And what would you have to say about all the artworks on deviantART created in TRIBUTE to, say, Dali, Warhol or Bacon? Creating artworks in a similar style to established artists in order to further your own understanding of their work and your own has never been amoral, so why should artists such as Uekewa, Takahashi or even Walt Disney's artist teams be exempt from this style of imitation? There is a lot of work out there under the 'fanart' category, like with this geezer, which are directly traced from the original artists' works, and that IS theft. Hence why galleries do not allow you to take photographs of their work and discourage sketching directly from works, as it is imitation of the worst form. Tracing over fanartists' work still follows this rule as people like ~ adamis have interpreted their likings for these themes and their art styles by adding their own subtle touches.

So next time you see a piece inspired by Andy Warhol, using his style of primary colours and comic-style dot colouring, which makes for a legitimate piece of art, think back to your prejudice on fanart, as yes, it does feature corporate characters as opposed to a set style, but there is very little difference between a drawing of Super Sonic and someone recreating Warhol's depiction of Marilyn Monroe, as long as the fanart is legitimate. Screw the people who trace etc., I agree with you on that point.

Oh no! dictionary definitions my achiles heel, nay good maiden for I am smited!

First off, try peddling your semantic technicalities elsewhere because tracing is still a form of art theft even if it isn't covered in DA's terms of conduct. Plus if you look at a few of the deviations listed 2 are nothing but edited screenshots which IS art theft that is covered in DA's policies. Hes not out to mimic the style of Rumiko Takahashi in his art, hes out to trace, steal and pretend he came up with the compositions. He even stated in the image descriptions "It took me 5 hours to come up with the design but i'm proud of it ^^" that sounds an awful lot like theft to me. There was no Style mimicing involved here just outright tracing.

Second off somehow i seriously doubt that anyone (unless they are a total moron) is going to look at mine or Adamis's galleries and say "Ah the classical works of a great man who has broken walls and boundries with a fresh new style and characters" because Sonic is a heavily commercial character who everyone and their parents is aware of.

Third, Get off your moral high horse for a second and take a proper look at my Gallery before you make accusations of me stealing Team Sonics style since my work, besides the shape of the characters heads and what they're wearing, looks nothing like their official artwork. I notice you didn't try t take a dig at my Final Fantasy Artwork, am I ripping off Nomura now too? How about my TF work? Should i expect Hasbro's lawyers round any second with baseball bats? Somehow i doubt it since i drew the characters in Original Positions in an Original way, my colouring style dosn't even remotly match anything in Team Sonics library. I didn't just slap screen shots into photoshop and airbrush over the top of the official works in an effort to look big and clever to anyone foolish enough to beleive me.

You want to call me a hypocrit, fair enough, if it gets another parasitic art thief off of this site then i don that mantle with pride!
However I suggest you don't just jump straight out and attack people without due provocation. I didn't attack you in any way shape of form, i havn't slated your work you stand there and think that you have a moral high ground to slate mine because?

Now if you'll excuse me, i have A thiefs ashes to urinate on

Peace

--
"Half man! ALL biscuit!