Digital Module Artist Views Pt 4

Samantha Mash

An illustrator based in Portland, OR. Her work features many dulled tones and earthy colours but with a more horror/macabre twist - it's this odd combination that makes her work eerie and ultimately what makes me take an interest. Odd spindly figures feature in most of her pieces, which make them much more unnerving.

 ( Behance )

Andreea Niculae

A graphic designer/freelancer from Worcester, UK. I am most interested in a particular series of her work which finds a common theme of Egyptian Tales - I like the crisp definition of the lines and sharp contrasts between dull and bright/metallic colours. Her other work is mostly posterised portraits, which I do not feel work as well as her Egyptian series, but are also impressive to look at.

( Behance )

Digital Module Artist Views Pt 3

Federico Bebber

A digital artist based in New York, USA. His work is based around image manipulation from photographs that are occurances of every day life - I have not looked at this sort of imagery before, which is what drew me to Bebber. It's interesting to really look at and study the different effects you can get from photoshop for means other than drawing, and to see how you can use it in many different ways but still come out with effective pieces.

( Behance )

Petra Brnardic

A digital artist based in Zagreb, Croatia. Looking at the previous artist inspired me to look a little more into these styles and see about an artist who maybe incorporates illustration into photographic manipulation as well - this drew me to Brnardic, who not only creates effective pieces through digital photo manipulation alone but alongside that adds illustration elements to some of her works to create unusual pieces; when touched up they are all very effective.

( Behance )

Digital Module Artist Views Pt 2

Carolina Rodriguez Fuenmayor

A freelance illustrator based in Bogota, Colombia - her work shows heavy usage of rough textures and contrasting colours - a background usually featuring muted or deep/dark colours with splashes of bright or neon colours in the foreground, often more towards the opposite end of the colour spectrum. This is my favourite feature about her works - especially those that feature fluorescent pinks and navy blues.

( Behance )

Tang Yau Hoong

A graphic designer/illustrator based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He has a passion for simplistic designs and what draws me to his work is the strong and very interesting concepts that hide behind each of the pieces. Another artist who utilizes negative space perfectly to create very effective pieces.

( Behance )

Digital Module Artist Views Pt 1

Katri Valkamo

An illustrator and concept art based in Hamburg, Germany - she is interested in the concept art of video games and conducts most of her work digitally. Her use of textures and high contrast/effective lighting is one of the reasons her work caught my eye.

( Behance )

Guillaume Ospital

A freelance illustrator based in Angouleme, France. They focus their illustrations mainly around character design - lots of their characters are strongly designed women. My favourite aspect of their work is their ability to create a sense of movement despite a great usage of negative space, and a mixture of styles included in the same piece in many cases.

( Behance )

Snail Racer

A piece focusing more on line than anything else - simplicity completely intended. I'd spent enough time looking at shading and other methods, now I just wanted to study line and minimalist pieces.

Fawnface

Just a girl with a deer head - an experiment with clashing colours, shading styles and again just getting used to photoshop. One arm is longer than the other (she was born that way). I do like the shading style of this and the fact that though there is a present outline it is not black - the colour scheme mainly revolves around purples and pinks on the girl herself.

Other Versions:
(Mainly minor changes)

Transience

"transience

ˈtranzɪəns/

noun

1. the state or fact of lasting only for a short time; transitoriness.

   "the transience of life and happiness""

Originally untitled and intended to be themed around a girl made out of water, I tried many different versions before I settled on an inverted version - however the colour change meant that the girl no longer looked like water however maybe rot, something that is falling apart and disappearing.

Other versions:

Cat Cult

This piece started off as an experiment with brushes, starting with the blue flames and the oddly textured moon in the background. The cat was the first thing that sprung to mind, and I wanted to go with a simple style - it was then that I realised I draw a lot of cats, so am now a part of the cat cult. Feline divine.

(This was the original however I felt the black outline held it together)

Characters Module Artist Views Pt 3

Kelly Johnson

Freelance illustrator and fine artist based in San Diego, CA. She works with a mixture of both digital and traditional media. Her work has a very grungey feel to it through the use of earthy colours and dark tones. I really like the style in which she creates and develops her characters.

( Behance )

Sergi Brosa

A freelance illustrator based in Barcelona, Spain. A lot of their work themes around postapocalyptic scenescapes and desert wastelands. Heavy usage of digital media is seen throughout their portfolio, which is interestingly put together to show a good portion of developmental work - it can really be appreciated how much effort is put into each piece. What I find most favourable about their work is the portrayal of female characters in strong, often intimidating, poses and behaviours.

