I am doing a random side project, would love feedback

[olivermoss]

I've noticed some fan artists using stock backgrounds for art, either directly, blurred or painted over. There are two I've seen used more than once. Since my main thing is landscape photography, I've been considering starting up a reference stock account on DeviantArt with some of my photos. I haven't shot much specifically for this gallery ... because I keep forgetting when I am out on shoots. But I went through my old gallery for some images and made a mock up of what I am looking to do. For how it's hosted on my own site, but I'll migrate it to DA when I am ready to go.

My mock up is here.



My thought is to shoot from angles that give the sort of perspectives I often see in fan art. I'd shoot using a 50mm equiv. prime lens since it's low distortion and the closest thing to human vision. And then, well, see how it goes. I do a lot of hiking and city walking so I think I could find a good variety of backgrounds and post one or two new ones weekly.

I'd love feedback on my idea, the wording, whether you feel the usage terms are clear. There is a lot of stock up on DA that I don't use specifically because I feel the usage terms aren't clear enough, they ask me as the artist to make a judgement call about crediting or the crediting requirements are too stringent.

The Creative Commons license I would release the images under would allow people to use them in commercial projects.

Comments

[amberdreams]

What a wonderful (and generous) idea! Those example photos are great - I'd definitely see some of them being super references for artworks.

Reading your blurb it seems very straightforward and clear. If you post on Deviantart I'll be subscribing!

PS I love that bench in the wood.

[olivermoss]

Thanks! I'll start getting it up this week and post a link when it's running.

I love that bench, but the photo didn't quite have enough punch to post to my galleries. It's great as a background, though.

[amberdreams]

A background, but also a story prompt...

[astolat]

I actually went immediately to this idea; I'd love to see a fic challenge done around "put your favorite characters into one of these backgrounds" :D

@rathany, along those lines, my suggestion is if you figured out a way to let other people contribute their own background photos to this collection under the same terms (IDK deviantart very well so not sure if there is a good mechanic for this there -- maybe just picking a tag? like #transformativebackgrounds or something?) it could become an even more valuable resource and encourage more people to take/share photos for this purpose from all over!

[amberdreams]

That could work as both and art and a fic challenge - I mean I instantly had the image in my head of either Sam and Dean sitting there (or maybe both). Probably because my writing has stalled at the moment and I'm all about the art. LOL

[olivermoss]

It's possible to do collections or groups, but it's hard to make them very visible. DeviantArt is a mess when it comes to finding anything. The tagging system is a mess and results are unreliable. I dealt with that a lot on a side project recently. The site is a wibbly chaotic mess.

There are groups for stock poses, but each contributor has different terms for use. It's not impossible to try to make something like what you are talking about down the line. Right now I am trying to figure out how to deal with the site not letting me have a visible info section on a free account.

[moonreviews]

For that, you can make a group :)

Also just used a background photo from a stock for a drawing today. The terms were just "only use for art on DA, no selling etc", but as it was fanart I only post that on DA anyway and don't sell it :P

[olivermoss]

Groups exist, but trying to get people to have the same terms is hard and I don't want to tell people to change their terms.

Pretty much the only thing I don't want people doing is rehosting unaltered versions of the stock. I wish there was a Creative Commons license for that, especially since 'interactions' are basically a form of online currency these days.

[minoanmiss]

This is so kind of you!

[olivermoss]

Thanks!

[alias_sqbr]

Oh my gosh these are great! Everything looks good to me. So you'd be ok with people using transformed versions in commericial works? I can see these being really good for visual novel backgrounds.

[olivermoss]

Thank you!

Yup, transformed versions can be used commercially. I've modeled the rights and usage pretty much after the rules I like to see in the stock I use. (I use Senshistock a lot.)

[alias_sqbr]

Senshistock is so great. Their stuff would combine well with yours, too!

[mific]

Wow these are excellent, and a great variety. Thanks so much!

[olivermoss]

Thanks!

[goss]

This is a wonderful resource, especially if it's specifically geared to the kind of pics that artists tend to use for background reference. Great idea, and very generous of you to share! :)

[olivermoss]

It's nice to be able to do something with this these shots. Right now they just sit on my computer :) I am very, very selective about what goes into my galleries.

[syntheid]

Oh this is such a nice idea, thank you! I'd suggest actually linking to the CC license for people who want to read it since there are some variations and I don't usually know which one it is by the short name.

[olivermoss]

That is a good point. I've been reviewing the licenses and I think I am going to write my own usage rules. I like Creative Commons a lot, but all the licenses have a 'you can share unaltered on any medium' clause I am not happy with for these purposes. The other accounts I looked at used those licenses and then amended them, but I don't think that really works and I don't think you get the protections of using CC if you then go 'but also these rules'.

I may overthink copyright a little.

I updated and took out the 'rules in progress' bit.

[moonreviews]

Also, let me know when you have created the account on Deviantart ;)

[olivermoss]

It's here!