Maaaaaaaaaan it has been a while
I haven't even logged in for so long...
I wonder if there's anybody even still here from last time?
Things got weird, really weird.
I stopped logging in for a really long time because of some really petty drama, I don't really want to rehash that yet again but TL;dr turned out someone I thought I knew really well, guess I did not took out what I have come to realise was some pain she was going through on me. I could and should have handled the whole thing better too, but I guess that is how it is sometimes, I don't hold a grudge any more I just hope she's doing better, I know I am.
But yeah there have been great upheavals, it's funny that my last journal entry from 2010 talked about how my style had changed, and now I log in in 2022 and YIKES hahahaha!
I'm no longer at uni, I went through a fairly long period of feeling like I wasn't doing anything creative because I ended up doing work that wasn't directly tied to my degree. It was weird because I've been using skills I learned on it basically every day, but I felt like a failure because I wasn't in the fashion industry. I was also so burned out from everything going on in my life that I didn't have time to create for fun any more. I cringe at some of the things I have in my gallery here, but the majority of the things on here I made for fun because they brought me joy when I made them and I still value that, I missed that feeling for a long time. It didn't help that the place I live in has basically fallen down around me and I was left squishing everything I own into smaller and smaller spaces, and not able to move and leaving less and less space that I could fill with things that bring me joy. Really did a number on my mental health, physical too thanks to the constant damp problem. I'm still stuck there for now at least, but hopefully can move soon.
My mental health is getting better, my physical health has been slower, but it too is getting there. I'm trying not to pin everything on hoping I will have space to sew again soon (although I'd appreciate the crossed fingers), but I am finding time to do things that bring me joy again, and that's nice.
Turning over a new leaf
Two years ago it became perfectly ok to upload traces and manga scans.
Now I know some of you are fine with tracing, some of you do great things with traces and so long as the person whose art you traced is ok with it then it's not that big of a deal (though in my opinion you will never learn anything from tracing and your art will never improve from just drawing over the top of someone elses), but how exactly is scaning manga an art?
Today it has been decided that traces and "dolls" (traced bases made from drawing over the top of anime and manga scans, screencaps and art, often without the permission of the artist and distributed for anybody to use) shall now have their own sections and that it is now fine to trace without asking permission of the original artist.
I cannot and will not support art theft, which is why I have decided to no longer upload to deviant art.
Furthermore if, within seven days I am still as angered as I am now I will start removing the art I currently have uploaded (leaving anything that is currently in a contest).
At this time I have no plans to actually leave deviant art, I have a lot of friends on here and plan on continuing to follow their art.
Sigss xxx
And now onto some happier news
fav.me/d2y86ht
Update on tracer girl
Secondly not long after I reported a couple of the images I recognised someone else pointed out how similar one of them looked to a photograph of an alt model who when she did the trace wasn't all that heard of, but now five years later is pretty popular.
I've never made a complaint on DA before so I don't know if it was pulled by mods or if she deleted it herself but when I logged in a few days ago her entire gallery was gone (I certainly didn't report her whole gallery, just the images I had the originals of) and she'd made a journal about how her talent was under appreciated her and she was leaving.
I really did think of her as a friend even though I only ever talked to her online, and I really am pretty upset that she did this. I hope for er own sake she stays gone and doesn't make a new account and find another model to trace and claim as her own OC because I would hate for her to turn into one of those people that gets laughed at on Encyclopaedia Dramatica.
I guess the top and bottom is, tracing hurts the tracer because they're cheating themselves, the person whose art they're tracing and the people who care about them.
Hi there, I know you're tracing
I know you either won't read this or won't respond. You haven't responded to anything I've said in a long, long time now.
Anyway, I know you're tracing, kudos for taking the time to print the image out and trace over in pencil though!
Actually wait, you didn't even change the clothing colours, so as well as stealing someone's image you steal other people's designs?
Just on a weird off chance you didn't know, claiming "iiiiiiit's reference!" doesn't stop it being a trace.
Funny thing is, in the time since you started ignoring me completely, things have gone up in the world for me and I now know some pretty cool people, and the person whose photographs you've been drawing over?
I don't know her personally (yet), but I know people that do.
Funny old world isn't it...