The Ethics of Tutorials?

[jeremybirn]

There are no ethical problems, unless you lied when someone asked about how you approached a part of a project.

If there's a concern, it's that people who rely too much on tutorials will not produce the most original, distinctive work, because many other people will have done or seen the same tutorials. But that's not an ethical problem, it just makes your demo reel less impressive.

-jeremy

[Rebeccak]

I think it's an interesting question (and one I've never really thought about very explicitly) ~ but I'll take a quick stab here and offer my two cents. Tutorials, like classes, are practice for the real deal ~ your own work. It may take months or more likely years to develop one's own style. I don't think anyone would accept work done strictly for a tutorial as "their own". You'll hear about people including well~known tutorial work on their reels, and of course, that is a no~no. But incorporating something that you've learned from a tutorial into your own work is the purpose of a tutorial in the first place. So it's a long term process of learning from various sources, and then incorporating those sources, conciously or subconciously, into your own work.

Cheers,

~Rebeccak

[ntmonkey]

I might be over-simplifying this...

The way I see it, a tutorial is to show you the possibilities via a step-by-step process. After doing the tutorial, you should be able to take into account the tools you used, various techniques the artist used, and then use it for something else.

For instance, if you take Linda's Hair painting tutorial, and then applied it to painting a llama who also has hair, then you're doing yourself the favor of expanding her technique to something else.

I personally would refrain from using a tutorial piece with a good amount of similarities for your portfolio. Anything that is reconized and not done by you generates an initial negative idea that you copied your work from elsewhere. It's just not worth chancing and you might never get a chance to defend that it's your work.

Bottom line. Use tutorials to learn, and then go and be creative as possible.

peace,

Lu

[mind frell]

Hmmm. Thanks for you replies, they're both helpful and thought evoking. :) And now I have a followup question...

So the main consensus is that anything learned should be incorporated into your stuff. Don't do hair to do hair off a tutorial but make the hair a part of your scene/piece. Show something else beyond the tutorial?

Once again, thanks for youre time.

:)

frell

[Rebeccak]

I think really what I at least meant was to do a tutorial where you follow the exact steps ~ you want to imitate the tutorial as closely as possible so you can learn the most from it. This isn't a portfolio piece, it's just for practice.

Then, use what you've learned in the tutorial in your own piece/s. This may be a gradual process over time. But the point is that you don't include the direct tutorial in your portfolio.

Cheers,

~Rebeccak

[RobertoOrtiz]

In my book plagarism does not involve using reference to get a job done.
It is not like you are tracing or stealing content.
With a tutorial you are just following a set of instructions to do ONE specific task (say for example Hair).
They way I see it, as long as you use the tutorial to COMPLEMENT your work, you should be ok.

-R

[MikeRhone]

After completing many tutorials and practicing on your own, you should be able to develop your own workflows and strategies. When you can improve on the tutorial, either in methodology or artistically, you have grown as an artist.

[lukx]

so learning something in school is also stealing someones work? comon!

[nebezial]

a tutorial is basically just one way of gettin to the goal, what it dos is basically show u the method, just one method to get u started, but the thing is, with time u will develop ur own ways and then..maybe do ur own tuts...it has nothing to do with plagiarism..basically u learn a way to do something that exists..u would figure it out sooner or later..so why waste time

[jmBoekestein]

so learning something in school is also stealing someones work? comon!

Heh, ever noticed the way the taught have the same of doing things as the teacher? YOu got twenty minds in one room all doing the same task. Always seemed rather odd to me. I think it's an ethical problem for the teachers, not the students. The students ask for things to learn, not to be molded into place.

[Nazirull]

Heh, ever noticed the way the taught have the same of doing things as the teacher? YOu got twenty minds in one room all doing the same task. Always seemed rather odd to me. I think it's an ethical problem for the teachers, not the students. The students ask for things to learn, not to be molded into place.

