Liechtenstein copied, too.
Spotted via Simon Jones at Icarus Publishing, a blogger going by "animekritik" talks about another famous manga artist who got caught tracing some years back, Kaoru Fujiwara, who drew adult manga (such as the anthology titled "Fetish," which got the blogger interested in the first place).
The blogger elects not to address the ethical or legal issues, but talks instead about how such inter-medium theft can in fact make the work seem as or more powerful than the original; he(?) also compares it to sampling in the music biz-- as a Daft Punk fan, the blogger prefers the DP tracks t the originals most of the time. (Of course, DP also credits and pays royalties for those samples.)
It's a pretty interesting piece and well worth the read, especially any of you who are studying or hoping to work in a visual medium. Fair warning: there are photos with boobs in them in the post-- the fashion photos and the art derived from them, like this one.
Setting aside the ethics of tracing, sampling, etc. here, what do you think? Can a trace, as altered by the artist, be stronger than an original photograph or drawing? Can a song with music samples be better than the song it samples from?
Absolutely.
Alex Ross isn't a tracer because he doesn't hide that he uses models to create his work.
I think tracing is at its worst when someone uses it as a shortcut or to hide their lack of talent.
Isn't there some famous quote that goes "Good artists copy, Great artists steal."?
Original:
I only changed the lights and colors and added some fog/smoke effects. Perhaps is it better or not partially a matter of preference...especially because of my somehow crude work on altering it.
In short: it's either a hit or miss. If the one modifying and using the image messes with the parts making the picture especially good then it's a miss. If the he/she ends up strenghtening the main assets of the picture and may also ends up adding new and good meaning to it then it's a hit.
All depends on the luck and the skill of the one modifíing it.