[Arc][Pello]

It really bugs me when i see obvious stuff like this mascerading as original art.



"What started out as a simple coloring job on my drawing 'the love of lust' [link] ended up as a total re-creation of it. I decided to do a total airbrushing of it in Photoshop. Using just my drawing as a guide, I first scanned in some blank Polaroid�s and then positioned and airbrushed them in to make them look as real as possible.

In total this entire piece has taken me about 35 hours, I think it's a vast improvement over the drawing and I'm very pleased with how it all turned out"

the statement from the "artist".

youll be even more surprised to find that they won an award for this as one of the top 3 pieces of art.

just look at the way the neck actually bends around with the hair, ive seen this done before and ive seen it done better aswell.

and does anyone actually believe that there reall polariouds?

please help me out here.

[Socar MYLES]

*Groan* I wonder how long it will be before the artist in question sees this post....

[eyewoo]

Get use to it... there are no rules to what is art...

It's quite a good paint over, but the photo edges suck. The shadows come from totally ambiguous light sources... oops.. oh yeah... I forgot... there are no rules to making art... but art is completely subjective, so I'd give this one a flunk!

[Arc][Pello]

its not even a paint over though, just a colour image which has been done over with a slight distortion tool to make things seem like smooth brushmarks.
this sort of stuff really gets to me.

[Lunatique]

Looks painted to me--yes, that means one brush stroke after another. Of course he/she used photo reference and pretty much copied the photo, but I wouldn't say for sure it's a paintover. I could be wrong though, but I'm trying to give this person the benefit of the doubt.

Paintover = taking a photo and then just add brush strokes on top of it.

Painting it from scratch = looking at a photo and then painting it from scratch, one brush stroke at a time.

Where this person did wrong is to say it was done completely out of his/her head, "Using just my drawing as a guide."

That's an outright lie.

[ June 30, 2002: Message edited by: Lunatique ]

[eyewoo]

Luna... you missed a definition (not a rule, a definition...

trace augmented painting = Using a simple line tracing technique with a reference photo to establish structure and then freehand painting, just eyeballing the ref photo.

[oDD]

he could use one of those free actions like
http://xchange.studio.adobe.com/axAssetDetailSubmit.asp?aID=3731&back=http%3A%2F%2Fxchange%2Estudio%2Eadobe%2Ecom%2FaxBrowseSubmit%2Easp%3Fr%3D0%26c%3D37%26pgsel1%3D6
http://xchange.studio.adobe.com/axAssetDetailSubmit.asp?aID=2868&back=http%3A%2F%2Fxchange%2Estudio%2Eadobe%2Ecom%2FaxBrowseSubmit%2Easp%3Fr%3D0%26c%3D37%26pgsel1%3D6

or maybe he smudget out the pic , or maybe both ?

or mabe he is a verry skillfull artist

[Tom Luth]

I'm not entirely sure what it is that you are angry at.

The quality of the overall piece?

The fact that it is, obviously, based on a photo, that the artist may not have rights to?

The posibility that it is traced, or just painted over from the original photo?

The poor Polaroid borders?

Seems to be a decent job of painting the couple, if indeed freehand. Need to determine if the artist has rights to photo. If a paint-over, then that is a problem, if not indicated as such.

The polaroids do show a slight tinting at the bottom edge, that suggest he probably did scan in a blank polaroid as a start. He could, of course, have enhanced it a bit to add realism, and perhaps altered some to give a sense that they are not cookie-cutter elements.

The shadows are a real problem, inconsistent with the look of the piece. First, they need to show movement, stepping down when the shadow moves over several layers. Second, they should look hand-painted to match the look of the photos.

Just my two cents.

[RoadMaster]

look at the bottom righthand polariod... I think that's what hints about the legitimacy of this piece... the fact that the hair is actually able to make a dent/hole in the woman's neck which makes this shout out something is wrong here...

[Arc][Pello]

the artist claims to have created this piece without any referance what so ever, and yes the bottom right photo screams manipulation.

what really gets me angry though is that this piece wins an award for being something its not.

[bearsclover]

I am suspicious of the claim that this was done without photo reference. The portrait is too detailed and specific. I often get people asking me "where's the photo you used?" when they see some of my non-photo-ref artwork, but usually these are simpler images, or more stylized. A lot of us can pull that off. Pulling off an image that looks like it came straight from "Glamour" magazine is a different matter. I could be wrong�but I'm suspicious. Also, if a person possessed that much drawing skill, I'd think that their rendering skill would be much better as well. I'm not impressed with the "smudgy" look at all. But, who knows. Maybe they are totally legit. I'll probably never know for sure.

With all that said, I guess my comment would be, "Don't get your knickers in a bunch." I understand that it is probably frustrating to see someone who you suspect is lying get an award.

