is identical to this photo, then was the piece above a trace of lucies art, or the stock art?
Yeah this one is pretty goofy to me. The overlay doesn't even really line up, and the parts they circled don't really look that similar except that they are features lions have? You could probably make the OP with a bunch of similar pics and people thirsty for their next hit of outrage will smash upvote as fast as their pitchforks will allow.
Look at the points where each whisker comes from. They are exactly identical.
So this, same as having the cable entry left on the head in trouble in pairs. These are the details that give it away as plagiarism not reference
Posted above by another user, but Lucie wrote on her Facebook post about her lion painting that it was based on a photograph of a lion she took herself.
I feel like as an art professor, the first thing that should be mentioned is that … you know, don’t blatantly steal other people’s work under any circumstances. Even for “reference” you should never be copy/pasting someone else’s work unless you are specifically telling people “hey, I do photo bashing collage work made up of other people’s pieces” <- which, while not awesome is at least honest about what you’re doing. It’s a strange take to say “well this blatant plagiarism isn’t as bad as this other blatant plagiarism because they spent any extra twenty minutes drawing some lines on it” - for a teacher especially. If you rip off someone’s work, without credit, and claim it as your own, it’s wrong.
Yeah this is a lot closer to just using a picture of a lion as reference. For all we know that's what happened, I bet you could find a ton of pictures of lions that "match".
You can say that there's a stylistic transformation, but I've overlaid the lips on top of one another. It's a one to one match. Fact is this person is building a career off of somebody else's hard work. It really doesn't matter what excuses that you want to make because we feel the need to be lenient or empathetic.
In these threads it is sounding more and more like digital artists rely heavily on tracing and photoshop-based photobashing and retouching for their creations. That seems quite ironic given the popular social media outcry against the use of generative AI tools that are inherently more transformative than a verbatim tracing.
In the defending AI subreddit, photobashing comes up all the time too. Redditors really do not understand art. It's insane.
You're not going to make any money off of AI, knock that shit off.
What are you on about loca?
Professional artist with unlimited time and money do not, but corporate artists with unrealistic deadlines do. And the sad thing is they are manipulated to justify it.
A voice of reason, thank you for sticking your neck out.
As an art professor, if someone turned in the baseball card and told you flat out "I traced the face from a really pretty lion picture I saw online" would you consider that plagiarism? from my non art degree artist friends I've been told that tracing a reference picture for sketches or for linework is very common, even more so when trying to draw animals.
Do you think people will finally realize that all art, that we make. Is inspired from somewhere?
the conversations about art here will continue to be insipid until people move on from this specific controversy.
So in your classes you condone a little bit of cheating, as long as it's a less severe offence?
This was found by u/funktasticdog https://old.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1bq9duf/the_fay_dalton_saga_continues/kx1pat5/ Reposted because of a typo in the title. edit: Just noticed the tuft of hair to the right of the left eye(the scarred one on the card art) is the same on both.
Thanks for the credit! :) Wish I could say it was hard to find, but it really wasn't. If you google: "Lion Art" Lucie Bilodeau's paintings are among the first that show up.
See, the fact she stole Giancola's art when he was doing art for the very same set reeks to me of "Found this image on google and didnt bother to check the source." This little tidbit kind of confirms that must be her process, lol
Not digging too hard but her two Liliana SL drops have pretty similar faces as well.
This one befuddles me…like go to a zoo and take a picture of a real lion and work from that?
It's a matter of time to find the picture that (served as base) was copied to form the body.
Couldn’t have even just traced a stock photograph or something? That’s just stupid
What's important here, for everyone that don't have experience producing art, is that you can tell she slaps stuff together and hides it poorly. Going through her stuff, the only common trait i see is really bad sense of composition, and very crudely drawn details for covering up. She is really not that good at actual painting, but she sure has a knack for making collages and blending the seams. She didn't paint the lion, she assembled it.
Composition in so many of her "paintings" look off, trouble in pairs was just probably the most egregious one that ended up on a good card so more people looked at it to eventually find it but there's a lot of weird shit that is probably plagiarized. I just wonder how you even get so far in the industry without anybody noticing...
It's crazy. I've been looking through her James Bond covers, and most of them are characters in different styles, mashed together and covered up with foggy surroundings or fading blending to cover up the patchwork. Some of her covers show women under sheets and under water, where you can clearly see her skills being basic at best. It's just bad anatomy, crudely sketched and covered up with blur. Shading and light sources are off on all her things, and some characters look super weird, because she flipped pieces that weren't originally made digitally (so you can't mirror check them when making them), so they look super odd when flipped. I read an interview with her, where she says she is an illustrator, and it's just so exhausting to me that she got away with this. She's made a career out of stealing work for her collage. She's basically a small scale AI tool, with bad composition code. Edit: A good example is a picture she provided for "from russia with love". It shows a woman and a man on a beach. The man is laying down with direct sunlight on him, but for some reason the shadows under his nose and on his neck would only make sense, if he was standing up against a wall, with a top->down lightsource. Not to mention perspective being off in all her covers, because she can't fix the different perspectives of the originals she stole and mashed together.
can we get a flair for those plagiarism posts ? i’m super interested in it like for spoiler
How long until I can make a 100% plagiarism commander deck?
