I’ve been following lots of links lately to “64 FREE and Beautiful Photoshop Brushes!” or “100 of the BEST FREE Vector sites online!” and I’ve been seeing lots of amazing and inspirational work by really talented artists. But what I’ve also been seeing a lot of in these compiled-resource lists is links to resources which are not licensed for commercial usage. And unfortunately those are not resources I would ever download.

As a sometimes-content-creator/provider myself, I understand the desire to have ones work recognized, and the hesitation to release that work into the wild for anyone (corporations, creepy porno people, etc.) to make free use of. That would suck. But at the same time, as a content USER and a freelance designer, I can’t take a risk in downloading something non-commercial that I might accidentally use in a paid project. (And I think we all know that I am not organized enough to keep separate databases of free-for-commercial-use and not-free-for-commercial-use products. Especially when it comes to something like Photoshop brushes, which are too hard to keep in order anyway.) Nor do I want to be in the position of having the perfect resource at hand but having to explain to the client “Yes, well I can use this image in your ad, but we have to have a link back to contentProviderX’s Deviant Art page.”

Since the content I create is for my own pleasure and education, and because I do not aspire to ever become a paid creator of art-related resources, I don’t restrict or limit usage of the resources I create.

For those who do make money from the content they create, I would think that any freebie is released as a teaser, in order to help publicize the paid content. If so, the goal is to maximize downloads and usage of the resource to get as much exposure as possible and to introduce the end-user to your products, which they may want more of. Limiting the usage to non-commercial leads to fewer downloads (from people like me, at least) and less exposure for your work. It also prevents me from ever discovering that you make the best brushes I’ve ever used, or that I can’t live without your vector scrollwork files.

For those who are strictly hobbyists and create resources purely for their own pleasure and that of their peers (and/or the name recognition that goes along with being a premiere freebie creator) I can understand a BIT more the instinct to keep your work non-commercial. You’re a hobbyist, your friends are hobbyists, you don’t want commercial entities coming in and misappropriating something you have a passion for. And you want to KNOW, darnit, when someone uses your product. As a 3D hobbyist myself I do understand that, but would still rather have my products downloaded and used as much as possible, even if I don’t know about it. If it brings more people into my hobby, or it helps someone sell a product, then I think there’s been some positive benefit. To me that’s at the root of the instinct to create and share. To make people happy, to be part of something bigger, to learn and grow as an artist.

I regularly buy content created by both amateurs and professionals, and I would never say that I (or anyone else for that matter) “deserve” free commercial-usage product. That’s not my point. But I would encourage those who release freebies out into the wild to go ahead and release them for commercial use. You’re needlessly limiting your user-base and cutting out a lot of professionals otherwise. And I would encourage those who compile these “BEST FREE VECTOR RESOURCE” lists, which are so popular on Digg and Reddit at the moment, to make clear that you are linking to non-commercial-use licensed wares. If you don’t know the difference yourself then you need to learn it, and if you do know and mix and match commercial and non-commercial freebies you’re just wasting my time.

I’ve been following lots of links lately to “64 FREE and Beautiful Photoshop Brushes!” or “100 of the BEST FREE Vector sites online!” and I’ve been seeing lots of amazing and inspirational work by really talented artists. But what I’ve also been seeing a lot of in these compiled-resource lists is links to resources which are not licensed for commercial usage. And unfortunately those are not resources I would ever download.

As a sometimes-content-creator/provider myself, I understand the desire to have ones work recognized, and the hesitation to release that work into the wild for anyone (corporations, creepy porno people, etc.) to make free use of. That would suck. But at the same time, as a content USER and a freelance designer, I can’t take a risk in downloading something non-commercial that I might accidentally use in a paid project. (And I think we all know that I am not organized enough to keep separate databases of free-for-commercial-use and not-free-for-commercial-use products. Especially when it comes to something like Photoshop brushes, which are too hard to keep in order anyway.) Nor do I want to be in the position of having the perfect resource at hand but having to explain to the client “Yes, well I can use this image in your ad, but we have to have a link back to contentProviderX’s Deviant Art page.”

