Adorkastock

Hello, CoH community! I hope your weekend is going most well.
I saw the recent locked post. As an artist, I wanted to give my own 2 cents about the issue of editing and then reuploading peoples' work. I hope that's alright! I'll admit I'm a little nervous, but I feel this is important to acknowledge.
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It definitely gives me some anxiety when I see people editing someone else's drawings without their permission and uploading it online, as I sometimes fear people doing it to my own art as well. It's a problem many artists have to deal with, sadly, and it can be very saddening, even discouraging for artists.
I'm aware there are people who don't really understand why it's an issue. Sometimes, I forget that there's a bit of a disconnect with artists and people who do this sort of thing when it comes to the understanding that it's unkind, and why it can be so upsetting. So, I want to explain best I can, and I'll also link some recourses for those who are interested in making art edits but want to do so in a way that's actually friendly to the artist community!
We put many hours and feeling into our work and it's very personal to us, even when we share it publicly. There's a level of courage that goes into sharing our stuff online, as the anxiety of it being ridiculed or stolen is a constant cloud over our heads; some feel this anxiety more or less than others. There's a level of trust as well; trust in the people who see it, that decency and respect for the creator can be practiced by most. When someone takes someone's art and edits over it and reuploads it, even if there is credit given and there's no profit being made, it's still upsetting, and it makes us artists feel not respected. I hope I'm explaining this well enough; I can be a bit rambly and I apologize for that.
Editing and reuploading someone's art can be tempting as it's easy to access. Sure; it's there, public for anyone to come across. But I feel that just because someone can do something, it doesn't mean they should. It's very important that we all practice respect for others, and it's important we practice communication and remember the importance of consent.
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On the bright side; though editing and re-uploading someone's art without permission is considered unkind to artists, editing free stock photography or art that's actually made for peoples' use is great and even encouraged in the creative world!
If someone finds art they like and they want to edit over it, it's important to either check to see if it's free-to-use (artists will label it as free-to-use ot f2u in this case) or ask the original artist if it's okay first. If the original artist can't be reached or they say no, and the piece is not labelled as free-to-use/f2u, then it's best to leave the art be and find a free-to-use stock photo to edit or a free-to-use original base instead. Unsplash.com is a great source of free-to-use photography that photographers upload to be used by folks however they please :) There are also entire accounts on DeviantArt with free stock photos of human models people can use for referencing/drawing oveediting
Recourses are linked below! I hope they can prove helpful for those who want to make characteart edits:
Human stock photos:
https://www.deviantart.com/null-entity/gallery/38136931/stock
https://www.deviantart.com/adorkastock/gallery
f2u (free-to-use) bases tag on DA: https://www.deviantart.com/search/deviations?q=ftu+human
A human pose recourse blog: https://posereference.tumblr.com/menu
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PS: Though it's important to inform people that taking/editing/reuploading others' art is an unkind thing to do, it's also important to inform people in a kind manner. Being hostile is unhelpful and makes it difficult for a proper discussion/point to be made. Let's please be kind to each other! :)
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https://line-of-action.com/
https://line-of-action.com/practice-tools/figure-drawing
https://line-of-action.com/learn-to-draw#
www.Justsketch.me
www.Setpose.com
https://pixabay.com
https://unsplash.com
http://www.freeimages.co.uk/
https://www.deviantart.com/adorkastock
https://www.adorkastock.com/sketch/
https://www.posespace.com/posetool/default.aspx
https://quickposes.com/en
https://www.loc.gov/free-to-use/?&loclr=
https://app.posemy.art/
www.Posemy.art