Separated at Birth? Or lightboxing?

[roseembolism]

Courtesy of rpg.net, we have two pictures: On the right, dante from Devil May Cry, and on the left, a picture from the new Hunter supplement from White Wolf.

What's amazing is not only that that this is so utterly blatent, but that the artist obviously thought nobody would notice what he'd done with a popular video game character. Maybe he had a right to do so (I for one couldn't tell Dante of DMC from Dante of Clerks), but he underestimated the eye for detail of the readers.

Fortunately, based on the response, some artist is not going to be working for White Wolf any more. Hopefully he'll have similar trouble in the rest of the rpg hobby.

Comments

[baronlaw.livejournal.com]

Unless his boss said something like "You know make it more like that video game guy, the one we play on our breaks".

[llamabitchyo.livejournal.com]

Wow. Dante's popular enough in his video games that he's a special guest character in other games. Couldn't the artist try to rip off someone a little more obscure?

[racerxmachina.livejournal.com]

Some years ago, when I pointed out that a game supplement's artwork had directly copied artwork from a fantasy illustrator I liked, you said I had no right to be upset about it, citing that there is no source image for a griffon, so the artist was justified in directly copying from the book. There were two pieces of uncredited artwork in the supplement. I remember this conversation because protecting the legitimacy of my pieces is important-- I do the research, look at photos and uncopyrighted source to base my work on as much as possible, cite copyright holders if my work is fanart of a game property or such, and I was disappointed that you defended their actions.

What is the difference here, exactly, that causes you to say that it is blatant? That White Wolf ripped off Capcom, and not a homebrew game cribbing from a fantasy illustrator? Were a game company to crib my work, would you say the same?

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

Did I? I honestly don't remember that conversation. In any case, it wouldn't be right in either case.

Now, if it were something like a medieval or even Victorian public domain art piece, there might be a case to be made, but not from anything that would still be under copyright.

[racerxmachina.livejournal.com]

ars brevis, wife's memory longa

[devonapple.livejournal.com]

Burn!

[mrteufel.livejournal.com]

I think calling the perpetrator an "artist" is probably stretching it. Each of the Conspiracy archetypes looks to be his work, judging by the 'artistic' splatter of ink over each. At best they appear to be collages (if you can call sticking a head on another body a collage); the illustration for Ascended Ones looks like another total trace job, if from some magazine rather than an artwork.

I hope his name gets passed around the other rpg companies, so they know better than to trust this individual again.

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

*pout* If I'm going to be mocked on my livejournal, I'll give it up. And take a long vacation. To Alaska.

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

Well, technically tracing could be considered artwork; I consider Andy Warhol an artist for example. But even in a marginal sense, there's a difference between using a tracing in an artistic context (as commentary, satire, or the like), and simply to make a buck. This clearly the latter case.

From what one of the editors at W.W. said, they were very unhappy, both about the tracing, and the fact that this went public before they could come up with a coherent response.

[mrteufel.livejournal.com]

You've got to be bloody quick to beat things going public in this day and age. Teh Interwebz make this sort of thing so easy to put into the public sphere.

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

That's the good thing; the bad thing is it's probably harder than it should be to convince people used to grabbing things to make into LolCat and motivational posters that this is actually a problem.

[mrteufel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I noticed that. :(