Kinna freak me out thinking about it.....kids all over go to school and carbon copy wut the teachers doing....its like an assembly line...freaky....off topic sorry.

[Sanne-chan]

I think it depends on the kind of tutorial. A tut that teaches you how to draw hands (currently reading lots of those :p ) or how to configure your brush settings is different from a tut called "the-super-ultra-secret-way-to-draw-exactely-like-me-and-get-away-with-it!".
For example: I once read a great tutorial on painting clouds. I didn't make the same clouds in my paintings, tough. Rather, I messed around with my newfound knowledge and "customized" the technique to my liking, making it unique (sort of). Am I making any sense here?

[jmBoekestein]

YEah the assembly line freaks me out too lol. My last school told me we were being taught a craft, not the arts. Gave me the willies too sometimes.

It's justa tough niche sometimes. :) I'm going my way period, I ony read the tutorials to understand how to reach a certain effect, and that's been quite valuable. So I don't mind at all in the end. People should be nourished not beaten into submission though :p. If you can put it that way lol. ( and the language gets stronger, my apologies :D)

[MikeRhone]

Kinna freak me out thinking about it.....kids all over go to school and carbon copy wut the teachers doing....its like an assembly line...freaky....off topic sorry.

They better hope the teacher is up to date with the latest trends and techniques then...

[Trojan123]

Don't we all use other people's knowlege?

SB

[OptimusDinkus]

Well there are a few trueths to art. One is no idea is origional, had to come from somewhere. And also tutorials if you carbon copy them, your not learning them at all. whats best to do is to skim through it to see any steps that might intrigue you to try them out yourself. like in some of antropus's tutorials I found probably 2 things he did interesting and decided to try it out myself with good results. But not only do I feel like a tool carbon copying the entire tutorial, i feel I waisted my time when I couldve done something from my idea's

[asardar]

A tutorial exists to provide guidance and knowledge about a particular subject. But people who use a tutorial word for word, stroke for stroke, are generally frowned upon for copying someone else's work.


One thing that I am at last beginning to understand is that there is always someone who frowns.

I have joined this forum to learn - I need and want these tutorials. Perhaps because of them I can be an artist someday. Although I have a hard time following instructions precisely (which may give a clue to my amateur status), I think that to start with copying and then progress to your own work is normal. When we are kids that is exactly how we do things. Mimicking before inventing. If being a creative is in your blood, then there is no way you won't start developing your own material. I think it is important to know where you are on the scale of development though. Trying to pass off copied pieces as anything more than practice is unethical.

[rblitz7]

I think the purpose of tutorials is that it is a way for great artists to pass down their art form. You are supposed to build on top of that tutorial, go above and beyond, in order to call it your work.

[ashakarc]

Why is this even a question?? How did you find common grounds between tutorials and Ethics?

Someone mentioned lying being unethical !! duh !
What are Ethics? Lying has more to do with "morals" than ethics.

Just keep learning...dig every venue possible to advance your skills, accept nothing less, but your best..and ..stay away from going into loops of moral questioning, unless of course you want to be a preacher not an artist.
----
p.s. It is rather interesting how someone co-related stealing with tracing of content in one phrase. no comment though :)

[mind frell]

I'd like to thank everyone who has contributed to this discussion, a lot of interesting points were made and I have a much better understanding of how my peers view this topic. (Even if you didn't realize this was a topic :) )


So thanks for stopping by and helpin' me out :)

frell

[RO]

Just to add to it... Sometimes I get some e-mails asking how do I get ideas and how I do this etc. I tell them about some threads with some cool tuts I have seen plus simply tell them that seeing lots of art works is a good way to start imo.



Everyday I make sure to look at cgtalk at least once and also conceptart to see the new art works done by people. I mean if we already agree that we can not be 100% original as artists do the opposite and get really saturated by design and art concepts. Make your mind a reference of images and techniques. Learn learn and learn. This is the only way to make designs that can be even 1% original now. The more info you cram into your mind the more tools you have at your whim to use.

