#i drew this months ago but was inspired to post it today bc i saw a post abt teru not knowing what being gay was

[mobfrog]

funniest possible interpretation of why teru is Like That. to me. i was also a teen in 2012 i am drawing from personal experience.

+ bonus (prequel)

[green-makakas]

Cosplay, Fanart and Plagiarism

(gif curtesy to Mel)

TL;DR: An artist traced (!) my cosplay photo without permission, gave me zero credits, sold the prints at a con and denied she’s ever seen my photo. First, both of us, the cosplayer and the photographer, want to say that it would never have come to this if the artist would have immediately apologized to us in person, instead of being extremely rude to us and letting things escalate. A simple sorry and taking down the prints would’ve sufficed. In the beginning of January, being hyped with the new SU episodes, I immediately fell in love with Blue Diamond and cosplayed her. Two months ago, a friend let me know that an artist she saw drew a fanart based on my photo. I was extremely flattered and happy, but also kinda sad the artist gave me zero credits. Us cosplayers and photographers work really hard to get a nice result, and everyone is happy when their photo serves as an inspiration for another artwork. I wrote a letter to her stating that I love her art, but I’d like her to credit me as a source of inspiration (adding the screen shot). For two months, there was silence. I tried it again a few weeks ago, but again, no response. Okay, what can you do…

Last weekend we had a big con in Germany with a huge artist alley and both of us, the photographer and the cosplayer, attended. Suddenly, a friend came to us and said that there’s a girl selling this exact drawing. We were puzzled and decided to go to her booth and look at it ourselves.

Now, I added a gif our friend Mel made of her drawing and my photo overlapping. She didn’t really use me as a reference or an source of inspiration: she simply TRACED my photo. The changes she added to it are minimal! We went to her booth, showed her the photo and asked her to explain this: Why didn’t she ask us if it was okay? Why didn’t she answer two of my messages? And finally, why was she selling it? The artist answered that she’d never seen this photo in her life and she had no idea what we were talking about. Now, dumbfounded by the obvious lie, we asked her to cut it out and to explain herself honestly. She was very rude, didn’t even look us in the eyes and repeated numerous times that she’d never seen this photo, never seen my message and that she wants us to leave right now. We asked her how it could be then, that our photo and her picture were identical down to the folds on the fabric. She avoided answering, flatout refused to continue the discussion and told us to contact her via e-mail instead. No, we said, we are standing right in front of you, so please talk to us now, especially since we had already tried to contact her online. 

Then she changed her story and admitted that she HAD seen my message after all, but was too busy preparing for this convention and thus couldn’t answer. Please note: she was contacted TWO whole months before the convention, so naturally we were having none of it. Later on, she changed her story once again and said that she didn’t understand my message bc it was in English and that’s why she hadn’t answered. This whole time, she continued to state that SHE HAD NEVER SEEN MY PHOTO IN HER LIFE. And by god, she was so rude… all in all, the whole thing was very disappointing and disheartening. Seeing as we had no chance to even have a constructive dialogue, we went to con helpers, who were so, so, so kind to us! They looked at the photo and asked us what we wanted to happen. We told them we just wanted her to stop selling this exact print here. That it wasn’t okay doing it and it wasn’t okay lying about it.

Now, the con helper responsible for the artist alley went to the artist’s booth, talked to her and asked us to talk it out in their presence. They looked at our photo and the artist’s picture and immediately took our side. Now, it was THE FIRST TIME the artist admitted that, indeed, our photo MAY have been used to for this picture, but not by her. Supposedly, it now was „a collab with a friend“ who did the drawing, while the artist in question only did the coloring, so she wouldn’t know anything about tracing our picture. Since her story has already changed a few times during our first attempt to talk to her, we were rather sceptical of this new excuse, but then again, shit happens, right? And it would explain her denying the absolutely obvious fact of tracing, wouldn’t it? Well, as we found out a few hours later on her twitter (thanks to another friend), back in January, when she posted the picture, she stated in no uncertain terms that she was the one who drew it.

Translation: „I watched the new Steven Universe episodes a few days ago and since then I’ve got „What’s The Use Of Feeling, Blue?“ stuck in my head“ „And that’s why I drew Blue Diamond today in the morning!“ Notice her claiming credit for DRAWING the picture alone (”ich habe gezeichnet” – “I drew”), without mentioning any colab friends. And needless to say, without mentioning us. Now, either she was lying to us about having a colab partner or she’s snubbing not one, but two parties of credit here. We do heavily lean towards the first option, due to the way this excuse emerged only after she had time to come up with one, but the second option doesn’t make her look much better either. But back to the story. Not having seen this tweet at that point, we relucantly bought the story of the colab partner being the one at fault here. The con helpers asked her how much was selling the print for. 12€ per print, people, and of course she’s already sold a few. We ourselves don’t even sell this photo and meanwhile someone was profiting of our hard work like this :( The story ended with the con helper taking ALL of her prints of Blue Diamond and giving them to me so she can’t sell them again (at least, not at this con). I shook the artist’s hand and told her that her drawings were beautiful, she was obviously very talented and SHE DIDN’T HAVE TO DO THIS. She could have asked and I would’ve said yes! I told her I wished her no harm and that I wished her good luck, but this was not okay and as an artist, she should understand this. I really wish the message came through, but, sadly, she showed zero remorse. She didn’t even apologize, but whatever. * Now. There are a lot of people who have used our photos as references in the past, but they usually ask beforehand and ALWAYS credit us properly. Nothing makes me happier than to inspire other people with my art. It’s a huge compliment to us as cosplayers and photographers. All the person has to do is to simply ask! It is NOT okay to TRACE a photo and to SELL the result with minimal changes… especially not witout permission. It’s just not. My artwork may be used as a reference, but it’s NOT A STOCK PHOTO and not „just“ a reference for art students or aspiring artists. Cosplay and cosplay photpgraphy are also an artform and there’s a lot of effort and money that goes into it! For this Blue Diamond shoot, we:

1) Put effort into developing the idea 2) Bought fabric and made the costume 3) Styled the wig 4) Did the make up 5) Worked on the studio set up 6) Worked on the lightning set up 7) Put thought into compostion and expression of the photo 8) Took the photo 9) Edited the photo

It is NOT A SIMPLE „CLICK“ OF THE CAMERA. We put sweat and blood into this because, same as fanartists, we are huge SU fans and we wanted to honor the amazing new episodes. In no way did I think someone would simply trace my photo and make profit of it without asking me. Of course, I do not own BD, her design or whatever. But this doesn’t mean that what I created isn’t an artwork within its own right and can be freely traced and sold without permission! The changes the artist made in her „drawing“ were minimal and nothing was changed in the concept, the composition, the idea or the artistic expression of the shot.

There’s always a shit storm in the community when someone reposts an artwork without crediting the artist or when people are reposting without credits for internet points, and rightfully so. Here it’s not just about internet recognition, it’s about actual monetary profit. So I do think it’s understandable that we’re deeply upset about this. This is not, in any way or form, some „Cosplayers vs Fanaritsts” discussion, it’s an „Artist vs Plagiarism“ problem. So please, please, PLEASE, just ask if you want to use someone’s photo, give them credit, show them your work! They’ll be so happy, flattered and proud! Don’t be like this artist… the situation here was entirely avoidable and caused unnecessary pain for everyone involved.

Regardless of the upsetting situation, we really want to thank all friends (and strangers) who showed us support! It was incredibly important and reassuring. Biggest thanks go, of course, to Mel who first notified us of the situation and helped us greatly in solving it! And so many props to convention helpers! We’re thankful beyond words!