Question: why is using free stock images bad art? If someone's not good at designing or drawing vehicles, horses, space ships, etc, but the story calls for them, why can't they use resources other artists have created? People get heckled for drawing badly, for tracing over objects, and for putting stock images in their work. How can they win?
I’ve gotten this kind of ask a lot over the years and I used to spend a lot of energy trying to think of compelling arguments to answer them but honestly Ive come to the conclusion that if you don’t get it you won’t get it, you win, can’t explain why tracing is bad, I can’t explain why photoshop filtered 3D models are bad, it’s too fundamental a feeling to explain beyond “because you’re an artist dude” why do chefs slave away in the kitchen when they can door dash, why do musicians practice a piece for hours when they can just play it on YouTube? You’ve got to try, if you can’t draw a space ship, not drawing the space ship and just slapping in a model isn’t the answer, you have to practice, you have to learn how to draw it but that takes time and effort, If your main goal as an artist is to save time, find a short cut to get around having to improve, to just fucking trying then why bother? Why are you as an “artist” taking up room in a cut throat industry when someone infinitely better than you is begging for $10 commissions on twitter? Or even if they aren’t better just someone that would try and improve and maybe one day get better than you, do you think Adam Hughes when he was learning to paint was ever like “this is too hard let me just slap some jpgs in here” no, he learned form drawing, because he loves what he makes which people like Greg Land clearly fucking don’t, I don’t believe theres ever been a great artist in any medium that didn’t fundamentally love art, if not the process than the outcome but if the outcome isn’t yours to begin with then who gives a shit, not you obviously but hey you didn’t have to try and plus think of all the time you saved, that’s what really matters