( Behance )

Characters Module Artist Views Pt 2

Little Paper Forest

A freelance illustrator based in Toronto, Canada. Her work uses the style of papercutting which includes mainly block colours - a very minimalistic style. I feel I am attracted to her work as I really appreciate the style of papercutting and how much effort needs to be put in from my own attempt at doing the same a few weeks back.

( Behance )

Pam Wishbow

Illustrator based in Seattle, WA. Her work has a punkish feel to it with a crude drawing style coupled with a passion for complementary colours - many of her pieces feature opposing colour schemes. I'm trying to take influence from this work to broaden my horizon past monochrome, a colour scheme I have settled with for quite a while now. 

( Behance )

How can you prevent yourself from infringing on other peoples' copyrights?

Always give credit where credit is due is the most important thing to remember - if you see something which eventually largely influences your work, make sure any original artists are credited for their influences, even if the work is not in the same category as yours (i.e. as an illustrator you take influence or ideas from a literary piece).

With access to photoshop and illustrator being widely available, the act of "tracing" is now becoming very common - this is where you take an image and use its outline with little to no modifications and redesign it as your own. This is extremely common with websites like deviantArt (which is not the best place to find inspiration by any means).

You cannot copy an artists style entirely and call it a reference - you need to be able to create your own works and if your work is near indistinguishable from another artists' work, you may find yourself in trouble.

How can you protect your work through copyright if it is an automatic right?

If your work falls under design and you are granted automatic copyright protection, how can you further ensure your work is not stolen? For most, the very first and obvious option would be signatures - if your work contains your signature, it becomes obvious when someone tries to steal it that it is not theirs.

However, this is not super effective, as it is very simple to remove a signature without detracting from the whole piece unless you sign right in the middle of your artworks - which is where the phrase "watermark" comes into play. A watermark is a body of writing pasted over any artistic work that is difficult or impossible to remove without ruining the piece (example below). It is usually translucent.

However, many artists believe that this detracts largely from their piece and so prefer not to use watermarks.

It is for this reason that it is useful to have a bigger following - if there are more eyes that recognise your work, there are more eyes to see when it is being used in other forums without your permission. Otherwise, it is best to keep your eyes open, if you post your work on social media you need to be vigilant in your search and attempts to protect your work.

Image taken from:
shutterstock.com

Copyright; Categories of Protection

As mentioned in the brief summary, design is one of the categories of copyright protection; however there are others starting with;

Patents

Patents are more based around inventions and engineering as opposed to artistic or literary creations. This form of copyright protection is not free, but without it, your creation is not protected against anyone who steals and recreates it. It will take any time up to and after 18 months of submitting any original applications for your patent to be valid but typically takes around 3-4 years. It lasts for 20 years after completion and it is completely up to you to defend and keep your patent up to date. It is strongly advised you do NOT release your creation into the public forum before it is patented, even if your application is in the works, nothing can be done if someone else takes it and recreates it.
To be eligible for a patent, your product must meet two conditions - first, it must not have been publicly disclosed anywhere globally prior to beginning your application. Second, it must be its own thing - it cannot simply be a remake or slight modification of something that already exists.

Trademarks

Examples of property under the category of trademarks would be any company names, slogans, jingles and logos - it mainly falls around company image and association. Much like patenting, trademark registration is costly - only the design category of copyright is free. It is a standard online application however fees do not guarantee a successful registration. For a trademark to qualify, it must distinguish any goods or services offered by your business from someone else's.


Information taken from:
ipo.gov.uk/types/copy/c-about.htm
acid.uk.com/what-is-intellectual-property-ip.html

Copyright Brief

This post sums up copyright and intellectual property as a whole, in the following posts I will take a more in depth look at different points.

The intellectual copyright law prevents other people and companies from using your work without your permission - that being said, artists do sometimes offer a creative commons licence which allows people to use their work if not for commercial reasons (they do not gain profit from using this work). It is used to protect an actual result, not an idea; if you had an idea for an artwork or a book (just two examples of creations) and someone else created the piece, there is nothing you can do about it; you have no grounds to stand on in a court of law.

For artistic creations, copyright is an automatic right - there is no charge nor need to apply for any kind of paperwork to have intellectual property protection. This falls under "design" category of property protection - there are two others, patents and trademarks (which I will discuss later).

