Tracing

Tracing. I remember being about 9 when I learned it was not appropriate to trace. It was wrong to pull out someone else's photo or drawing and trace it and say change some hair color or whatever and say its your art. For better measure you're not really aloud to look stuff up on google and copy and image freehand and claim it as your own. copyright and all that. Well we all know this little website called etsy.com. I think its a great little store site and I'm thinking of setting up a page to sell some art and crotchet work. A friend of mine commissioned an invitation for a bachelorette party from an artist on the site. She sent her a 1940's style pinup and a picture of her friend to make and invitation. She just got the proof and showed it to me and asked what I thought was wrong with it. The artist took the image traced it with the pen tool, and block shaded acording to the initial piece of art which was not her own. This is how it at least appeared to me. There's a foreshortened arm in the piece that was traced from the original that looks basically like a fin. If you just trace something and don't really know or pay attention or understand how anatomy works you will end up with some screwed up stuff, like a fin arm. I'm angry that this person is out there taking other people's art and tracing it then selling it for money. I spent years of my life learning how to draw with my eye. You can't just sit there and put something like that out there for money without paying rights for the initial piece of art you strait up traced. It also brings all other pieces of art into suspect. Have you traced all your art from copyrighted images? Perhaps just traced them all from whatever you found on google? I thought maybe this person might not have gone to art school and had great teachers to tell her how copyright works, but no, a professional illustrator with a BFA from Herron in Indianapolis. Unacceptable. I guess most of her stuff is from photos she is sent, like of couples so the comissioner has the rights to it but straight up tracing another artists pinup I think is really ridiculous and wrong. I'm not a fan of tracing. I think its cheap. If you go out and stage a photo to take and use that I might accept it, but not just willnilly tracing. I don't know. Rubs me the wrong way