Another Artist Using Doll Likenesses Without Crediting?

It probably took him a week to find the right photo he wanted to steal.

 

LOL That's what I was thinking too.

 

This is one of the images from Kickstarter:

https://www.google.com/search?q=mat...tive-vision-of-the-road-to-war-into-r;700;732

 

MB Lilac - you make a good point, in your post, about watermarks. Did you know there are people out there who literally spend hours and hours on Photoshop to remove watermarks from photos? I see this a lot with photoshoots of bands and pictures from their concerts. As an amateur concert photographer, it really makes me want to scream. Posting something without credit and with a removed watermark can literally steal revenue from artists and photogs. Anyway. /gets off the soapbox

I think one of the best articles to link to is Sumiko Saulson's. It's very cautious without tiptoeing around the issue, and neutral because it comes from someone outside of the community. It links to all of the evidence and everything.

 

Another blogger interview.

 

I saved most of the BJD pictures (about 250 of them) that he manipulated so if anyone needs a particular one let me know

 

This is the screen cap my friend got.

sorry I can't seem to make it show up.

 

teacupdreams You need to post the direct link to the Image, right click on the image, and choose "copy ImageURL" or Image link,

 

Here is the Facebook evidence mentioned earlier (thanks, teacupdreams!:

 

As someone who has done art for years, I can throw out a glaring piece of evidence against his case: He has too many pieces of "art" posted.

It takes time to make art, and while some artists can do sketches and such in a short amount of time, based on how he claims to have painted these, it would have taken hours upon hours to do. And as someone who is clearly a parent, even if he worked as a full time artist, it seems unlikely that he'd be able to put out more than one or two pieces a week.

 

There is nothing indicating that he does art at all on his old myspace. A few doodles, but mostly others artwork saved to his photos. It seems like he just woke up one day and decided to create a new persona for himself.

https://myspace.com/cinemadragon

 

Gahhh you have said what I've been thinking for a WHILE now. 7,000 pieces of art? Probably not even if he was 70 years old. Heck, it takes me several hours to make a very ammatureish basic vector drawing. I don't see how his fb friends can accept this when his cruddy comic and LOTR posts look exactly the same as his 'paintings.' I also wanna know how his wife condones this... I mean, I would imagine she would notice that there isn't any art hanging around their home...

 

A few more screen shots here:http://smg.photobucket.com/user/mouselg/library/Snazzy album

If anyone wants to download & resize them in whatever photo software you use, feel free. I hope they will be of help in identifying more owners of stolen photos.

 

At least some progress has been made.

He's pulling one of the oldest art theft tricks in the book: take the photo or drawing and use every available photoshop filter on it you can to change it even slightly. I expect this stuff from teenagers but he's a grown man. And MoonHawke made a valid point with talking about the volume of "art." If all you're doing is slapping some filters/adjusting lighting/adding textures to an image, you're spending maybe an hour at best on your work and can therefore afford the time to create thousands. I'm an artist and I'm lucky to have just over 200 pieces in my DA gallery from the entire 10 years I've been on that site.

 

I think this case can be closed as the images are deleted now and his kickstarter project went down as well. No need for any more actions, otherwise it will go a bit too far. He is getting it pretty heavy now as it is.

 

Is he crazy!!!!?? Its the internet age…people can make that connection fast - as you all just did…!

 

Some images we know are down due to the original artists being notified of it, others not. It's as simple as hiding them from the public so that only his friends can view them.
There is no absolute confirmation that all of the BJD photos are down, not to mention the hundreds of others that aren't BJD related.

 

The Kickstarter isn't down, however, it's only suspended while they investigate. And he's worked with publishers who may also be held culpable (there's still that book he's listed as contributing "back cover art" for on Amazon), who are within their rights to know what they may have unwittingly become involved in.

There's no need to heap abuse at him, but at the same time, those who have worked with him can also be held responsible, even though they didn't know. I personally think it's only right that anyone who has "published" his work should be politely informed of what's been unearthed, so they can avoid being dragged down with him. He's done enough damage to himself and his family at this point, and no one should be confronting him with any hostility right now. But those he's worked with shouldn't have to suffer for his bad decisions.

 

Not sure if anyone has noticed, but check out the top Google results for "Matthew Christopher Nelson"