The Art of Stealing

An unfortunate situation has been forced upon me, one I never thought I would have to deal with. Thanks to an informative post here on my blog from artist Bob East, I learned that a person by the name of Mark Bruton was suspected of stealing a digital painting I did of John Wayne. So I began to investigate, and this is what I found:

My initial reaction was that a mistake had been made. It seemed that this person had simply used the same photo reference as I, but upon closer examination I discovered that Mark Bruton's John Wayne drawing was in my opinion an altered version of mine own.

It seems he has taken my painting off of my blog, drawn or painted on top of it, and put his name on it. What's more, he was selling it on his webpage.

Now, had it not been for Mark Bruton's lame attempt to dodge the blame in his response to the cease and desist order I sent him, I wouldn't be spending all this time and energy providing evidence of his obvious infraction against me. Mark writes:

". . . it is a well known fact that all artists [use] reference photos and others works. After comparing these drawings I can see how one might draw the conclusion that they are very similar. However mine has many color differences and others as well. Many artists have done renderings of this photo."

Nice try Lao Che! Here's my retort:

Not entirely obvious until you start to compare the simplified
shapes for the eyes, nose, mouth, and chin.

Notice the highlights on, and the general outline of, the nose,
and the graphic shadow shape of the nasal labial fold.
Also pay attention to the brush strokes in this region.

In my opinion, it doesn't get any more obvious than this.
The brush strokes are exactly the same. Also, notice that
the shirt in the reference photo is red while in both
drawings the shirt is blue.

And in case he still has doubts, here is a video of the two images superimposed together.

Some may say I'm coming down a little too hard on this guy. Perhaps, but take into consideration that I'm not the first artists he's stolen from. 75 percent of the art for sale on his web page was stolen from other people. He even had the audacity to put a copyright symbol on them.

Check out these blog posts from other's who have caught Mark Bruton stealing from them:

Emily's Caricature Sketchblog
Monty's Muse

The bottom line is that i believe Mark Bruton has stolen from me. This is my opportunity to expose his dirty deeds and hopefully he will get the hint that he is not welcome in the art community as long as he continues with his dishonest practices, especially if he's not going to be MAN enough to admit he's done something wrong.

If he really wants to do the right thing, this is my advice to him. Own up to your misdeeds, give credit where credit is due, and stop trying to profit off of other people's hard work. An apology would be nice too.

Working within the realm of honesty and integrity is the first lesson for an artist to learn. The second lesson is . . . simply redrawing or recreating another person's art DOES NOT MAKE IT YOUR OWN . . . legally, ethically, or artistically.

UPDATE - June 4th, 2010:

I've come across a few more examples of work that Mark Bruton has stolen from other legitimate artists. You may have to get out your Google Translator for some of these, Bruton's gone international:

Colectivo Bicicleta
Wittygraphy
Noticias De Cartoon
Bruton Facebook Fan Club

Also, It's been twelve days since my email and I have yet to hear back from Bruton. No witty retort, no defense, no apology. I guess this shows how "big" a man Mark Bruton really is.

More Digital Paintings

Here are a few more digital paintings. These are fairly old, all of them are from this past fall or earlier. Unfortunately I haven't been able to do any painting this summer becasue I've been so busy with thesis and other things. Maybe I can squeeze one in before school starts. In the mean time I hope you enjoy these oldies.

This is a poster I made as a final project for a diversity class at
Ringling. One of the benefits of taking liberal arts classes at a
fine arts school like Ringling is how easy it it to substitute a
quick art project for a five or ten page final paper.

I was so excited when all the promotions began for the new
Indy movie I had to grab one of the stills and paint this guy.
It's actually a full body pose but since I didn't finish it I
cropped the lower half out. And by the way, except for the
Tarzan scene, I liked the movie.

This one is probably the oldest of the three. It's also unfinished.
Since she's a faerie I intended to add wings, one of which was
supposed to be broken, hence the despair. I do intend on
finishing this one some day. I used photo reference for this painting.

This one I did for Jodie. It's her World of Warcraft character.
I've never played WOW before but I do know that this is a
Nightelf, and apparently her name is Guen. And yes, this is
one of few paintings that I've actually finished.

Another game related painting, except this one was done
as part of a seasonal mask design contest for Guild Wars
(another game that Jodie plays). This design got second place
so unfortunately it didn't make it into the game, but it did
supply Jodie with some cool Guild Wars merchandise.

Copyright © 2009 Matthew J Killian All Rights Reserved
The images and content in this post are protected

Digital Painting

Here are a few more digital paintings. These two were Christmas gifts for family members in 2007. Both were done using Corel Painter X and a Wacom tablet.

This digital painting is of the nativity scene. I used

reference from the film The Nativity Story.

For this digital painting of John Wayne I wanted
to pay tribute to Drew Struzan's awesome style.
He's one of my all time favorite painters.
Check out the link to his page in my links section.

____________________________________________

UPDATE - 12/30/11

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for all the comments and support of my work of the past few years, particularly the Digital Painting of the Nativity. As mentioned in the post, I painted it as a Christmas gift for my Grandmother who was in hospice at the time. Not long after that she passed away. That was 3 years ago and as far as I know it still sits in the hospice room where she died, hopefully giving comfort to others… especially during the holidays. A somewhat bitter-sweet story, but I couldn’t think of a better place for that picture to be.

Unfortunately, with all good there is also bad. Since I’ve posted this image it seems to have made its rounds on the internet. After a detailed search I’ve discovered some folks are using it for profitable reasons, and because of that I’ve decided to take the image down for the time being. If you’re familiar with my blog, you’ll know this isn’t the first time this has happened. The same also goes for all my other art. They will eventually be replaced with watermarked versions, hopefully to discourage folks from using them without permission.

That said, I would like to thank EVERYONE who actually went the ethical route and ASKED me BEFORE using this image. Unfortunately, since it’s caused so many problems, from this point on I will not be granting permission for anyone to use this painting in any form… other than for your own critique via my blog of course.

Thanks for understanding.

Matt

Copyright © 2009 Matthew J Killian All Rights Reserved
The images and content in this post are protected

Digital Painting

I figured I'd post some of my more recent artwork. These are some of my first digital paintings. All of these were created using Corel Painter and a Wacom tablet.

This is an unfinished digital portrait that I started
about 2 years ago. I doubt I will ever finish it.

This digital landscape was an exercise I did while
experimenting with Corel's brush library.

This was another Corel warm up exercise. Just some clouds.

Copyright © 2009 Matthew J Killian All Rights Reserved
The images and content in this post are protected