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To clarify, I consider a 3D item to be a tool. While there is artistry involved in the creation of that tool, the item itself isn't a 'finished' product because it's reliant on the rendering stage to bring it to life.
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You use a rationale that makes no distinction between tools and content/assets and doesn't really have a basis in how 3d applications are structured. A tool is something created for a specific purpose. A paintbrush is specifically designed to apply paint. Likewise digital tools are coded to do specific tasks.
People use digital tools to produce content, the same way traditional tools are used to create pictures, sculptures etc. An easy way tell the difference between a tool and content is that content, with few exceptions, has to be loaded into the scene where a tool would be part of the toolbar/menu set. Giving someone a 3d model of the hulk is not equivalent to giving them a paintbrush; the equivalent would be giving them a picture of the hulk.
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Sometimes, I hear critics mention 'you used another person's mesh, textures, and scenes'. By that same logic, I will point out that a painter uses another person's paints, brushes, and canvas.
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Yeah, but it's an analogy based on faulty logic concerning tools. Using someone else's content is not the same as using their tools.
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So why should a digital artist be required to make their own models?
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I don't care if they do or not. To each his own. This is your personal belief, it's not for me to change your mind. It's just that you're labeling someone's actions as lazy and reprehensible for recycling their work, while defending your own use of other people's content with all these artificial and highly debateable distinctions about "finished product" and what constitutes a tool.
Blacklisted
"I'AM SATANS FAVORITE CHILD!!"
By that same token, would you consider 2D artists who trace their base image in the same boat? I'm referring to those like Boris Vallejo, some of the covers that Greg Horn has done, etc?
I personally think that this is a shortcut, and the art is in taking that and doing something great with it. Same with the 3D stuff....if I would take a 3D model, slap a costume on it that I've bought, and put it out there as one of my art pieces, I think people would rightly smirk. But if I worked up costume pieces my own and did post work on the thing, therein lies the artist's touch. That's how I separate something I might do from something people like Doug do - I don't have the talent to do the costume stuff and the post work.
My Deviant Art page link-link
CoH/V Fan Videos
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...You use a rationale that makes no distinction between tools and content/assets and doesn't really have a basis in how 3d applications are structured. A tool is something created for a specific purpose. A paintbrush is specifically designed to apply paint. Likewise digital tools are coded to do specific tasks....
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Ah. OK, I think I see where our different perceptions are in disagreement. You're differentiating between 'tool' (as in, part of a program) and 'content' (as in, an asset to be rendered).
I was certainly generalizing by calling any item used to make a different item a tool. Just as a hammer is used to make a house, I was considering a 3D model necessary to make a render... and thus referred to it as a 'tool' without regard to the proper terminology (where a tool is part of a program and not a standalone asset). I admit I often generalize my use of terms when debating 3D, using their more familiar colloquialisms for simplicity. I fall into that pattern mostly because newcommers to the 3D world aren't always familiar with the exacting use of such terms, and I didn't mean the resulting confusion.
Apologies to the able coders that skillfully provide tools for the constructioon of great 3D applications.
In Zbrush, the base image is called a 'tool'
/fuels3Dfire
/Battlewraith
The brushes, startup meshes, and user meshes are all labelled tools. And I can't tell you how much aggravation and confusion there has been in 3d circles over the years about what they meant by "tool". In terms of that program, calling it a tool made some sense because you could use a 3d mesh to paint on an object. For example you could model a branch with leaves and then paint it all over a sculpted tree trunk.
If you look at the most recent version of the software, they still call these things tools but the menus and folder conventions refer to them as meshes to a much greater degree. Also ZTools that are meshes are stored in content directories and are imported/exported exactly the same way as 3d assets in other programs.
tricky [censored]
Blacklisted
"I'AM SATANS FAVORITE CHILD!!"
I credit God when I do art, because He created the world.
Wow. Can't believe this argument is being brought up again....
Strawberry Poundcake | Hoi Polloi | Galaxy Adjutant Webb
Spookeriffic's Art on DeviantArt
Strawberry !! I love your avatar !!
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Strawberry !! I love your avatar !!
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Thanks 
Got permission from an artist on DA to use it.
Strawberry Poundcake | Hoi Polloi | Galaxy Adjutant Webb
Spookeriffic's Art on DeviantArt
and you got permission too , you are too cool for school you !! hey can you pm me the DA link for the artist im really digging the cuteness
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and you got permission too , you are too cool for school you !! hey can you pm me the DA link for the artist im really digging the cuteness
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And.... sent!
