saultry little binch on the bottom lsft

The Dark Urge

A Lae’zel

I'm not usually one to make a callout blog, but I don't think it's right to be silent any longer. I'd also like to say that I have no problem with tracing so long as it's transformative enough that no one can tell it's traced.

However, this artist is steadily gaining popularity in the Bloodweave fandom and the more I think about it, the more uncomfortable I get with the fact that this artist is popular. Why? Because they're tracing stock images and still frames from films, and instead of acknowledging this, they're passing off this work as their own original ideas. I know the correct thing to do would be to notify this artist before I go public with this information, but based on my interactions with this artist, along seeing other people's interactions with this artist, I do not think this is appropriate. This artist has a lot of friends who are also quite popular in the Bloodweave community, which is why I'm doing this on a burner account and not my actual account.

A few words of advice: to the artist's friends, if you dismiss this as drama, I will assume that you have not read this piece in full. I would like to restate I do not take this post lightly. If this was a one time thing, I would ignore it. However, this is not a one time thing, and you are tarnishing your own work by hanging around this artist. To the artist: you cannot delete your work to hide, as I have already saved the pieces to the Internet Archive. The internet is forever, my love. To both the artist and their friends: my understanding is that there are tensions between you and some other members of the Bloodweave community. I am not associated or affiliated with those members. I am a third party who became concerned once I saw this first picture, and things escalated from there. Similar to the drama comment above, if you associate this with the people you have friction with, I'll assume you haven't read the post.

Without further ado, here we go.

The artist I'm referring to is calolily. I hate that I have to make this post, because I was a fan of their work for a long time. However, in March, calolily posted this image:

As a certified horse girl, this image threw me off. For those of you who don't get what I'm saying, the issue is with the bit: the metal thing that goes in a horse's mouth. On a horse, it goes in towards the middle of their mouth, behind their incisors (which are the teeth you can see when a horse opens their mouth) into their interdental space, which is basically a long stretch of gum that's in front of the horse's molars. A good fitting bit should not be uncomfortable for a horse. However, this is where calolily has it positioned:

Right in front of the horse's incisors. Ignoring that there's no way the bit would stay in the horse's mouth at that point, if the bit was there, that would be a very unhappy horse. That bottom part is where some (not all, as most reins should sit at the bit) reins would sit.

Despite that, I didn't think the image was traced at first. I know bridles can be hard to draw, so I ignored it. That is, until I was looking for references images for my own piece of cowboy artwork, and found this:

You don't see the similarities? That's all right, I'll help you:

Now I'll admit, at first I didn't get too freaked out by this. Horses are a bitch to draw, so I'm not going to blame someone if they need help getting them done. Was I a little annoyed that calolily didn't say that they traced? Sure, but I thought it was a one-off.

That is, until I saw this:

The left image is calolily's drawing of Gale from their professor AU. The right image is a still from the movie "We Don't Live Here Anymore." Once again, I'm providing a side by side alongside an overlay.

(I am so bad at overlays, but I hope you see the point I'm trying to make.)

It's one thing to copy a picture from a stock artist. It's a little scummy, yes. It's definitely copyright infringement, but people turn a blind eye to it if you're a hobbyist. Copying a still from a movie without crediting it? Only making light changes, like swapping out the watch for a wedding ring and adding a periodic table to the background? Not okay. That's someone else's art you're taking away from them.

But it's whatever, right? It's not like calolily's making money off this, right?

Right???

The left image is a print from calolily's Inprnt page. There's a sale on right now, so you can purchase prints range from $6 (regular $8) to $78.75 (regular $105). The right image is a bondage ad.

I'm not going to point out the similarities on this one. I'm sure you can see how the arms and hands are positioned in the same way, how the only change is making the picture more "Gale" like. I've never purchased calolily's work, but if I was interested in purchasing a commission from them, I'd be worried. Would I get an original piece or would I get a traced bondage ad? Who knows.

Maybe this is a recent development though. Maybe calolily got inundated with requests and, not wanting to let their fans down, decided to take some shortcuts to keep their fans happy.

Ha.

On April 19th, calolily posted an "art improvement" post. Perhaps the improved post was traced, but surely the before was--oh, it was traced too? Alright then. The worst part is that this tracing was not from a movie or one of those giant stock image sites or even an ad. This one was from an independent stock photographer named Rob Lang, and as far as I can tell, he hasn't been licensed out to another stock site. He's freelance.

Unless this drawing was made in the past week, I'm going to assume that tracing has been a long time thing with calolily.

I don't get it. If they'd hidden some of the minor details like the shirt folds and the finger positions, I don't think anyone would've noticed. Hell, I didn't notice until I realized there was something wrong with that horse drawing. And I have zero doubt there's more. What's the old saying? Once is a mistake, twice is a habit? Seems like calolily's been on this habit for a while then.

