References Aren't Cheating!

The Most Powerful Tool for Artists

February 3, 2023 - Published

Ah yes, the romantic image of the artist. Out on a glorious landscape with their easel in front of them, painting the beautiful view in front of them one brushstroke at a time... wait, what's that? References are cheating? Oh, I guess their drawing just... doesn't count...

There's this weird notion recently that references are cheating, and to be clear, I get it! If you see a drawing someone did, and find out that they just copied something off Google Images line for line, then it seems a lot less impressive. However, using references is ESSENTIAL to being an artist and is required to use liberally in the professional world, but it's a multi-layered topic that needs some discussion first.

#1: What is "Cheating" in Art?

"Cheating" is a rather vague term, so what do people mean by this? Well, some people might not agree with how certain art pieces are done, because stuff like digital art isn't "REAL art", but I won't be humoring those vague notions. 

When people call references cheating, they're probably referring to plagiarism, which I'm sure you all know as "using someone else's work and pretending it's your own" (definition source, before I accidentally make this ironic). In terms of art, the most prominent of these would be tracing, which is literally drawing over another piece of art. If you trace over another artist's work and claim it as your own original work, that would be plagiarism! Even though you drew the lines yourself, nothing was really changed from the original drawing. The original artist's decisions and work on composition, proportions, posing, line placement, etc. are all things that they wouldn't get credit for, even if it were just a colorless lined drawing. 

Plagiarizing art in the real world will come with consequences! One example I remember in the gaming world was a Sony PS4 music video where the animator traced over multiple existing animations in a huge act of plagiarism -- once it was found out, they were promptly fired and the video was taken down.

#2: What isn't Plagiarism in Art?

Plagiarism has 2 parts. First is using someone else's work, and the second is pretending it's your own. The second part gives a very obvious way to avoid plagiarism! All you have to do is credit the original artist. For example, if you really liked the way another artist drew a pose, you could try drawing the same pose for practice, and link back to the original artist if you post it anywhere. If it's just a hobby piece, they shouldn't mind! Many things that are considered plagiarism are OK in specific settings -- tracing over a render of Yoshi while you're bored at work isn't exactly criminal activity.

However, crediting the original artist won't always be enough to avoid consequences. If you made a Mario game where you traced over every sprite and said "credit to Nintendo!" that would probably be an easy ticket to Cease & Desist town. If you want be safe, we need to deal with the first part of the definition. 

In art, unless you're directly copying off someone else's work, you generally don't have to worry about it being plagiarism. You can look into copyright law and fair use, but the general gist is that making a transformative work based on another work (i.e. adds something new, makes it different, and isn't just ~the same thing~), then it's usually fair use. There's usually a good amount of wiggle room for what's considered an original work -- my best example is the King Kong vs Donkey Kong court case, where despite them both being large apes named Kong who kidnapped a woman and scaled a building, the conclusion was that they couldn't really be confused for each other (even if there were also other factors in play). 

#3: What is Referencing in Art, and Why is it Important?

OK, so going into this topic went into more spooky legal talk than I wanted to. What's referencing, and why is it not plagiarism?

Referencing is using a picture or drawing to help you create a piece of art. This can mean anything from drawing a real-life apple exactly as it looks, to just checking photos for how many digits a dog has on its paws. 

It is impossible for me to overstate just how important referencing is -- even professional artists would consider it good practice to have multiple reference photos for drawings that they do. If you can't reference what you're drawing, that means you're not allowed to LOOK at what you're drawing, which is painfully self-sabotaging. That means you can only draw things from memory, which doesn't work if you haven't already built that mental database from drawing with reference.

Here's a fun experiment: draw a bicycle from memory! It's a very common object that most people are familiar with, but when put to the test, most people are unable to draw even a simplified version of a bike. Many of the bikes would be physically unable to function if they were real! Now consider that problem for drawing other things. How do your arms fold when you cross your arms? Which way do your thumbs point when your arms are behind you? What's the difference between drawing a fox and a wolf? What is the exact texture of moss? Eventually, you will have to use references, because nobody can do everything from memory without reference.

However, don't fear. Using references isn't difficult, and will make your life a lot easier!

#4: How do I use references?

These days, using references is very easy. If you want to draw something, pop open Google Images and search up what you need to draw! Generally, if you're still learning how to draw, I would recommend starting out by drawing straight from the images as practice, in the same pose. Eventually, you'll be able to combine different references to create unique works and be able to fill in the blanks yourself! 

An underrated method is also using yourself as a reference. I will often pose things out myself to see how my body naturally places itself, and many others will go as far as taking pictures/videos of themselves, even mashing together multiple photos if multiple characters are needed in a scene. 

Whenever possible, it's usually best to find something in real life that's similar to whatever you're drawing so that you can reference it from multiple angles. If you're drawing something within fantasy, try to combine the closest real life equivalents to be able to get a better handle on it. For example, if you're drawing a dragon, you might want to look at how lizard scales look, along with how bat wings attach to their body.

I'll also include some general rules of thumb for what should generally be considered fair use for references: **

**this isn't legal advice and doesn't cover every base/exception! If you plan to work on something important, ESPECIALLY commercial products then please do thorough research on your own about copyright law and fair use

This article went more in-depth than I meant it to, but there's only one take-away that I really wanted to bring with this article: use references!! They're not cheating, they're essentially REQUIRED for true progression as an artist, and they will make your improvement so much quicker and easier. Have fun!