Better settle for controversy deck.
Maybe take your own photos if you want to trace?
[Gif](https://i.imgur.com/9eAGe4k.mp4) what really gives it away, imo, is the black spots of the whiskers being exactly the same.
Elements of the mane are also a direct match, albeit moved around a little. There's this little spot directly below the mouth where two bits of fur curve in opposite directions like parentheses - it's identical to a corresponding segment of the source image.
Lmaaaaaoo! It just keeps getting funnier and funnier. I was wondering who this artist was that got commissioned for a bunch of secret lairs and, eventually, some MKM cards. Is she the beneficiary of nepotism? Because it can't be due to skill if so much of their art is just taken from others.
Imagine having your lucky break as a professional artist getting some solid paying work for a major business and just shitting all over it, explosive diarrhea style.
I think you might be misunderstanding why artists plagiarize. It’s not necessarily that they’re not talented, its often more about deadlines and pay than anything else. I saw one post by another artist who was caught plagiarizing and their explanation was along the lines of “I know it was wrong, but the reason I did it was that wotc has short turn around times and I can’t afford to not get paid”. The reality is that it is exceptionally faster to copy other works or use ai
For sure, not everyone is a James Somerton who can't hack it without plagiarism. People under a lot of pressure frequently take short cuts and make poor decisions just to meet their deadlines.
explaining the misunderstanding does not excuse whoever did it just because it was out of work pressure. unless they got hired against their will to do the job, which is doubtful, they were aware of what they were getting into beforehand. it's entirely on them for getting into something they couldn't handle and instead of backing out when they realized it was too much choosing to commit theft.
To be clear, I’m obviously not defending the artist. Although understanding why artists do it makes it pretty obvious that this is likely way more prevalent than anyone thinks
I couldn't tell if this was shitposting or not because lions just look like that, then I saw the one on the right was a painting and not an actual photo of a lion. This is getting crazier.
This is just getting stupid
I’m not even going to lie, I’m not even surprised anymore
It’s hilarious these people think they won’t get found out.
“Can I copy your homework?” “Yeah just change it up a bit so it doesn’t look obvious you copied” “No, I don’t think I will”
TIL there are a LOT of people on reddit ready and willing to defend plagiarism and theft
Seeing that the style of the head of a ajani is so different from the body and clothes makes it stand out to me even more. I think this was a really good catch I wouldn't have noticed it until pointed out.
Damn the photoshop was so bad in this. The arm doesn’t even match the original art style copied.
Never noticed the arm before, but you’re right. It doesn’t match the style of the head, and honestly kinda makes the head looks like it was “slapped on” a different design like a sticker.
Man; this tracer sucks.
Actually, her tracing is so precise that it exactly 1:1 replicates parts of the original down to individual hairs! One might even suspect that it's not traced, but rather copied and pasted digitally!
Man, this digital copy paster sucks.
You guys mean **Fake** Dalton, right?
OK, I'll say it, This one is a stretch ,haha
I thought I might be crazy, so I hesitated on posting it, but at certain parts it's just identical. Look at the mouth and especially the coloration, the pores around the whiskers. It's the same painting, hell there are even little blemishes that carry over 1:1.
Zoom in and look at the bottom lip and hairs on the chin, it's a perfect match, so is the shading.
Oof!
It's like a nesting doll of plagiarism lmao
Tracing. You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
[удалено]
When I was in high school art class, almost ALL of my "ART" was taking composites from pictures, etc I had seen and putting them together lol. I can't believe a professional does it.
I’m waiting to find out Fay Dalton used the infamous Billy Ripken “Fuck face” card and just censored the words.
I wouldn’t be surprised if people are currently going over all of her art with a fine tooth comb, possibly expect more
I was gonna post this card today! The card LOOKS so cut and paste it never should have got past art director.
Time to work on my plagiarism commander deck
So will WotC continue to hire her?
Doubtful. If it was one instance, and the instance was quite obscure, they miiiiight have been able to keep her around. But she’s plagarised from a prominent artist, had multiple bits of irrefutable proof against her, shown she’s done it more than once, and the community is extremely aware of her now. Unless there’s some severe nepotism or blackmail going on, she’s done.
Isn't it ironic that someone with the last name Dalton steals art. This is some Lucky Luke timeline with living in right now
At least the Wayfarers Bauble artist apologized. This is multiple pieces stolen from multiple artists to make multiple cards, and Dalton is staying completely silent.
Shes waiting to see how many people will catch her for, and then shell apologize for those specific pieces, and pretend she did everything else herself.
Isn't it possible they both used the same photo of a lion as a reference though?
