Artists Using Doll Likenesses without Crediting [Mijn Schatje discussion]

It's a fine line between inspiration and stealing... but this is stealing

Tracing is stealing. If she had a doll, took her own picture of it and then sketched it that would be different but these are just blatant copies. She didn't even change the eye/make-up colors!
Like the person above me said, she can't even complete a head shape properly which is why most of the traces end at the same place as the photo. The perfect objects like rubiks cubes and sneakers next to either a poorly drawn or highly stylized body also suggest tracing. Anyone can get good at drawing if they put hundreds/thousands of hours into it. Tracing is a slap in the face to real artists who put in massive effort!

 

If she were a writer instead of an 'artist' she'd have been sued for plagiarism a long time ago. These are blatant copies/traces/lifts of the original doll sculpts, judging from the examples. This is different from what doujinshi artists do in that the doujinshi writer/artist acknowledges that the source material for their work is someone else's. They don't try to pass off Naruto or L or any number of other manga/anime characters as their own, nor do they waffle about whether or not they've ever seen any of them before. This woman is making a healthy profit in an unethical fashion, IMHO. Honestly, even if this was 'original' work by her, I'm not at all impressed.

 

FYI. The artist with the Obama print is Shepard Fairey.
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepard_Fairey
There is some interesting insight on artists and appropriation. Copyrights are a gray area indeed.

First I need to say that what this girl is doing is thoroughly disgusting. However, from what I have read about her (today, in all fairness) it seems like maybe she found herself suddenly in a deep hole. When I was in art school we were ENCOURAGED by our professors to take. take. take. Whether it be reference imagery or literally steal physical things from the world as "found art." (Example: Some one turned in a headstone taken from a graveyard and was Praised! Design students were always tracing everything from images found on the web.) I was always troubled by the support of appropriation while in school, but I was certainly in a minority. I think it's possible that some people might not know that "borrowing" images, especially from this free-for-all thing called "internets" is unethical.
I have to wonder if this girl originally had good intentions but now has been caught in a serious lie (BJDs? What are those?) and, like a large headed dog in a narrow passageway, has no way to back out.

Either way she is tracing the Dickens out of these BJD photos. If I were her I'd get a grant and change my illustrative style ASAP.

 

If I spent some good time on my doll's own unique faceup, carefully took photos of her and and posted them online, and this lady took my photo, drew over it and was selling prints of it as iPod skins and 1000 dollar prints, you're damn right I'd be pissed. This is assuming she didn't contact me for permission or credit me in any way, which is exactly what this artist is doing.

 

Wow, when I went to school it was the exact opposite.

I'll always remember: Never, ever, use a National Geographic photo as a reference. They will sue you, and they will win.

 

Wow, I would have been run out of my art school in a heartbeat for that kind of crap. Borrowing something was considered fraudulent, and my instructors mocked me for any stylization of line that looked like mere beautification.

I will be very interested in this girl's response when publicly confronted with the proof that the BJD companies and owners did not give permission for use of these images.

 

Stealing headstones? That's terrible!

No matter how art classes might be structured now, artists are not above the law. Neither are we below it; we're people, like everyone else, and are expected to follow the same rules.

 

this definitely stealing! she can claim that she has made the character a long time ago or never have seen a doll that resembles her artwork. The thing is, there are lots of her work that resembles the dolls!!! i wonder what she can say about that. It can not be just mere coincidence that her artwork a many are splitting images of dolls~

 

Here's a site some of us compiled. You can see the responses from the companies we've contacted so far. None of them have given this girl permission to use their dolls/images in her 'art'.

 

I contacted the gallery in Australia that sells her work, hopefully they will get back to me with something positive. Its sickening that she's using art from other people to make so much money. :/

 

My experience is that this sort of thing is NOT approved of in the higher-art world. She may be able to get away with it legally, but I'm pretty sure it'll come back to bite her in the butt. I once had the pleasure/horror of watching an MA painting student be ripped a new one in our critique class for blatantly ripping off an artist's style. I can hardly imagine what the reaction wuold've been had they been found to be tracing.

Maybe they don't care as much in digital art circles, I can't say for sure... but if you contact the galleries she's been in showing in or art magazines she's been featured in, I'm pretty sure they'll be quite scornful--especially with as compelling evidence as is provided by the side-to-sides. If she's charging that much for her work, she's going to be held to a certain standard. And tracing from photographs isn't acceptable in Drawing 101, much less in "Fine Art" galleries.

(And I find it pretty laughable that she didn't bother to correct the gaze in so many of the photos where the eyes haven't been placed properly, making it look like the girl has a lazy eye. Maybe she thought that contributed to their "meaning"... )

 

This. I have no idea if she's that blind or just plain lazy :/

 

Do you mean Mijn Schatje?... I hate her to bits

 

Ugh. This is really disgusting. Even more so because I am a huge fan of counter-culture art. -___-

I'm going to spread the word and I'm hoping that more art galleries would be made aware of this.

 

This is disgusting... I just found her facebook and she commented on the issue http://www.facebook.com/people/Mari...ile.php?id=1115515048&v=wall&viewas=594210487
It makes me sick. If she wasn't making money off it it would be one thing (though still wrong) but she has made way too much off of other people's hard work. I know how much time and energy goes into making a doll, then to put one together and get nice photographs! I would be so angry if someone was making thousands of dollars off of my hard work and then denying it.

This makes we really want to message everyone who commented and explain what the situation really is. Her message is very deceitful and makes it sound like us "haters" are just out to insult her work and make her feel bad and that is not the case at all. I won't do it.. it just feels sort of low, but if anyone else does I am curious how people will react. I mean, we have some pretty obvious proof, and she shouldn't get away with profiting off of others hard work. I hope the companies she stole from do something.

 

That is pretty disgusting, especially considering she didn't "draw the portraits", she stole other peoples' photographs and just digitally traced them.

 

"I know how much the original doll makers appreciate my hommage."

What about the site with the e-mails from the companies saying they didn't know about her work?
Or the e-mail where I thought pipos said they'd dealt with her before?

Ugh. Some people.

 

What she did is beyond low. If the doll companies and doll owners had given their permission, then fine. But they never did. It's obvious that those involved weren't aware that their photos were being used.

I hope that she is never able to sell art again.

 

This wouldn't even matter if only she'd credit those who deserve credit. And she was saying on her Facebook that people were saying "using dolls as subjects doesn't count as art", which is DEFINITELY not what anyone was implying, we were (and still are) implying that STEALING doesn't make your work art, it makes it exactly that, stolen. Grarrg.

 

Okay - I messaged her, because I'd like her side before I start arguing one way or another - I probably should have waited until I was a little more calm - but I tried to be as polite as possible.

Her reply:

*Sigh* I don't know what to think about that - I highly doubt that is true - but I guess I feel guilty bothering her about it - ugg curse my pushover nature. I guess everyone else can take that as they please.