Since the content I create is for my own pleasure and education, and because I do not aspire to ever become a paid creator of art-related resources, I don’t restrict or limit usage of the resources I create.

For those who do make money from the content they create, I would think that any freebie is released as a teaser, in order to help publicize the paid content. If so, the goal is to maximize downloads and usage of the resource to get as much exposure as possible and to introduce the end-user to your products, which they may want more of. Limiting the usage to non-commercial leads to fewer downloads (from people like me, at least) and less exposure for your work. It also prevents me from ever discovering that you make the best brushes I’ve ever used, or that I can’t live without your vector scrollwork files.

For those who are strictly hobbyists and create resources purely for their own pleasure and that of their peers (and/or the name recognition that goes along with being a premiere freebie creator) I can understand a BIT more the instinct to keep your work non-commercial. You’re a hobbyist, your friends are hobbyists, you don’t want commercial entities coming in and misappropriating something you have a passion for. And you want to KNOW, darnit, when someone uses your product. As a 3D hobbyist myself I do understand that, but would still rather have my products downloaded and used as much as possible, even if I don’t know about it. If it brings more people into my hobby, or it helps someone sell a product, then I think there’s been some positive benefit. To me that’s at the root of the instinct to create and share. To make people happy, to be part of something bigger, to learn and grow as an artist.

I regularly buy content created by both amateurs and professionals, and I would never say that I (or anyone else for that matter) “deserve” free commercial-usage product. That’s not my point. But I would encourage those who release freebies out into the wild to go ahead and release them for commercial use. You’re needlessly limiting your user-base and cutting out a lot of professionals otherwise. And I would encourage those who compile these “BEST FREE VECTOR RESOURCE” lists, which are so popular on Digg and Reddit at the moment, to make clear that you are linking to non-commercial-use licensed wares. If you don’t know the difference yourself then you need to learn it, and if you do know and mix and match commercial and non-commercial freebies you’re just wasting my time.

Found a cool tutorial here, and this is the result.

The result isn’t the same as the one in the tutorial because the shapes I used were more delicate, they don’t seem to wrap around her face very much. I really liked the curling, peeling effect the tutorial image had, but I wanted to create something which wasn’t exactly the same. Of course, this technique could just as easily have been applied to a render, but I worked with a stock photo for expediency. My favorite part is the strawberry, I think that looks pretty cool.

Everyone is now just totally, seethingly jealous of my awesome, autographed-by-Neil-Gaiman Todd Klein print which arrived in the mail today!

So there!

I kind of want to live in this world. At least parts of it. Not so much the parts where the giant sports things wallop world monuments with baseball bats, but this part:

feels like me.

and this just made me laugh:

via: Where Photography Meets Illustration | Design You Trust™. World’s Most Famous Social Inspiration.

the artist is Dmitry Maksimov and his website is http://tebe-interesno.livejournal.com

Some things are amazing for the time you’re in. They speak to you in profound ways, and you learn from them. Later they don’t mean as much, they don’t apply anymore.

Other things are timeless in relation to your life. They’re half memories, half perfect expression of things you will always feel. Some books, some songs, some quotations, some poetry, it’s just always going to grab you and sound amazingly true, resonate deep in your soul.

I think that Pride & Prejudice will always be, for me, the perfect written description of what it feels like to be a smart girl in love.

Cocteau Twins’ “Blue Bell Knoll” will always be the sound of how lonely it is to love someone you can’t be with.

Jerry Uelsman’s artwork is always going to be what I think the inside of my imagination looks like.

I think that The Weepies are going to be that way for me too, with all their songs about what it’s like to be sensitive, smart and lonely. Afraid of the world passing you by, afraid to take part in it, afraid it’s not really your choice anyway.

Perhaps a bit less profound, but still resonant, is the song “Wild” by Poe (lyrics after the jump) I first fell in love with this album (Haunted) in 2000, and it’s never really been out of rotation since then. It’s so throbbingly angry, so wounded and defiant, I love it. Every so often I need it, too.

