All right I know I'm probably stepping on some toes here but I need to talk about this somewhere separate from where it all started.
Art style theft is not a thing
So, i sat through a long debate whether or not someone would show someone else their sketches, so that the OP could take note on how to start a character-focused composition.
And now, if you don’t want to share your art with someone else for whatever reason, that is fine. It’s your art, do whatever you want.
But don’t claim out loud, that someone’s out to steal your style / method / aesthetic by default. First of all no one can ever copy you 100% without leaving unique traces of themselves, thusly making it unique in its own way, secondly, and most important though - you are a melting pot of inputs from external sources too. Your style or method or aesthetic or -whatever-, is inspired from someone, somewhere. We all started by copying something pre-existing.
And you can claim all kinds of potential theft can happen ( and it does ), but if you are not willing to share your knowledge with other aspiring artists ( especially younger ), because of some pre-conditioned understanding that they are somehow gonna ‘rob’ you of your style ( or whatever ). Then you might have a skewered understanding of how the art-world works. I’m NOT defending any actual acts of theft like tracing, pallette swapping etc. Just so we’re clear. But the art community needs to chill the hell out and take themselves off the pedestal for a hot second. ( and i will admit, i have been part of the problem up until recently. im not even trying to preach that i am somehow better. I was a bitter person for a time )
It’s all about having the balls to put yourself out there and accept the risks. Otherwise our community of creativity is gonna stagnate and potentially disappear all the way up into our own rectum.
This has been a -slightly- agitated PSA.
