So. Fanart. Fanart is good. Fanart is great. Fanart is glorious. Fanart enables us to visualize all the wonderful things about our favourite pairing and brings an added depth to stories and character.

What isn’t good? Reposting fanart and not crediting the artist.

I’m in school for graphic design and illustration, so I’m extra agressive and bitchy when it comes down to that stuff. It’s drilled into our heads that using art, not sourcing, plagarism is bad, bad, bad. If I did any of that reposting stuff and not crediting? I can get kicked out of university. It’s that serious.

Yeah, but that’s just for professionals, right?

Wrong.

Fanart should be no different. Treat it like you would a ‘professional’ illustration. These fanarts do this because the WANT TO. They don’t have to draw this stuff (unless it’s a commission). They do it out of the love of the characters and the pairing.

Reposting, not sourcing and crediting isn’t good. Also, in some cases it’s also illegal. Copyright laws are different all around the world, but I know that if some of my work is taken, used, posted without permission, not credited, I can take legal action.

Treat it like that. Yes, the internet has different rules and also fanartists have different rules for their pieces, but they should be read and respected.

One piece in particular really gets my hackles raised. It’s this absolutely gorgeous piece of fanart, Snow, by malaikat. She clearly states on her DA page to not repost it without permission from the commissioner, yet I see it posted on almost a daily basis in the tag without saying they have permission or sometimes without even credit and a link back.

It’s disrespectful, rude, lazy, selfish, and a bad way to get notes.

If you didn’t know about her DA page (and this goes with all fanart) and saw the piece somewhere else without a link or credit that is still not an excuse. There are ways to find the original source.

Here’s a great tutorial on how to look for the original post/source of a piece of fanart that has been reposted.

This goes for all fanart, no matter what the fandom/pairing/characters.

The FrostIron tag is riddled with reposts as of late. Most of the artists that post their stuff have tumblrs, so you can go and reblog right from them. And also there is usually a url or username on the fanart, so you can just type that into your browser and look the artist up. Not that hard. If that doesn’t work? There are blogs here that probably have already reblogged right from the source.

I know for this blog I try my hardest to reblog from the original post so it’s easy for people to see who created the art.

So before you go reposting a piece of art please look at the fanart tag of this blog, because I can guarantee you that 9 times out of 10 that piece will be there and blogged from the ORIGINAL SOURCE or PROPERLY CREDITED WITH A SOURCE.

Don’t see what your looking for? There are some other great blogs that post great fanart. SSfrostiron, fuckyeahlokisexual, 8760 Loki’s in a Year, ogletheironfrost. Still not getting what you want? Ask.

So please. Can we stop the reposting and not crediting?

If any of this is confusing then please ask! I won’t bite and I will try my hardest to help you out. I’m also sure that other frostiron blogs and communities out there would be happy to help you as well, so ask them. I can also understand if you’re new to tumblr and are unsure of how things work, but you can ask and you can get help. So there’s no real excuse for ‘not knowing’. If you won’t try to figure it out then you’re just lazy and disrespectful.

Fanart is no less important than professional/commercial art.

Anyway, thanks for reading. I hope this helps put a bit more light ont he situation and help the artists out. They deserve a lot more respect for their work.