And this is why copying is BAD. [Update 09/03]

[DollyKim]

All this and we haven't even seen your art we're talking about!

[embyquinn]

Okay, you asked for it. None of this stuff is newer than 2004ish, and some of it is ten years older than that. I'm warning you, this is all from Gatchaman, most of it involves my OC, and there is a whole hell of a lot of Condor snogging involved. Some of the pics won't make sense unless you've read the associated fics. A lot of the images are scaled for a display of 640x480. Yes, they are old. THEY ARE WINDOWS 3.1 OLD. Still, I was proud of them at the time, and as I said before, they are still precious to me, although I have long since improved my art skills.

The seriously old stuff, hand-drawn, scanned, then colored on computer: http://embyquinn.tripod.com/gatchaman/fanart1.html

The newer stuff, most of it created completely on my computer: http://embyquinn.tripod.com/gatchaman/fanart2.html

[DollyKim]

Worth the look

I still can't do anything that looks Tatsunoko and I've been watching it on or off forever.

[Carrillo]

If what you did made her go out of her way to react to it you must have done something right.

*to add
Attention ALL artists!
You sure have seen this post. (link) It has spread like wildfire over the past few days so I doubt there is any artist out there who hasn’t seen it. But even if you didn’t, you should read on because I’m about to tell you a handy little thing that can help you to protect your art from such assholes as the anon who submitted this bullcrap, as well as art thieves in general.

The magic word is Metadata.

Metadata is like an invisible signature that is embeded into a file. It can contain all kinds of information, like Title, date, keywords for online seach engines, and copyright information. And the best thing is, since this information is “hidden” in the code of your picture, it’s hard to remove it.

There is a nice basic tutorial on how to add Metadata, or “additional file information” to your images in photoshop. It’s really, really easy so check it out!

“Adding Your Contact And Copyright Info To Your Photos With Photoshop” on PhotoshopEssentials.com

I’m not sure if you can do the same with any other art program. If you know how to do this in other programs / can confirm that it works the same way there, please tell me so I can add the information to this post.

Adding the Metadata will not stop idiots from taking and reposting your art. It also won’t make them stop editing out your signature. It WILL however, help you prove that you are the original artist whenever you have to.
Always remember my friends. You, the artist, are protected by law. No one has the right to take your intellectual property and hard work and repost, use or edit it without your permission. Ever.
infinipede
art thief: well how can you prove its yours??

me: /opens metadata
(NSFW image in ASCI)

Sadly, metadata is very easy to remove. Metadata strippers exist on desktop and mobile, and they can strip out all or selected exif data. One interesting tip I read was never to post the full resolution image if you don’t need to. They can increase image size but they can’t get back data removed from lowering resolution. If you ever need to prove it’s yours, highest res wins. Not sure how practical that is, though.