Animation Source Forums

I was unsure if this is really a rant or not, because since it's mostly my advice to new artists it may belong in a fan art section (General or Balto) but...Meh. If it's misplaced please move it to the appropriate section, mods. I need to get this off my chest.

Some of you may already know that one thing that gets on my nerves is people copying Balto screenshots and such. Most dislike this because to them it's stealing. But really I dislike it because not only is the anatomy is Balto BAD (Seriously) and you're falling into bad habits, but also because you'll end up stuck with a Baltoesque style. Be frowned upon by more experienced artists for being so unoriginal and most of your fans will just be Balto worshippers.

Honestly, there is no better thing to reference and learn from than the REAL THING. REAL wolves. REAL dogs. It could be a photo, or some of you lucky ones may get to study ones in real life. This is how you will develop your OWN style and get a much better sense of anatomy than you would copying a cartoon.

Another thing that bugs me is failing to give credit where due. There's a particular artist whose gallery is about 80% copied Balto screens only as her characters and she hasn't been crediting them lately. People are believing it's her own style because of this.

(I'll add more to this later at home. But I'd like to know your opinions of the situation. Yes, copying is a way to learn. But isn't the real deal a much better reference?)

I agree, the new artists must have their own style! Especially if they want to make a career in art. But I would like to make a remark, the anatomy of Balto is not false. Why? Because the designer to observe a rule in the design. The anatomy of the character must depend on its nature (Yu learn it for me ) to make it more original.

I would also add to all those who want to be animator, author of comic or other, varied your draw!! Draw that wolves will do anything and you can not enter a school of art!

(I am extremely sorry for my bad English ...)

I agree with you...Although, occasional referencing from Balto screenshots is fine (in my opinion anyway), it should most certainly not be the only thing one draws. I see this a little everywhere on BS some galleries with minimal amounts of it, some with...excessive amounts of it =/

Also, somewhat related to this, references can also become "addicting" (Lol, yeaaah O.o), depending on how you use them. I'll use my friend as an example (She's a real-life friend, but she does post on dA, but I won't point her out...since that would be a little rude).

She's an amazing artist with an enormous amount of potential. She's still young (14), so she basically has a lifetime to become even more amazing...Except she has one flaw.

She's addicted to reference sheets, she's in great lack of creativity and motivation. Don't get me wrong, skill-wise, her anatomy is excellent...It's just that she's now come to the point where she carries around her art book, and refuses to draw anything without reference...But, since she's become addicted to them, she won't use the reference to make something on her own, she copies it and makes it her own character.

For example : If there's a pose that she can't find a reference for, she will not draw it. Now, in my eyes, that's quite sad...Imagine, the limit of your creativity is what is already there and nothing else. =/

It makes me terribly sad that such a skilled artist refuses to let herself be creative...To let herself draw freely. To make mistakes and fix them. -sigh-

There are also designers who draw the same poses and drawing their lack of punch. There is always blood or always "character sheet". I think these people lack creativity and prefers to do as the others. It's incredible the lack of creativity of both ...

( i don't like the blood )

I agree. Though I must admit I have done this in the past. (*Looks at doodle I'm working on. Oops.) Anyway, I try to come up with my own ideas, but lately my art hasn't been to great and I feel all my art has the same poses. I'm getting of track so back on topic.

Those members who draw Balto screens all the time do have cruddy art. Then they come crawling onto the forums and ask why their drawings are so bad. For the most part, they have never studied anatomy or any sort of dog for the matter. Like you said, not everyone can encounter a real wolf, but why not study your own dog? (If you don't have one, I'm sorry.) I study my dog(Even though she is a beagle.) I study how she reacts to situations. Like what she looks like when she is frightened, happy, sad, etc.

Yeah but they're still deforming the characters anatomy. xD I'm not saying that those who animated Balto know nothing about anatomy but to be able to change things for good characterisation you need to be able to draw the creature as anatomically correct as possible before you think of changing anything. It makes it more believable.

Jenna walks about on twigs but it makes her look more feminine. Star has the weirdest head shape ever and one massive nose but it makes him look cuter, "goofier". You get the idea. And even Yu's characters use this kind of thing to help give them a good nature, it's through her art that I learned about giving your characters unique phyial features. But like I said, these are NOT characters to learn from because they will start drawing all their wolves like that and be under the impression they're doing it right.