Dang , you guys are relentless ! Has she made any sort of statement about this stuff ?
Wow, choosing to trace over another artist’s *photorealistic drawing* is just bizarrely disrespectful. Like, I get it, you’ve got to do a lot of art for a lot of cards. I wouldn’t have remotely faulted anyone for, say, tracing a public-domain *photograph* of a lion. But to actively choose to find someone else’s *drawing* and copy that? What the fuck?
Oh boy.
A lot of these new school mixed medium digital artists are just thieves good at passing other peoples' work as theirs
If we look hard enough we'll find who she stole the arm from too.
Am I the only one to think that this comparison is a little far fetched?
The lions mane has the exact same strands of hair in multiple places, it's easier the see right at the end of the mane
Check out the dot pattern by the whiskers. Identical.
Fay is quickly becoming the James Somerton of MTG card art at this point.
Did Nick knew 😳
I don't think it was as simple as recolouring. We need to be more accurate as we accuse people of things, else we can lose the strength of the argument.
This isn't a case of them being pulled from the same source photo. If you overlap Lucie's lions mouth over Fay's its a perfect match, brushstroke for brushstroke. The shading is the the exact same. The hairs are the exact same.
This one gets a pass from me. Not only has the original painting been *significantly* altered (one could make a good case for derivative), but the mane appears to have been redrawn entirely, and the lighting has been softened and slightly moved. ~~I am sure Tracing is a technique that is used in a lot more MtG art than we know of,~~ Fay Dalton's work is just under immense scrutiny right now. If we scrutinized every piece of MtG art we'd find a lot of cases similar to this. And I think criticizing this technique might make other MtG artists, and prospective artists, more wary than necessary. How much a work needs to be altered to be considered derivative and not plagiarised is subjective. There is no right or wrong answer, only a sith deals in absolutes. But imo, the other works are much more egregious. Edit: I'm a freelance graphic designer in case that matters. My perspective on this technique might be different from that of a traditional artist.
This isn't traced. It's digitally copied. You can zoom in and the exact brushstrokes match, just differently colored. They took the base and drew over it. That's not tracing, that's photobashing.
I'm not king of all artists or anything, but IMO a good habit to have is only painting over/tracing photographs you have a license to use. If you take a photo, it's yours — tracing/photobashing is fine. If you pay for stock photography, you have a license to use it in your art — go for it. I don't feel this is a morally complicated or difficult thing to do, and gives artists a ton of flexibility if they're short on time. "How much can one stock photo cost, Michael? $10?"
This one is closer to just source imagery. It's the point of source images. This is more transformative than the other previous ones that sourced commercial works. Not all artists draw everything from memory.
Source imagery is to trace over. This isn't traced; it's copied and digitally recolored. Every hair around the mouth is a 1:1 match other than being white.
It looks like she cut and paste the head on the body. Because she pretty much did.
Something that has been really bugging me with the Fay Dalton stuff: how did she find this art? It's actually really hard to find references or specific poses by just looking things up, and these are from a WIDE variety of sources. It's not like she just opened a cyberpunk book and started copying. You try googling "right hand gripping axe" and find usable art I did some googling, and I am genuinely wondering if they used the 'Cover art' or 'fantasy art' tag on Tumblr. It's the only place I seem to be able to find Donato Giancola, Mort Künstle, Boris Vallejo, and Will Hulsey in one place.
A lot of artists are big into art history. She might have annuals like Spectrum lying around, making it easy to quickly reference old/awesome paintings.
Real artists would never steal or copy that’s only Ai, that’s how I know this is fake. /s
Most artists trace to learn things but they don't release it as their art..
How did she even get hired by WOTC if she does copying like this in her portfolio and artwork too? Meanwhile there are so many highly skilled/talented artists won’t even get a commission from WOTC…
Wait until people find out you can directly reference illustrations including details without tracing them lol
These are a stretch imo lol
These are the posts I am coming to this subreddit for! I mean... spoilers too.
man that's some Greg Land shit right there. at least she isnt tracing porn lol
It’s Duke Georg Carmine!
At this point I’m convinced Fay Dalton is just a pen name for someone subcontracting work through Midjourney
Just me whos not artsy enough to see the problem?
people have taken the lesson that any form of reference tracing is bad because of her twisted pairs card.
I don't really care
The spirit of Rob Granito lives on. Legit-o-mite.
Oh man the community is ripping this Dalton person apart!
[[Caught Red Handed]]
[Caught Red Handed](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/5/95bc5f89-2f01-40c4-9883-4c90ab89fcbb.jpg?1706241833) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Caught%20Red-Handed) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkm/115/caught-red-handed?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/95bc5f89-2f01-40c4-9883-4c90ab89fcbb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I've created a simple discord to find more art fay dalton has stolen and compare it to art on magic cards she's "Made" https://discord.gg/scFnjHfn I'm hoping we can find more people she's stolen from so more lawsuits can be sent her way