#but if you're doing someone's branding/merch/commercial work

[theminecraftbee]

-slamming bolt upright in a cold sweat- what do you mean verbal contracts cleo. what do you MEAN verbal contracts cleo. artists if you're doing commercial work you're A) charging much higher rates and B) making them SIGN A CONTRACT, right? right? you understand why that's VITAL, right? why having a written contract is VITAL for commercial work? you understand? you make them sign a written contract? please if you go looking in proper artist/graphic design circles i'm sure you can find a basic form that's legal in your locality and doesn't require you talk to a lawyer but if you're doing commercial work you're MAKING THEM SIGN A CONTRACT RIGHT--

#stream liveblogging #sorry someone in a chat in my discord mentioned cleo said they were using verbal contracts and my raised-by-lawyers self sat bolt upright #artists: you can get away with just an email chain with a noncommercial commission #but if you're doing someone's branding/merch/commercial work #you've both GOTTA charge WAAAAY more #and you've GOTTA have a contract #and you've GOTTA check out the rights stuff (hint: you aren't giving them perpetual rights to the design unless you're charging out the ass #i'm not an artist or a lawyer so i don't know the exact details of how this should go down but #ohhhhhhh my god. #anyway this isn't supposed to be discourse i am certain basically every youtuber does this. unfortunately. #and i don't BLAME the ones who have because they just probably hadn't realized/assumed the people they were commissioning would know #but i'm just losing my marbles for a moment don't mind me. #oh my god. #ANYWAY BACK TO MY NORMAL SCHEDULED POSTS--.

[genericpuff]

(about the bell post) i dont know anything about lore olympus but is there something inherently bad in using free stock images? like, thats what stock images are for right? i know that its probably lazy or whatever but is that the only problem? /genuine

Part of the issue with using stock photos is licensing. Like fonts, they're in abundance online and easy to snag for "free", but as soon as you enter commercial work, it becomes a legal minefield. Stock photos typically belong to either individuals or corporations that rely on people buying the rights to those photos to use them; if they don't, they could very well be sued for copyright infringement.

In that respect, emojis fall into a similar grey area. Some emojis are public domain/open source meaning they're free to use for everyone. But many are not. It's why different social media platforms and different phone providers use different emoji's - it's not purely for branding (though that is a factor as Facebook emojis have become distinguishable from Android emojis) but also for ownership.

So, in the legal sense, I do not know if the bell emoji that Rachel used in LO is legally hers to use, or if it's even subject to such laws (it could be an open source image meaning it's free-for-all). I'm hoping for her sake she's not breaking any sort of copyright ownership laws, but I'm also not a lawyer and wouldn't know how to get that information even if I wanted to lmao

Aside from the legal, it's also just... sigh I'm gonna get into more opinionated territory here, but even if something is open source, even if you're legally free to use a stock photo or other tool to create your comic, there's also the ethics/integrity of it. Lore Olympus is not a Canvas comic. It is not an indie hobbyist project. It's a commercial product with multiple people working on it behind the scenes, book deals, merch deals, a TV deal, and an upcoming feature at this year's SDCC, with Rachel headlining alongside Cassandra Claire (Mortal Instruments) and Jeff Smith (BONE). Webtoons is trying very hard to market LO as a 'flagship' series and convince the public that it can stand alongside other literature juggernauts.

What I'm trying to say here is, if Rachel did legally use it, it doesn't make it any less cheap. There's a lot of discussion in the art field over the usage of external tools and assets in art creation, especially here in the west. 3D models, AI shaders, gradient maps - there are tons of things that exist now that stand to benefit artists, but can be abused or used poorly, being used as less of a tool to benefit an artist with pre-existing skills and more as a cheap shortcut to circumvent actual skill/effort.

The bell emoji isn't the heart of the issue I pointed out in that post. If it were an isolated thing, if LO were an otherwise impeccable comic with high-effort art and just one little picture of a bell, it wouldn't be that big of an issue.

But LO isn't that comic. The recipe of its art development week after week has become very cheap and low-effort, and the bell is really just the cherry on top.

And just to make it clear, I do stand by artists being able to use tools that make their lives easier. None of this is to say it's wrong to use stock images, or 3D models, or gradient maps, or whatever have you. Those tools exist to help and can be used in fun and experimental ways to bring new perspectives and life to your work. And I'm not going to scrutinize whatever shortcuts are being used in a comic that's being made for free by a hobbyist or someone who's still learning.

But like all tools, there are still ways to use them to the detriment of your own work, either due to a lack of understanding as to how that tool works, or lack of effort to blend it into your work. It can make it glaringly obvious that third-party assets are being used, and can often distract from what you've drawn (the complete opposite of what most people are trying to achieve).

When I think of art shortcuts and tools being used poorly, I think of Let's Play and its stock photo background characters.

I think of Time Gate: [AFTERBIRTH]'s stiff default 3D models that result in lifeless poses and restricted body types, which I am VERY eager to move on from LMAO

I think of LO's 3D backgrounds with only 1-2 colors thrown in and the characters floating in front of them. Or sometimes no characters at all even when people are speaking.

And of course, I think of the emoji bell, which could have easily just been drawn as a door or an actual doorbell, and not some random grey bell copied and pasted from a Google search.

All that's to say, too much reliance on poorly-implemented assets can take a great piece of work down to a mediocre one. Of course, the assets definitely aren't the only issue with LO, but they are definitely a piece of the problem. There might not be anything 'wrong' with using assets, but they can still be used poorly or result in cheap-looking work and that's primarily what I'm calling out here.

#lore olympus critical #lo critical #antiloreolympus #anti lore olympus #ama #ask me anything #anon ask me anything #anon ama