Dennis the Menace x 2

This is the most fascinating example of coincidence in the history of anything creative...well in my opinion on this day anyways.  Dennis the Menace in the US is a classic troublemaker icon which probably inspired the likes of  Calvin & Hobbes and countless other pre-adolescent American boy images.  Well I didn't know some time ago there was a Dennis the Menace in the UK...thanks to the internet.  The wikipedia page on Dennis tells about how both of these comic strips began in March the same year (1951) just 5 days apart.  By sheer coincidence and similar creative waves at around the same time these two separate yet similar characters with the same name came about.  Something like this would be almost impossible to recreate today with the speed of the internet without one being the "copier", but in 1951 it was pretty remarkable.

Dogs, Elizabethan Collars and Music

My dog Bubba is always chewing himself where it becomes this nasty bloody whole in his fur.  I don't know one area in his body he has not thoroughly destroyed.  He has a lot of allergy problems and sometimes he needs to be stopped from further damaging his beautiful shiba inu coat.  I always thought his Elizabethan Collar looked like a lamp shade or looked twistedly like one of those classic RCA dog images.

Basil Gogos Frankenstein Painting

Original photo used to create one of the classic paintings of Frankenstein. One I used as reference to create Creatura 8. The lack of color photography or high expense of it may have influenced the artist to exaggerate the colors even more.  So the question I have in mind is whether it is okay to use a photograph directly if you have full right to?  In this case it is an assignment and the artist is an illustrator.  Basil Gogo's used the image and painted in the way he is best known for.  His palette is unmistakably his own and the mood he has created is almost unapparent in the bland photo reference to the left.

Frankenstein and Dracula Creatura Paintings

I love classic monsters from Hollywood, but who doesn't right?  I started my Creatura series in 2008 with some Garbage Pail Kids images and slowly evolved into monsters.  My Creaturas are images where I combine at least two images together in a painting to make one completely new image yet still having those unique shapes of the original images.  Sometimes it doesn't work and sometimes it does.  It takes a bot of work to make it work in preproduction and during the painting process itself.

Weird Image Inspiration

In this set I have no idea which came first since I don't know who the artist on the right is.  The one on the left is Glen Fabry in one of the paintings done for the comic book Preacher.  I just thought it was particular that an image of a winged demon on top of another figure one resembling the act of sex and the other in the act of sex.  Strange and full of impact and debatable on whether one was inspired by the other.

Images used in Tattoos

Another thing I wondered was the use of images in tattoos.  The manner it is created with actual tracing of lines and copying exact images from well-known images leaves me thinking is it necessarily right and is the artist ever compensated or want to be compensated for the images "forever" etched into people's skin. Two "LD Monster" images have been used as tattoos.  One I had no idea about and the other I was asked to create a tie to the LD Monster image shown here for a fan.  Of course I was excited to see this done and also because he bought a lot of my art in the past.

Garbage Pail Kids Homage

I worked for The Topps Company doing freelance work since 2004 and when I wanted to give some free cards to fans when they asked for autographs I created the "Infect Ted" image based on Page Cage/Tommy Ache from the original cards that came out when I was around 8 years old.  Garbage Pail Kids always inspired me and even after they were gone it was in and around my mind for years and of course once they came out again I was pretty aware of the impact they had made on me.  I have some cards available in this site:  Luis Diaz Artcardswanted

Another Comic Book Adaptation

Once thing that I have been debating has been the issue of images after a person death (I think 75 years after) the image of the artist becomes public domain. I also think that there are some loopholes that gives the family of the artist rights passed that. Here is an image from a well-known image by Frazetta of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter and the Princess of Mars. Here the image is used in another comic book with some changes.

Comic Books & Classic Images

This one is a very common pair and relatively widely accepted form of homage to another artist.  Comic Books seem to do this more frequently than any other print form.  There are hundreds of these.  Sometimes from images that aren't very old or pay homage to an earlier version of similar subject matters. Some images that come to mind are the first appearances of Spider-man, Batman and Superman.  Those are widely copied.  (I don't like the world copy because of the connotation it evinces, but in this case it doesn't seem to disrespect the works of art.)


James O'Barr The Crow Cover 1993 | John William Waterhouse "Circe Indiviosa" 1892

Photograph Inspired by a Painting?

In this set of images I found interesting that although I think they are coincidental it is possible Simon Bisley's painting with the black panther could have inspired the photograph on the right.  I think it could have been difficult to set up a black panther in the same composition so leaning up against a root is a little less challenging.  Once again I don't think it was a direct inspiration, but I think the photographer may have seen Bisley's painting once in his life.

Simon Bisley 1994 | Photograph 2000

Coincidental Compositions?