Other areas protected by copyright laws are:
The names of any products or brands you own
Any inventions you create
Design or aesthetic of any of your products
Anything you write, create, or produce

It covers both 2D and 3D artistic creations

For artworks, copyright laws only protect work for 70 years after death - this usually results in a sudden surge of artworks being produced in clothing, pottery, etc. around 70 years after a popular artists' death (i.e. John Tenniel's illustrations being sold on cups in Whittards).

You own the rights to buy, sell, and licence any intellectual property that you have, however if you take a case to court and the judge finds the defendant's work funny, they will receive no charge under the law of parody.

Source(s) of information:
ipo.gov.uk/types/copy/c-about.htm
Notes taken from lecture delivered by Amy Dover.

Characters Module Artist Views Pt 1

_moon

An illustrator based in Nantes, France - some influences for her work come from a background in both fine art and illustration. Most of her works rely on a monochromatic scheme using black inks though some do hold colour. Though I have been focusing on broadening my horizons and looking at a variety of style, it is this style that I favour over anything else - the sketchy style, almost scratchy, and the atmosphere built up through mainly a use of line is the kind of style I'm very interested in.

( Behance )

Ricardo Zema

A digital illustrator based in Faenza, Italy. His works contain mostly a use of neutral or calmer tones with maybe a few splashes of vivid colour - it sets an eerie atmosphere and, despite its cutesy subjects, offers up an unnerving image at times. What draws me to him most as an artist is the ability to create smooth toning despite a wide use of block colours.

( Behance )

Animals Module Artist Views Pt 3

Naomi Butterfield

An artist based on NYC, Brooklyn, however originally from Los Angeles. Her works are both a mixture of monochromatic or beautifully coloured imagery - however vivid colours do not detract from the horror/macabre style that her work boasts. A twisted imagination shows through these works, and it definitely feels like the sort of artistic direction I would like to take myself.

( Behance )

Ana Stefaniak

An illustrator and animator based in London, UK. Her illustrations take on a more crude/naive style with a range of pastel colours - however to contrast this innocent style is imagery suggestive of more illuminati or occult style themes, often featuring third eyes and other references. This creates a very strange atmosphere relative to the current 'pastel grunge' trend, and is something I take interest in.

( Behance )

Animals Module Artist Views Pt 2

Paulina Mocna

A fine arts influenced illustrator based in Wroclaw, Poland. Could not find much information on them, however looking at their work it seems they mostly work with prints (could be either screen or mono printing). The minimalistic style relies heavily on shape and line to create its desired effect. My own work tends to lean to a more dark side - even if it's not obvious, and there are subtle hints of such a style within Mocna's work that I feel like I can relate to and appreciate.

( Behance )

David G. Ferrero

An illustrator/art director based in Gijon, Spain; he has a great interest in character designing and cartooning, something that definitely reflects in his work. His pieces boast an unusual style - simple figures and shapes with vivid colours however toned down by a gritty overlay or filter which brings an almost sinister or darker tone to his work. I feel his work almost seems to be an animation, even if it is just stills, which is an interesting effect that I find favourable.

( Behance )

Animals Module Artist Views Pt 1

Andrew Fox

A freelance illustrator based in London, UK. His work is unusual in that many of his series are created through the sole usage of a calligraphy pen - very short pieces however effective in their style. These simplistic designs are well suited for business cards. As a part of my own influences, I'm looking a lot more into simpler pieces - its this minimalist design though coupled with ingenuity through use of materials that draws me to Fox's work.

( Behance )

Juliana Cuervo 

An illustrator and 2D animator currently working in Buenos Aires, Argentina. A use of simplistic colouring styles coupled with additional detail through line creates an interesting effect in these cutesy illustrations. This naive illustration style is very attractive to me - the aesthetic of rough textures and hastily drawn line is something I feel I could maybe look more into.

( Behance )

Reportage Module Artist Views Pt 3

Ilaria Proietti

A freelance graphic designer/illustrator with a penchant for character design, so most of their reportage work focuses on the observation of people as compared to buildings and locations. A fine art influence leads to a series of interestingly styled drawings and colour themes - not to mention pattern, finely displayed in the first image, is the first thing that caught my eye about these images.

( Behance )

Rhiannon Ladd

Based in East Grinstead, UK. She has a passion more for painting and as a hobby takes up another craft (sewing cushions). Her reportage features full colour detail resembling that of almost a graphic novel style through boldly applied colour and outline. Her reportage work almost boasts a feel of Britishness, a concept of national identity that I find appealing.

( Behance )