So learning from online tuts is not bad at all imo.

[McWolfe]

For me, a tutorial is a way to see new techniques and tools. I maybe follow it to the letter once, but after that things change. First of all, I can see how someone else uses a technique or tool to solve a problem, this inspires me to look more into that tool and think about how I can use that tool etc. Second, it makes me think that "if you can use that to do this, then maybe you combine that with somethingelse to achieve this other thing."

McWolfe

[Smithjoe1]

I find tutorials useful to get the grasp of what needs to be done, however, it is hard at start not to copy it stroke for stroke, just to get a grasp of what is trying to happen, but each time you do it, you pay less attention to the tutorial because it is more natural to you, and then it shifts from the tutorial to your own style, while using a tutorial to learn, to use it in a polished peice without other people claiming you stole it, is to be able to use the technique without the tutorial, so you have your own style to it as it goes on, your own refinments so to say

[nendo_3d]

This question has been floating around my head for ages but I've never been quite as compelled to ask it until recently. So here goes...

A tutorial exists to provide guidance and knowledge about a particular subject. But people who use a tutorial word for word, stroke for stroke, are generally frowned upon for copying someone else's work.

If I find a good tutorial to do fire or hair (for instance) something a little complex, what do I need to do to not copy the work? Is it as simple as incorporating it into my piece or changing it a tiny bit? What makes it ok to use that tutorial in my reel, portfolio, work, whatever?


Basically, how can you use a tutorial in your own work?


Thanks for your thoughts,

:)
frell

(Standard disclaimer: I tried to search for this but did not find anything and if in the wrong forum, I apologize, please delete/move me)

for me a tutorial is a way to share some knowledge like you said. for you to see how someone did it. have a chance to do it there way. and then form the knowledge that you have gained form them use it in your own work but exploring it abit more. for instance if the guy did it a certain way try and find another way to get a simular result which could be better or quicker than someone elses way

[mystikalz]

A tutorial is like reading the basic manual on anything. You'll have to learn it first before you can apply it.

Tutorials are just a learning tool for people, who eventually adapt the technique and use it in different parts of their. Most tutorials i come across give easy intructions like grass effects, which by playing with the settings you can turn it into hair.

But if you sumbit a project made completely by a tutorial, then yes it is ethically wrong. If you follow a tutorial and modify and adapt it to your work, then no your not completely copying someone else's work, your just using their technique in your design.

[colintheys]

As someone who's written a lot of tutorials, I feel like tutorials are intended to be copied. I wrote the tutorial because I wanted people to see a technique i found exciting or to understand a particularly confusing aspect of the software that I had taken the time to master. However, I do think it is unethical for someone to produce the exact piece of art a tutorial uses as an example and pass it off as their own. For instance, if a tutorial showa you how to make a 3d explosion, using that precise explosion in you reel would be unethical unless you gave credit (and it would be a bad idea to use it since it doens't really represent your own work...). However, using the same technique with your own maps or even different parameters is fine. The tutorial is there to show you a technique and once you've learned it, so it is yours. However you're usually safe if you give credit where it's due. In one instance, my style was heavily influenced by a technique demonstrated in a particularly great tutorial for Realsoft 3d so I thanked the author in my credits.