I know some of you are going to brush this off as this not mattering because it's just stock images or that everyone traces, but the thing is, do you trace as noticeably as this? I don't think you do. And these are all someone's hard work they're passing off as their own, even the bondage ad, even the stock images, and I don't think that's right.

Where do we go from here? I have answers for two different groups of people.

For calolily's friends: Don't defend them. All of you are artists yourselves and surely none of you would do anything this blatant. If you still want to associate with calolily, then hold them accountable. Make sure they don't do this again. If you want to stop associating with them, then explain why. Don't be unnecessarily cruel, but be honest. If you were duped alongside the rest of us, post screenshots and get captures of any images you suspect are traced (because I know there are more) before calolily deletes them.

For calolily: Don't delete. Like I said, the internet is forever. Don't lie either. I know your favorite excuse is that you were an animator so you can draw from reference really fast, but does that explain the same shirt folds? The same finger positions? It doesn't. Instead, I recommend you come clean about all the pictures you traced and provide either links or pictures of them. Apologize to your fans. Apologize to the people you've hurt, because you've hurt a lot of them. Strive to do better.

Don't be a James Somerton.

And know this: if you try and hide this, know that it'll keep coming back. I think it'd be better to come clean now, don't you?

For the sake of transparency, Calolily and I have spoken a few times both individually and in group settings and we are making some art together, but I don't think either of us would consider the other anything beyond an acquaintance. And if OP can claim they are the type not to make a callout blog, then I can confidently say that the last thing I want is to bring this nonsense into my space. This house is for bunny Gale, dammit.

With that said-

Clearly other folks have the absurdity of the art-related portion of this callout taken care of. An artist with a realistic style and sufficient skill is going to replicate their reference very faithfully if that's the direction they want to go with it. It is actually ridiculous to expect someone to actively alter a reference they chose because, presumably, they liked it and wanted to use it for their art (ie. buttons, folds, and hands). Artists are not obligated to photobash their references, and while yes, the culture of sourcing and crediting reference images is very gray, I don't think the onus falls on Calolily's shoulders to be the harbinger of change, nor are they evil for doing what everyone else is doing.

But I also take issue with the James Somerton comment.

Certified horse girl, meet certified Youtube essay enjoyer.

You are, sincerely, equating a fanartist using uncredited references and selling prints/using them for their Patreon to the plagiarism of countless queer people by a hack businessman who blatantly ripped their work, poorly regurgitated it to the unknowing masses under the guise of queer advocacy, all to reel in thousands in Youtube adsense? A man who actively profited on stealing from the very people he claimed to care about, pushing lazy, poorly made essays whose only original parts were his own misogyny leaking in?

In good faith, I will assume it was hyperbole, but I beg of you to take a step back and consider your methodology and what it means. If your issue was with Calolily not crediting their sources, you could have reached out to them (on a burner if you're nervous, as you're clearly okay with making new accounts to deal with this). If you didn't want to contact Calolily directly, you could have reached out to the stock photographers (one of whom you directly identified) so they could take whatever action they believed necessary.

If your issue was with the broader culture of artists not appropriately sourcing and crediting their references, what is the point of targeting one person specifically?

If this was truly about the art, then there are far more productive ways of going about addressing this issue other than starting up yet another anonymous callout blog in the bloodweave space. But I think it's obvious to nearly everyone that this is a personal attack dressed up in "protect independent artists!" moral posturing, including yourself. You couldn't even commit to the overlay bit.

You are allowed to dislike an artist's work, their process, or them as a person. You are allowed to question the culture of how artists source and credit their references. You are entitled to your scruples and to speak on them, and with that said-

It is incredibly disrespectful to Somerton's victims, the artist in question, and to the intelligence of everyone who had the misfortune of reading this callout to draw that comparison. It shines a light on the underlying motive for this entire callout existing, and I sincerely hope you sit down and have a long think about what you're trying to do here. And then?

Do better.

Big surprise, talented artists finished pieces can be very closely compared to the references used. That's not tracing that's TALENT. Save your ridiculous call-out posts for shit that matters.

It also needs to be said that artists out there who DO trace their body reference poses aren't committing some crazy art crime either.

karlach sketch

Shads

I just realized that many many people have jobs

Rb with your job, wtf do you people do while offline???

No one is immune

Stuck between a rock and a...

I imagine in Act 3 when the team has downtime to explore the city, our two rogues branch off to scout from above. Or maybe they get caught with sticky fingers and have to hide somewhere from being chased by guards. Either way, letting these two roam on their own in the Gate is not very productive.

astarion didnt think monster hunter would be more interesting than his ass but apparently he was wrong

wyll

Aw, a back hug!

i love my girlfriend

full WIP page posted you know where

This tweet 😂

I thought only two weeks had passed, but it has been three whole weeks! My time perception is getting wonky...

I'm not completely out of slump yet...But I managed to draw three little wet eyes Gale ♥