It has been a pet-peeve of mine for a very long while now, and as much as I've tried ignoring the problem but it doesn't seem to be getting any better, and frankly I am very confused about dA's rules concerning the matter. As far as I can see the rules seem to be in contradiction with other rules of DeviantArt.

I am talking about Vector tracing.

I had written a journal entry regarding this matter some time ago and there was some confusion as to what I was really getting at.

I am sick and tired of searching the Deviant Art archives for certain anime titles only to receive literally hundreds of Vector drawings that are nothing more than traces of either official art, screenshots or magazine scans. I am not referring to Vector tracings of photographs, or things sketched by hand first, or collaborations where one person drew the image and another person vectorized it. I am referring specifically to vector traces of anime screenshots, official art or magazine scans or something along these lines. I am sorry, but no mater how look at it, it is NOT art. Even if it took you hours and hours to trace the original, blow it up etc etc, it still doesn't make it art.

In my experience vector tracers have hundred and one excuses to validate their traced images. from "dA says it's ok" to "I upload it to dA because photobucket scales down images" to "I tend to get a very positive response for making traces"
It doesn't matter HOW true these statements are, it is STILL not art. Unless you have a written letter from the original artist who physically drew the original image (not the company who owns the character, the actually artist who drew that individual frame, official art, magazine picture) can it even come close to being validated as "art".

Now this opens a whole line of questioning about how vectorizing takes a great deal of skill. This may be true (I for one have a very difficult time using vector based programs short of Flash) and yes it takes more than the casual first time fanartist to create a rather good vector trace, but the sad truth is that when it comes to tracing some-one else's art, how good it looks does not matter. Tracing is tracing and it is Art theft.
A year or more ago there was the big scandal involving Disney-Bubbles' art and how 90% of her gallery ended up being traces of screenshots, colouring books, official art, packaging and other images created by other artists for the Disney company. She was severely reprimanded for this by absolutely every-one on dA, the people who watch her as well as the dA staff. Now her traces were of a very good quality and she had a large fanbase, but in the end her traces were severely frowned upon by the dA staff as well as the community.
Now I do not understand why she got such a harsh time for her traces but the site is completely littered by traces who openly ADMIT to being traces and yet nobody seems to even care, and others even commend them for it. Now I admit that often I will see a vector trace and find it very appealing, but finding out that the artist who submitted it merely traced it and had no hand in the actual creation of the image leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth, and then then to find that same image to have over 200 faves attached to it I can only throw my hands in the air.

Now dA has strong rules against art theft and image tracing of other artists, so why are these anime vector traces allowed? the sad truth is, because they are popular and this is the biggest double standard I have had the misfortune to encounter here on dA. Art theft is frowned upon, but vector tracing of Anime is allowed because 1: it is so very popular with a certain fanbase and 2: anime isn't really created by REAL people now is it? oh yes it's all created by robots or something. it' too GOOD to actually have been done by a REAL artist so it's not technically Art theft </sarcasm>
This may be a little harsh though and perhaps there are a lot of paragraphs and loopholes involving this as far as the DeviantArt policy is involved.

but if you stripped away all these extra toppings and added footnotes and loopholes one is left with this:
The site is becoming littered with images, TRACED, not created, and no-one is DOING anything about it.

I expect to get a lot of negative comments on this article but I'm afraid it is the truth. You can validate it any way you want, and defend it to th death, but vector tracings of anime screenshots, artwork and magazine scans is NOT ART

Please. can we not DO something about this? this is suppose to be a community for artistic creativity, not an Otaku fest.




and it makes me feel a little cheap to ask but if you agree with my article or you have some other points or information regarding the matter (even if it goes against what I have said) please share it.

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And just to illustrate my point, here are some of the vectors in question I'm referring to
(to the artists of these, this is not a personal attack, I am just using these images to make my point) :











LASTLY! I feel I should give a shout out to the REAL vector artists out there. You guys are great and I'm not referring to you or your art in any way in this article


and on a less serious note, this is my first news article, so I apologise if it isn't the best.