[Sagii]

Hi.. the way i see it a tutorial will teach you how to do something.. so you do it step by step all the way from begining to end... then after you have done that you go back and redo the process but with another thing.. say if you were paining hair on a wolf... next you paint hair on a dog.. just remember the key note steps and important things the tutorial was trying to teach you and do it without needing to go step by step. :arteest:

Tutorial will show you the technique to do something, once you learn this then you should make your own image using the technique. If you dont step away from the tutorial to your own work then you havent learned much really but to copy someone elses image... if you do decide to use your tutorial work in your porfolio you should credit the tutorial somewhere and say.. .(tutorial work) or something.

my pocket full of change. :D

[umbrellasky]

a tutorial is basically just one way of gettin to the goal, what it dos is basically show u the method, just one method to get u started, but the thing is, with time u will develop ur own ways and then..maybe do ur own tuts...it has nothing to do with plagiarism..basically u learn a way to do something that exists..u would figure it out sooner or later..so why waste time

I guess there is no right or wrong answer here. I somewhat agree with your point :)

Here are my thoughts:

Tutorials have helped me progress through my painting. Only thing that bothers me a little is that I seem to rely on tutorials too much sometimes 'copying' them word for word. I have developed my own methods using these tutorials though which I am glad of. I do sometimes feel like a cheat because the artists spent a lot of time working out these methods and it only took me a couple of hours to 'copy'.

[Tom_k88]

hate to summon an old thread but thought if i made another one i would only get redirected to this anyway

in my option i i think that using a modelling tutotials is okay as long as the reference where u learnt the technic from.

However wot do you think about using Photoshop tutorials for your model? I my option i think that using a photoshop tutorial for a model is okay as you problably wont get an identical result as u are doing the tutorial under different circumstances. And after all i think a tutorial is just a technique to make something, so u may have stumbled across that technique even if u hadnt used a tutorial. Also i dont know about you but i always end up modifing the tutorial to fit my needs anyway. That texture or mesh etc i only one part of your model however a model tutorial is more a an integral part of the overall model.


-Tom-

[Lunatique]

This really depends on the personality and creativity of the person using the tutorials.

The smart ones will learn to grasp the reasons behind the steps in the tutorials, and understand the mentality and approach of the artist who wrote the tutorial. The not so smart ones will just copy the tutorial and retain nothing of value beyond which buttons to push once they finish copying the tutorial.

Whenever I tried to learn from tutorials, I always felt like the end result is a waste of time unless I can make it original. The time spent doing the piece would only contribute to the learning process, but with no contribution to my body of works. This is why I often deviate from tutorials and only use the general approaches demonstrated, but would create something totally original as not to waste my time copying something in a tutorial.

[Hugh-Jass]

The smart ones will learn to grasp the reasons behind the steps in the tutorials, and understand the mentality and approach of the artist who wrote the tutorial. The not so smalrt ones will just copy the tutorial and retain nothing of value beyond which buttons to push once they finish copying the tutorial.


quoted for agreement

tutorials are really to inform about process and technique...not the end result of the tutorial i.e. the "finished piece"

I once had a book about how to build an electric guitar step by step...the designs were really not to my liking...that was what i meant about the "finished piece" -whatthe tutorial shows you as an end result is really not anywhere near as important as HOW YOU GOT THERE... I applied the knowledge to my own designs etc etc. To me the book was nothing more than a tutorial.

[mainevent07]

Well isnt there a distinct "right" and "wrong" way to do certain things that one might learn from a tutorial? Like anatomy for example, isnt there really one specific way to draw an eye correctly, like you couldnt just put extra lines here and there to call it your own because then the eye wouldnt be anatomically correct. I understand that there are numerous shapes and sizes that eyes come in, but dont the basics remain the same throughout each one....and if someone learned these basics from a tutorial, the "right" way to draw an eye, like where its placed on the head and where the pupils and iris are located, could they really call any eye that they ever draw after reading that certain tutorial their own? We learn almost everything that we know from someone or something else, be it a photograph or work of art that we draw observations from or a tutorial that draws the oberservations for us.

[Lunatique]

You're talking about learning technically accurate depiction of real things. What we're talking about is tutorials that teach more than that--for example, someone teaching how to paint a fantasy styled monster. If you copy the tutorial, you get the exact same monster. But if you learn the "how to paint" part of the tutorial but use that knowledge to paint your own monster design, then that's a better way to approach it.