Listen here.

Continue reading »

This is fun. I forgot what that felt like.

(full size at Rendo)

This is fun. I forgot what that felt like.

(full size at Rendo)

Playing with another cemetery image, this one I even “finished” and posted at Rendo.

Here’s the edited:

and original:

See the full size here.

Playing with another cemetery image, this one I even “finished” and posted at Rendo.

Here’s the edited:

and original:

See the full size here.

Most of my Savannah pictures were (by necessity) taken in daylight. For, while I am very bold, I am not quite so bold as to go wandering around remote graveyards alone at night in strange cities.

I’ve been playing with turning some of my day pics into night pics, because it pleases me to do so and because in the absence of any real creativity I might as well at least improve my technique. There was a great tutorial in an old issue of Creative Arts about day to night shots, but I can’t be fussed to go digging through all my old magazines to find it. So I just winged this and am mildly satisfied. Masking trees is such a PITA, and that’s where this image really falls down IMO. For your perusal: (and anyone knowing how I can embed rollover image code into my blog posts will be heartily thanked.)

OK, so I am unwilling to spend $750 on a creepy snow globe (though I still wish their website made it clearer how to obtain one of those prints they’re rattling on about) but I am ready, willing and able to spend $35 on two really great-looking Todd Klein prints related to Neil Gaiman-y topics.

These are going to look great when framed and hanging in my library and were a good birthday gift to me. Which does not preclude my buying more gifts for me - I need to make that point clear - only that these were A good self-gift.

For those who are wondering because they do not already know, my birthday begins in August and runs the whole month, enabling me to buy whatever I want and do pretty much whatever I want, whining plaintively when I don’t get my way “But it’s my BIRTHDAY!” and then looking around to see if anyone is taking notice of me. The only one I know who puts up with that is MyTodd™, and he is a trifle deaf in one ear.

Ooooh! Happy thought. How nice will these look when framed and hanging in my library in close proximity to my much-adored Vincent Marcone print? Mmmmm. Oh I just got an art happy to go with my book happy from last night.

All of this goes to show that it pays to be more diligent in actually reading the feeds in my Google Reader. When I do read them (in this case Neil Gaiman’s blog) I learn the most fascinating things and enjoy new opportunities to Support the Economy.

However I must say that my closest friends, both online and offline are all completely lackadaisical, procrastinating bloggers. That’s tiresome to me for two reasons. A) It deprives me of the opportunity to read their musings and Support the Economy in ways they suggest, and B) It means I have to seek them out and connect with them in ways which are much less passive. Frankly, if they weren’t my friends I doubt I would bother. *ahem* Very sloppy, people, very sloppy.  So here’s the question: Do I choose friends of a sort who are unlikely to blog and also basic Luddites? Or do they become that way once they’re my friends? One theory is more soothing to the part of me which believes it influences all the events around me, the other is more soothing to the part which believes everything’s just going to happen the way it happens, unordered, unreasoned and unstoppable.

Bonus question: Why is there always a major construction project on my street when I take a day off?

Oh, goodness bless people who speak English as second language.

:: Muchy Fairy ::
:

Fun toy for the day, take a bunch of words (or your delicious tags/links) and have wordle turn them into a fun, artful tag cloud. Save it to their gallery or print.

Pretty! Mine looks like a shoe!

Wordle

I can’t believe how little I use ANY of my 3D apps anymore (or all the nice, spare money I have lying around now that I don’t) but I especially can’t believe how little I use D|S.

I barely opened 2.1 and now 2.2 is here. Which means a ton more downloads, figuring out what’s broken, what the new features are, what plugins I am missing, what old scenes/lights won’t work now, etc. And that’s all before I even think about rendering anything. By the time I’ve got it loaded up and sorted out, it’s time for me to hit the hay.Then the next time (a month later) that I think “Oh, I will render something!” there’s a whole NEW version out.

Not to say I am anti-development, but I just can’t keep up with the changes. For someone who used to eat, breathe and sleep mesh, that’s a weird feeling.