Emily - That sucks to hear her potential isn't being met. I hope she comes out of the habit.

Mighty - Yeah I made the mistake at first too by ref'ing form Deni's art and I do regret it. (Don't anyone dare call me a "hypocrite" because I've done it. The fact that I know how stressful it is to try and find your own style afterwards because I made the mistake of copying someone else only helps prove my point, and I'm trying to prevent others from making the mistake.)

And yep. It's also funny when they try to copyright poses. I saw someone copying Balto screens who said "Do not copy my poses" in their artists presentation. What the 'eck?

I have to agree, not only do I get sick of seeing the same balto screen over and over again, but it doesn't help their art.
I have a friend who's trying to learn how to draw wolves, but the bad thing is she's trying to learn by tracing mine. I'm fine with it because she always gives credit, but I've been trying to convince her to draw her own wolves and she says she can't because she "sucks". She's also the kind of person I wouldn't want to start an arguement with, so I just mention it every once in a while and then leave it. It's sad because I know she can do it, she's awesome at drawing people.
I use my dog for reference even though she's an overweight lab. When she lays down and rests I like to move her legs into different positions, she doesn't seem to care unless I mess with her mouth.
Also on the subject of learning from real life, I never used references until recently. I always loved animals and knew most of the anatomy just by watching them (I started watching documentaries in kindergarden). I grew up just drawing how they looked in my mind. I wouldn't suggest that though, use refs people! I'd probably be better if I had ^^

I agree with that - and I also think the main reason is that nowadays, it's just not possible to be original.
Honestly I don't care much for originality, as long as it's done correctly...

I'm kinda split on this.
While I agree staying with a Balto style isn't good in the long run for any artist - it's a good starting point.

I myself used to do nothing but use Balto (or TLK) screens to draw art, I used the Balto style for a long time etc.
Once I got more into doing art and got better I got fed up of the "olol it looks just liek balto!" comments and worked on developing my style (with the advice of Lux), same thing you did too Kazzai. x]

So, whilst copying another style, either from an animated movie or another artist is a bad thing and will -always- be unoriginal it's often used as a starting point for a lot of people.

I also agree with JC that there are far more artists, especially on BS, that have pretty unoriginal styles than most would think.

Awww! You beat me to the rant, i was going to make a rant about this. Drives me crazy, if you already hadnt seen my posts i have been giving fellow Balto Source members. Trying to urge them to come up with there own talent and own characters that are not based off of someone elses drawings.

To me its just wasting time, why make them look like balto and steele, jenna? That would get so annoying after a while you would think right? I mean think about it....You make a character that looks like Jenna. With your own colors but wait....you see someone else thats making one to that looks exactly the same, but the colors are different. How cool is that?

How hard is it to make your own? Sure it takes years of hard work. And you all wonder why you're not improving, you're not giving the effort needed. Also it would make you feel way better if you sat down and created something out of pure scratch. What gives you more satisfaction? Coloring images that are not even yours....or creating a character that 100% belongs to you?

...think about it.

I must say that a few years ago I was using Balto screenies as my references. Heck, I even traced over screenshots with tracing paper. Please don't shoot me! D:


As UK said, the Balto screenshots are a good reference point to start off with, especially for a child who's not trying to "go pro" or anything. It's completely natural and easy to do. And if I do say so myself, my current style is not much like that of ANYBODY that I have seen on BS, at least. (Keeping in mind that I traced/referenced from Balto screenies for years.)


I do, however, agree that nobody should be posting copied/referenced screenshots in their galleries. That's just plain stealing, even on a Balto website. (Or DA, for that matter, or anywhere else.) Be creative, people! I'd much rather see a roughly-drawn (for lack of a better term) dog in pencil or MS Paint than a picture-perfect penciled copy of a Balto screenshot. And if you've done a pic yourself but need to see the particular angle of a leg, facial expression, etc., then fine, but say so in your pic description. It's not that hard to do.


So while I'm glad that this issue has been brought up and agree with parts of it, I also see nothing wrong with using the Balto pics as a reference as long as you are not displaying the work as your own original drawing. Goodness, we don't all study real-life canine pics from a young age so that we can draw perfect anatomy (although we hope to get there someday).

Good topic, Kelilidh.

Now why is it when I made a topic like this everyone said 'Psh, You just want faves'

Anywho, I completly agree, It gets on my nerves too.