These images illustrate another part I find fascinating which is of compositions having very similar arrangements.  Here is a set I found that took me sometime to put together.  Although I think it is a coincidence it is debatable that one could have inspired by the other.  In 99% of all cases it's a painting being inspired by a photograph.

Inspired Photography? Art?

Since the Shepard Fairey Hope image is now part of the social consciousness and later the stories about the use of the Obama image directly from a photograph.  I think this illustrates when things can seem wrong or be wrong.  I don't really gravitate toward any of Fairey's images and I'm not one that cares much for the "rebellious" nature of street art.  I do think the problem lies in the fact that Fairey denied ever using the image I think at first anyways.  It became a question of money which ultimately is the problem.  Had it not be for that I think it wouldn't be a big deal that the image was used from a photograph, but the current laws and the possibilities of financial gain from someone else's work (vise versa) is to hard to pass up.

On another note I imagined the famous Obama pose could have been inspired by a John F. Kennedy image I ran across some time ago.

A cover to an art annual caught my eye when it came out because it reminded me of an artwork from another artist. I apologize for not knowing some artists in these posts. Sometimes you see something and it is uncredited and I will try to credit as many artists as I can. I also would like to be clear in the fact that I'm not trying to point out that anyone has done anything wrong. In fact I included a few of my own work as work that I was influenced by or inspired to create a work of art. I think it's part of the artistic development and also an awareness of images that we like so much we used in our own work. Sometimes it seems fine to do after the original artwork was created many many years ago and other times only a few years and now-a-days months or weeks or even days from the original inception.  It is even accepted in this blog called "Covered" which hosts images directly inspired by a comic or magazine cover.  I also want to point out that some of these images are also images that may not have been used as inspiration of a work of art or photograph, but l found similar in compositions. Some can happen altogether by coincidence. I have almost half a million stored images in my database from magazine scanning, my own photography and internet images. I find similar images all the time in my searches.  I am fascinated by it.  I think we like to compare and contrast things as humans and here I am collecting images that have in many ways similarities, but I think because of laws and being in a consumer society we tend to see these as bad because of their supposed lack of "originality". The truth is that we have been doing this since man have been on Earth. Fashion and consumerism thrives on us buying and looking similar. Without that their wouldn't be fashion or malls or magazines, but in the tight "mystical" community of the arts it is widely looked down upon like we are all living on an island and not in this image injected society.  Give me a break!

Here is one of my images inspired by the Coppertone image engraved in everyone's mind since you are a kid especially if you ever visited a store by a beach.  Also a character named Mandy by an artist whose work has been seen in Playboy, Dean Yeagle.  I have a few of his books.  

Inspired Art? 2

As stated in my last post these images are ones that captured my eye as something I remembered seeing.  In some cases the image is a very well known one and other ones it may simple be an image I think is similar in composition yet have nothing else in common and may have never had a direct connection with each other.  I have a pinterest that I started that collects these images.

http://pinterest.com/luisdiazart/similar-compositions-ideas-homages/

Here is an image by Ashley Wood and a photograph of Kate Moss.

Inspired Art?

I like to post things that look similar to each other.  I don't think it's a bad thing to work on things using elements from photos and other images, but I think you should give credit for it.  I think it's natural to work out things you like that you have seen from other artists.  Most artists were inspiredly "heavily" in the start of their careers.  Frazetta inspired hundreds and now probably thousands of artists, but who inspired him?  Of course he looked at and absorbed the artists that came before him like J. Allen St. John and N.C. Wyeth sometimes unknowingly to the artist themselves.  I've seen some artists just plain lie that they never have been inspired by certain artists even though it's so very apparent.  It's important to note some artists have a big ego and in their world they need everyone to revolve around them.  I think that is an immature approach to take, but what can you do?  The other problem is the las that state things about copyright infringement and I think we are living in an era of creative constraint.  In the generations and more ancient times copying or using other images as references was part of the evolution of the artist.  Other younger artist would work in the senior artist's "studio" to learn from.  That is why artist like Michealangelo and Raphael excelled.  Some of Leonardo's paintings are hard to see the difference between one of his pupils and his hand.  In a lot of cases several artist worked together on a piece.  It's important to see that it is important to use other art and photographs, but the evolution of an artist is that they need to go beyond that and those that do are the ones that get remembered.  Of course the importance of that notion is another subject of it's own.  I leave here a couple images I think were inspired by a Brom painting.

A conversation with Joe Jusko on Facebook about Art.

I didn't come into the conversation to carry it so long, but I thought I would share it since I was the only one that felt a certain reaction to the piece more than the quality of craftsmanship.  It is hard to look at any artwork from Jusko today without remembering this moment.  That's why I say to people that artists are human and sometimes can be real jerks.  I was probably a jerk myself.  It is safe to say we are no longer "friends."  If you can't read it click on this link.  Full Res Joe Jusko