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And off the back of my slightly shouty Tweet I posted about someone flagging the guns on my character as inaccurate, a genuine PSA about weapons and militaria in art produced in the modern era. 1/
First thing's first, let's talk about the fact that there are lots of different types of art included in what I'm talking about: digital compositors, illustrators, 3D Render artists, and mixed medium, to name a few. I'm a 3D Render and Digital Composite artist. 2/
This means to a great extent, I'm beholden to what stock images exist, and what 3D resources are out there. Believe it or not, accurate, licensed, high quality images of certain guns don't exist for everything.
But there's more than that. 3/
But there's more than that. 3/
Sometimes, where images do exist they're 'Editorial Only' or some variation. This means that the manufacturer is okay for stock to exist for use by advertisers and journalists, but if you put it in your Urban Fantasy artwork, THEY WILL SUE THE SHIT OUT OF YOU. 4/
Sometimes stock or 3D resources do exist, but they're just too expensive. My Steampunk lady is a portfolio piece. That means nobody is paying me to produce her, and so there is a limit to the amount of money I can afford to spend on 'getting her right.' 5/
Again though, a search for accurate 19th century weapons didn't reveal much I could have used for this piece. Not everything exists out there, even on the internet, and it doesn't always exist in a useful angle. 6/
Perhaps there are pictures of your favourite gun on websites or museums, maybe the museum even offers images for free.
Museum pictures are not photographic studio images, they don't always have very good lighting, aren't always in focus, and sometimes have things in the way. 7/
Museum pictures are not photographic studio images, they don't always have very good lighting, aren't always in focus, and sometimes have things in the way. 7/
Not to mention licensing. Even artists who don't consider themselves professionals are wise to be concerned about licensing. You can't just rip an image from a manufacturer's site, and even that museum who offer what you want may not be okay with it being used in that way. 8/
Even when you can find a licensed image, that doesn't mean THAT ONE ARTIST has access to it. For example: I'm a member of @Depositphotos, @envato elements and @freepik Premium. If something is on Adobe Stock, Alamy, Getty or somewhere else, I may not be able to afford it. 9/
That's without things like Military Uniforms. For example: there's a military uniform in the pic I chose as the header for this.
That is why I will never be able to use this image commercially. 10/
That is why I will never be able to use this image commercially. 10/
This was a free image used from a free images site back when I wasn't being professional about my art. I'm happy to use it for this thread, because it's on social media and I'm not selling it. I probably COULDN'T use that image commercially because of licensing and copyright. 11/
And believe it or not, copyright is a huge issue if you're producing art with military uniforms. Even historical uniforms can be subject to fairly strict laws about what you can portray, and what vendors have permission to sell. 12/
Here in the UK, the Ministry of Defence have a whole department who will come after you if you sell or produce anything that violates their intellectual copyright, and that includes rank badges, campaign badges, medals and the like. 13/
Not to mention various laws around what US friends would call Stolen Valour that you can get into by having a model wear certain badges, ranks or medals.
If it's for a piece of art relating to history or seen as respectful, you may be okay, but that's a big MAY. 14/
If it's for a piece of art relating to history or seen as respectful, you may be okay, but that's a big MAY. 14/
Actual pictures of soldiers is another minefield. Not to mention the ethics of putting a real picture of a soldier on a piece of art. I'm very uncomfortable with that -- I feel easier about the piece above, because you can't really identify the soldier, but, 15/
(con't) I'd be really uncomfortable with putting a picture of an actual serviceperson in my art. It's not my place to trigger some poor bastard's trauma by putting up a silly image of them shooting monsters. 16/
Also, sometimes real soldiers really die, and as much as people are fond of yelling, "a two minute Google search!" you'd be surprised at how good governments can be at protecting the privacy of grieving families. Also, sadly not every dead soldier gets a newspaper article. 17/
Then there's the whole thing of models not holding weapons correctly.
Personally, I do try to stay away from poses that would break a model's wrist/arm/nose if they actually fired the weapon. HOWEVER 18/
Personally, I do try to stay away from poses that would break a model's wrist/arm/nose if they actually fired the weapon. HOWEVER 18/
(con't) do remember that guns in art are a lot like wangs in adult entertainment: if an image isn't specifically for technical purposes, it's more important that it looks good on camera than it recreates the reality of the act. 19/
And I know people will argue about this, but for very sensible reasons, the actual correct shooting stance for most firearms is really static.
Trust me, you'd get bored of seeing that in art much more quickly than you think you would. 20/
Trust me, you'd get bored of seeing that in art much more quickly than you think you would. 20/
Illustrators have it a lot easier for most of these points, but do remember: THEY HAVE TO CREATE EVERY STROKE OF EVERY ITEM IN THE ARTWORK, SO LAY OFF AND GIVE THEM SOME SPACE. 21/
Right, I think that's everything I can think of at the moment. Please share and comment 'Pink Rhinoceros' if you got to the end.
Deep love.
Jon
22/
Deep love.
Jon
22/