Even if you are learning about anatomy, you sure wouldn't include copied tutorials in your portfolio, would you? For that, you should draw from life and other sources that's different from the tutorial.

[Kanga]

...I understand that there are numerous shapes and sizes that eyes come in, but dont the basics remain the same throughout each one.......

Weeeeell not really. Permitations and combinations are endless. If you did a tute on eye drawing and you got all hot and sweaty about it you might nip on down to the morgue in your lunch hour,.. lop off a few heads, peel back the skin and check out how the musculature actually hangs together. After lunch you would go back to your laboratory and use the information gathered to create eyes of your own,... however being a relentless creative individual you would strive to stretch reality to its limits by experimentation, even at the risk of opening a rift in the fabric of the galaxy.

If however you copied a tutorial and presented that as your own work then your art would scale new heights of suckiness thus ensuring physical execution by a vermilion creatormortis firing squad.

Tutorials are made for you to learn from.

You do the tute,...
Then you make your own stuff,... pause,... look at that work and decide it is turgid
Then you go back to the tute and do it again,....
Make sum more,.... quite turgid but not as putrid as the first time
repeat this as often as is needed before the light goes on.

even if you are as dense as I am the light shall eventually ignite!

Tutorials are about fundimentals,... there is no fast track to success but tutes are still the quickest way if you use them properly.

Chris

[beelow]

Interesting topic! I say that the use of tuts are helpful. I use them to make better art, but also build off of them, I pm Matt Dixon about some of the stuff that he did and, I told him that I wanted to learn it and see what I can come up with to use at my own arsenal, and I remember that Robert Chang, talking about what craig mullins to what he does. He experiments and that is what I am exactly doing. I guess that is what makes great artists. In a way we are already cheating, because we were handed this info down from the ages, and we all have our influences, peter paul rubens, maxfield parrish, and array of artists that having influenced my work. I say keep using tuts and try to find other ways to experiment with it. One thing that I have learned from my teachers practice makes better never perfect. If it would be perfect, then the learning would stop right? food for though. And I live with that, I will cotinue to learn until the day I die, even if it is from a youngster, gotta swallow my pride some times in order to welcome something new, right? hollaz!:thumbsup:

[cypherx]

heh.

OK, if someone made a good tutorial, they made it in a way that shows you how to use the tools you have to work with, be it traditional art, cg, etc. In this case, I'm assuming CG. A tutorial is nothing more than a tool, almost every artist over the ages has been influenced by another artist, but with certain tutorials, you don't even have to be influenced by the artist, it's more like learning a trade. For example, how to make a custom brush, how to use certain aspects of photoshop. I've seen tons of tutorials that look like they might be good, but then I go thru them and the artist has left out essential key points that I need.

Like how to make a brush flow a certain way, for whatever reason they often time assume I know, when I don't (hence me even bothering to try to read thru their poorly written tutorial).

And then I come across artists who for whatever reason seem to value their own intelligence/wit/humour a bit too much, and they talk too much during the damn thing, so by the end of it, I'm so sick of reading what they've written, I've glazed over, and I can't bother to make heads or tails of the process they actually used.

I don't think a single tutorial can possibly allow one to "copy" someone's style. In fact even attempting to copy someone's style is difficult because you end up evolving (or in Soooo many cases devolving) their way of doing things. You can attempt to recreate someone else's work that you admire, it might make you understand their process better, but full-on stealing their style isn't very likely (though I must say there's a certain extremely sketchy yet detailed style these days that I totally adore, but I honestly can't tell one artist from the other because they all have the same fantastic desaturated colours with bright oranges/blues/or reds somewhere in the focal area... great end product, but not a very "signature").

I say use the tutorials, learn what you can, and your own style will develop in time. Take them for what they are, a guide from someone you most likely admire, and don't worry about what anyone else will think of your using the tutorial, chances are they're just feeling guilty because they used it a week ago and they want to be stingy with the info they've found :p

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