One pearl of wisdom though: it happens all the time. It'll happen again. I've had my work turned down (for awards) in favor of people who obviously were not very dedicated, and were not very good artists. It's frustrating, but once again, it happens all the time. The one solace you should have is that if, indeed, this person is lying, and they do not possess the skills that they claim they possess, they are a sad pathetic loser. And, sooner or later, they will be found out. They can't lie their way through their whole life. Sooner or later, someone will ask for a "live demo" or will expect them to produce something that they won't be able to fake. And then their humilation will be complete (and deserved).

On the other hand, if you always show integrity and honesty in how you present your work, you will never have to fear being "found out", and you never will be considered a sad, pathetic loser for lying about your art skills. You have a great advantage over pathetic, dishonest losers. Consider yourself fortunate, and pity people who have to lie about what they can do in order to get any attention.

[ June 30, 2002: Message edited by: bearsclover ]

[Alex F]

Yeah, here I am *

I'm the guy who did that. And first off I'll say the guy posting this didn't even give you all of the information that I posted with the piece.
Go here to get it: http://www.deviantart.com/deviation.php?id=462466

But for an even more through explanation, in particular the three things people are saying looks bad is that bottom right photo, the Polaroid�s themselves and the shadows.
And those are the last three things I did on the picture. That bottom right photo, I painted after being awake for about 40 hours which is probably the reason it looks pretty bad around there. I couldn't get it to look right so I smudged it up a bit and went to sleep.
I find it funny that people say the Polaroid�s don�t look real or they just look bad, because they are mostly un-edited from when I scanned them.. I probably would have tried to make them look better except for the following reason which also explains my original statement about the piece when I first posted it.
I was high, *l* yeah I got home kind of late but didn't feel to tired and figured I'd finish it up quick, so I did the shadows quickly and didn't bother fixing up that bottom photo. I suppose I feel kind of bad for what I originally wrote as a Description, I didn't only use my drawing as reference, but again I cleared this up the next day when I wasn't so messed up. (At that webpage)

: P I guess was feeling pretty good about myself for doing it and I didn't even remember what I had said about it. The description probably wouldn�t have even been legible if it weren�t for spell check.
But yeah, I was hitting myself in the head all the next day for typing that but what�s said is said and I just thought I should explain myself.
Sorry for any misunderstanding...

[Alex F]

And yeah sorry if this sounds like self advertisement or something, im not meaning it to be, but if you don't believe I have 'talent' or whatever just look at some of my other work that I have posted at that site...

[kidd]

The hair makes me suspiscious... the highlights are nothing like in the sketch. It smells fishy to me. I really don't know, but I don't think it was created exactly as described and it still bothers me the original work wasn't citied originally.

Polaroids on their own aren't so original (and I think Momento played it to death), and the image was taken from an ad... I don't find this piece as amazing as it was regarded. I don't think it is unique.

[Loki]

It's a fucking paintover, guys ...

And if it really was painted - why do the polaroid-frames look like that? Every painting obsessed artist, that would've painted that thing from scratch, wouldn't have been able to resist to paint some nice dropshadows under the individual photos, give them some texture & etc.

After looking at it some more - the airbrushing of the scanned polaroid frames made them probably look worse - so did the matte he made to cut them out ...

THRENODY!



[ July 02, 2002: Message edited by: Loki ]

[oDD]

if he showed scanned ad we would know if this is a paint over.

[S4Sb]

Look at the womans right eye. He oversmudged there. That looks so totally wrong. As if her eyelid is moving away from the eyeball itself. Nobody can tell me that this is painted. Her teeth tell the same story

[HaRdC0rePixxX]

this one took me about 1035 hours.
first, i sculpted a real-size marble model (about 15 mns).
i spent the last 1034 hours in photoshop to simulate that grainy-jpg-look that makes it look so realistic (yeah, i know, i messed up a little bit with the hair...)

[ July 02, 2002: Message edited by: HaRdC0rePixxX ]

[Loki]

LOL!!!

[StormVermin]

quote:

---

Originally posted by HaRdC0rePixxX:

this one took me about 1035 hours.
first, i sculpted a real-size marble model (about 15 mns).
i spent the last 1034 hours in photoshop to simulate that grainy-jpg-look that makes it look so realistic (yeah, i know, i messed up a little bit with the hair...)

[ July 02, 2002: Message edited by: HaRdC0rePixxX ]

---

Hahahhaa

[Torstein Nordstrand]

*HAHAHAHAhaaaa*

I was somewhat angry before, but Hardcore took it all away.

...what amazes me about this happening is that so many people thought this was the product of excellent skill/"talent". I'm with Bearsclover though, nothing will come from nothing. The guy is not only fooling others, but himself also.

[egerie]

reminescent of... argh I can't remember.
This is going to obsess me until I find. bbl