Harry Potter week and Simpsons Week are now both over! (Seriously, stop sending me DD suggestions on those themes for a little while! If I put up one more from either of those fandoms, every other fandom is going to KILL ME!)

There was a great response to both weeks. Thank you so much for all your wonderful suggestions; I'm only sorry I could only choose seven of each! We're going to be featuring the usual broad variety of Fan Art picks for a while now, but if a really special event is on the horizon for YOUR fandom anytime this year, I'm not adverse to the idea of doing this again. Plead your case in Notes!

You know, I really expected you guys to be a bit of an unruly mob - I've seen what happens WHEN FANDOM ATTACKS - but so far you've been peculiarly well-behaved... which makes me wonder...

...You're PLANNING something, aren't you? I swear, if I get up tomorrow morning and find my userpage egged and toilet-papered, I'm coming after you all.



Art of any copyrighted character, or of an original character who lives in a copyrighted world, is Fan Art.

There's been some confusion over this, so to clarify, here are a few examples in the incredibly dorky Q&A style of Australian government-sponsored TV ads.

Q: "I am a professional comics artist and I want to upload my pencils / cover art / colour job of Batman up here. But I got paid to do this! So it's not FAN ART, is it?"

A: Yes. It's fan art. I know you got paid, but you're still drawing a character who belongs to someone else.

Explanation: Now, before you get upset over your art being 'degraded' by being placed in Fan Art, keep in mind that if someone is looking for some awesome Batman arts, the first place they're going to look is in Fan Art. If you want yours to be recognised as The Most Awesome (and they're paying you, so it probably is!), then Fan Art is where you want it to be. Give your fans a chance to find you.

Q: "I drew this gorgeous charcoal image of Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow. But I really did it to draw the actor (not because he's hot as a pirate - honest!). It's Art, not Fan Art! Right?"

A: Wrong! Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow is Fan Art. Heck, Johnny Depp as Johnny Depp is Fan Art.

Explanation: Sorry ladies, Johnny Depp is not (c) to you in ANY form. You may have drawn the most sensitive and spot-on portrait in the world, but if it's of a character or a famous actor, it's Fan Art, not Portraits. Cry not your tears! If you're a Serious Portrait Artist who loathes the thought of having a piece of work in Fan Art, take heart: that one piece could bring a whole new audience into the REST of your gallery, an audience who wouldn't have found you otherwise.

And if you REALLY loathe it, you can always rethink your policy on drawing incredibly popular mainstream movie stars.

Q: "My character is ORIGINAL! Sure, he hangs out with Sonic / is dating Gadget / kicked Starscream's ass, but I made him up completely! So that's not fan art, is it?"

A: Yep. Fan Art. Your character exists in a copyrighted world.

Explanation: There may be some debate over this one, but here is the sand, and here is the line we've drawn in it. Now, you can bend and twist and change a copyrighted world all you want, and eventually you might change it so much that none of the copyrighted characters remain in your story and the world is renamed, unrecognisable and completely different. In THAT case, you got yourself an Original Story, and I'm sure many great ones have started just like that. In the meantime, though, if your character lives in a copyrighted world or has a relationship with a copyrighted character - in other words, if yours is a derivative work (read: if you'd be sued for trying to make money off the art and stories you're doing now), that's definitely Fan Art.

Please feel free to pepper me with questions - I'm sure there's heaps of other valid examples I could include.

Also, some of you might want to throw rocks at me over this, but before you start, you should know that this isn't just me throwing my weight around - these guidelines were reached in tandem with the GDs of 'Cartoons & Comics', who face torrents of miscategorised Fan Art on a daily basis, and with the approval of $Moonbeam13. So you'd better make sure you've got plenty of rocks and a good throwing arm.

Remember, 'derivative work' is not an insult. It's your way of complimenting someone else's work; your way of supporting something that makes you happy. Bless you for being open enough to do that, and bugger all the rest of you snobs who think that 'Fan Art' is some kind of artistic slur.

(We need an emoticon for 'mooning'.)



Usually I can't think of anything to say here, but just prior to making this journal entry I was having an interesting discussion with a dA member over his concerns with what dA has become since it hit the big time. I've heard similar complaints and concerns from others and I'd like to take this opportunity to toss my own little thoughts into the maelstrom.

As far as the debates about the popularity of dA are concerned: If you're unhappy about dA's slow, inevitable entry into the mainstream, you are not alone. You are not the first to raise these concerns, nor will you be the last.

The fact is that every phenomenally popular online community has a "golden age" that early adopters can look back to and compare unfavourably with the reality of the current site. Heck, I was on Livejournal six years ago, back before the emo kids invaded. Now you can't innocently follow a link without hitting a journal with unreadable 1pt font size and allusions to cutting.

The thing about these golden ages is that often they're not as golden as we remember.

When something is truly good, and a great number of people recognise that, being pulled slowly into the mainstream is inevitable. The upside is that dA will have better servers, more organisation, better policing, more thorough policies, and less lag and downtime - all things people used to bitch and moan heartily about "back in the day". The downside is that, yes, now the emo kids and the rest of the mainstream have found this place too, and we're just going to have to learn to live with that.

If it makes you feel any better, think of the big picture - dA isn't the whole world. This 'mainstream' community here that you're feeling so cloistered by is a tiny, tiny fraction of the global community. And a big chunk of the world's population would still be disturbed and confused by the idea of an online art gallery that anyone can submit works to where people of all ages, races, sexes and levels of experience happily label themselves 'deviant'. We're still deviants all right - there's just more of us, and you have to step back a little further to see us all for what we are.

Don't worry! You're still a weirdo!

Your Friendly Neighborhood GD;

~Tania



Got a question about the Fan Art gallery, Miscats, Daily Deviations or the best way to contact me about any of the aforementioned? Check out Fan Art: The Year Ahead.