Strawberry Poundcake | Hoi Polloi | Galaxy Adjutant Webb
Spookeriffic's Art on DeviantArt
Well.
Seems this 'artist' has put his foot in it now.
Someone commissioned him to do a picture, the type of which he is quite known for. Very NSFW, rather, ahem, out there. The type of stuff that makes people in Pocket D run away to their momma.
But he said, he'd not draw a black person in it, as he doesn't draw them. Instead... he PERSUADED the client to allow him to change to ANOTHER ethnicity that he has no issues drawing... and they still paid him for it.
There was no rationale offered as to why, and he is ... singularly unapologetic. I mean, if there's a reason, then I'd be happy to listen. But nope! "get moar butthurt." Juvenile.
And no, if I'd commissioned the guy and he refused to make one of the characters the ethnicity that I wanted? I'd have said, "Yanno what? I know a few artists who'd be HAPPY to draw this as I'm specifying it. I'mma give THEM the commission."
So, as of today, no more of THAT. This 'artist' is off the watchlist.
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
Ai-yah.
That's both sad, and more then a little pathetic. :/
I'm still waiting for the day and age in which we're all, yanno. Beyond that sort of tripe. 
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...But he said, he'd not draw a black person in it, as he doesn't draw them...
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!!!
Are you kidding me?!?
I've seen artists pull a lot of strange and stupid stuff, but that takes the cake.
I'm strggling to think of a valid reason for that.
Does he need one? Just take him off the commission list. It's really the best way to hurt someone. Through the wallet.
http://www.virtueverse.net/wiki/Massacre_Melanie -the original Fire/Dark Corruptor -
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=115217
The Guide to BURN
[ QUOTE ]
Well.
Seems this 'artist' has put his foot in it now.
Someone commissioned him to do a picture, the type of which he is quite known for. Very NSFW, rather, ahem, out there. The type of stuff that makes people in Pocket D run away to their momma.
But he said, he'd not draw a black person in it, as he doesn't draw them. Instead... he PERSUADED the client to allow him to change to ANOTHER ethnicity that he has no issues drawing... and they still paid him for it.
There was no rationale offered as to why, and he is ... singularly unapologetic. I mean, if there's a reason, then I'd be happy to listen. But nope! "get moar butthurt." Juvenile.
And no, if I'd commissioned the guy and he refused to make one of the characters the ethnicity that I wanted? I'd have said, "Yanno what? I know a few artists who'd be HAPPY to draw this as I'm specifying it. I'mma give THEM the commission."
So, as of today, no more of THAT. This 'artist' is off the watchlist.
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Worse, his comment was "I don't draw N,,,,, I mean women of the black persuesion." Like I said, I always felt the guy was a strange duck but when someone makes views like that part of their pulic persona, I just ca't support that. I don't have any of his work faved anymore. Go read his journal, it's rife with his obessions with color and religion.
Where did they quote that?
That was a comment he made on his "other" account. As the Prof said, the image was "out there" but the racial comments were worse, imo. His DA page is pretty much the same except he uses comments like "apes" instead of the N word.
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Does he need one? Just take him off the commission list. It's really the best way to hurt someone. Through the wallet.
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If he makes views like that public, for me, yes he does need one.
Wow. Just... wow.
Yeah he's definitely on my blacklist for sure...
(and NO pun intended for sure!)
There's no excuse for that kind of hypocrasy.
But it's confusing as some of his pics, there has been some of more african american skin tones, that I recall. Perhaps I could be wrong but...
damn. That's crazy.
I checked, Rowr. Mostly Caucasian and Eurasian, if anything.
Oh well. there's LOTS of other artists. Some of them as ... out there... as this guy.
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
Yeah I'm pretty darn sure that if I wanted a piece that is 'out there' as he does I can find someone good enough to do it and do it better.
Not that I want a piece that is 'out there' but the option is still mine!
Candra, perhaps?
Her stuff is sublime.
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
Doug, I'd LIKE to think I've progressed beyond that. :P
You know, by actually positioning and tinting lights, pacing backdrops or set pieces, et cetera. My first renders were strictly amateurish floundering.
But I think my last one (sorry, NSFW, but I'm sure enterprising people can find it) was actually not too bad.... for no postwork.
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."