The big issue I have with the “art” is that Britney’s hair is completely attacked by the wind, but Christina? No wind. Tsk tsk.
Good news art fans. I too have released a new master work. I call it “Britney With Sufficient Lighting.” You can preview the version with level 2 jpeg compression here. If you want the jpeg level 1 compression version, please send me $16.95 via paypal.
And with this lame-ass excuse, you’ve just undermined the one possible justification for your ‘art’. Had they both maintained thoroughly virginal public images and only spoken out in favor of traditional moral values, then you might have been able to claim your unauthorized use of their likenesses was a work of parody. Since, as you say, you’re “following a fairly well-ploughed way,” you haven’t produced anything of any original value.
Hey, I actually think thats pretty good…
Back to the OP. Suck it up, you broke the rules, got busted and now you are getting chewed out because of your ‘art’. I don’t mean to be rude but that is not a very good piece if you ask me.
Hey Evil Captor,
Didja notice that NOBODY agrees with your specious reasoning, and we all think you’re a jackass, and that your “art” is crap? Just sayin’, that’s all…
What I find amusing is that he has no qualms about using their likenesses without permission, but his ‘art’ has a huge “sample” written over it to prevent others from copying his work without paying for it.
y’know, this is the most devastating critique of my work yet. Umm… wind devil? Extremely SMALL wind devil?
I’m impressed … generally, in order to find criticism of such incisiveness, one has to go to a bowling alley.
I noticed you’re undercutting my prices by a buck. Dude, that’s not gonna work. What if I undercut YOURS by a buck? Then YOU undercut mine by a buck? And so on and so forth until we’re just GIVING the stuff away? What we have to do is come to an understanding about pricing …
Oh, yah, and I hear that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Heh, 20 years, huh? Exactly how old are you? 20?
How many of these 20 years were in photoshop? Sorry, but I am not impressed with your work as much as you are.
Personally, I don’t see this as a rant, but rather a ‘rant’ used to get a new audience for the work. Excellent ploy there, I must add. Have you recieved any new offers because of it?
Well, this gets us to my rationale for creating the work. I see it as the artwork for a poster for a nonexistent B-movie or maybe one of those hard-core romance novels they turn out nowadays. The thing about it is, Britney and Christina aren’t really central to the artwork as I see it. What I wanted to do was create an artwork that conveyed a feeling of romance, mystery and exotic adventure, combined with a strong element of kinky sex, much as John Norman’s Gor novels did back in the 80s. That’s why I like the color palette of blacks, purples, reds, oranges and yellows so much – they create a thick sense of atmosphere, of twilight settling on dusty streets.
What Britney and Christina bring to the imagery is the “siren” element – women whose voices have such power that they can warp men’s minds, now reduced to naked slavegirls walking the dusty streets of an exotic city at twilight, their voices crudely but effectively muted for the moment, staring provocatively at male passers-by, using their lithe young bodies to arouse them, knowing that if they are purchased by some lust-riddled fool, he might well have his way with them for a time, but sooner or later he will want to hear them sing, and then it will be HE who is enslaved.
You may not agree with my interpretation of the work. You may not think I have achieved what I was going after. But that’s honestly what I was aiming for, to create something new and interesting in the world. That’s the artistic impulse, and that’s what justified the artwork as far as I’m concerned. YMMV. I don’t care.
Yeah but I DO get coin for my work, which kinda puts the comments on this board in perspective.
I don’t think you need to get a public figure’s permission to use their likenesses in a work of art. Photoshopped collages are a tricky ground in this respect, but at some point, you gotta go with the Hands-On Imperative and do what’s right.
In any event, I SINCERELY doubt that your real objection to my work is that I stand a chance of making money from it. In case it IS your real objection, you will be very pleased to know that the Ebay ban greatly diminishes my chances of selling this artwork.
Well, how COULD you be? In any event, I’m not so much impressed by my technical skills on this one, but on how well all the elements came together to create the impression I was after. In any event, you might be surprised at how many elements there are to this artwork.
Dude if there is a worse way of promoting one’s work than posting about it on a board with so many snarky cheapskates on it, I’d really like to know about it … it’s gotta be a hoot.
Well, my real objection is that it’s juvenile and lacking in any real originality, but had you photographed your own models (or simply drawn them yourself), then I guess I’d have little to do but simply shrug my shoulders and ignore it.
And while you may not need Spears’ or Aguilera’s permission, I’m pretty sure you’d need the permission of the photographer who shot the original photos (or whoever owns the copyright), as they are both undoubtedly cut and pasted from copyrighted images.
I’ll add a few more nitpicks, then. I’m not necessarily a prude, and in fact, I like bondage imagery. I just don’t like this. I won’t pick on the picture quality, since I know it’s intentionally distorted. I can’t say much about the background, which I can’t see clearly (other than those penis-shaped buildings), except that I don’t like the color. I’m willing to overlook the color, though, since it expresses the feelings you were going for. Personal taste can be overlooked. There are a few other things I’m finding it harder to overlook:
- The aforementioned Mystery Mini-Wind, which blows Britney’s hair but leaves Christina’s lank and still.
- This is supposed to be a Gor/fantasy image, but the women are wearing modern rubber ball gags. Bright red. It’s a little jarring for a fantasy image. I’d have used a wood or metal bit, I think, or even a ball made of wood and leather. I find it hard to believe that the slave traders of Gor need to import their sex toys from our world. I get the same reaction to all those necklaces on Britney, but I’m willing to accept that this is a matter of personal preference.
- I’m looking at this image, and I can’t tell where the hell those gold chains are supposed to be going. They tie on to the girls’ wrists at the one end and the other end is… where? I thought the left elbow, at first, but the way the girls’ arms are pulled behind them, even that doesn’t seem probable.
- Britney’s breasts are okay, in that fake-breast way, but Christina’s right nipple doesn’t seem to be in quite the right place. At least, I’ve rarely seen a woman with her nipple on the top of her breast like that.
- Britney’s bindings are really strange. Is her right wrist tied to her left elbow? I don’t see a shackle or anything on that elbow. At first glance I thought her wrists were tied to each other, but it’s in the wrong position for that- in fact, I don’t see that right wrist really attached to anything- is she just standing with her hands behind her back?
See? I didn’t mention the copyright or likeness problems at all.
Anyone else creeped out by this variation of the ‘slut was asking for it’ defense?
Dude, get off your high horse, you’ve made crappy work and broken the law. Don’t get defensive…just move on. There’s no sympathy here.
And, yes, using their images (that were not taken by you in a public setting) without their permission is at a minimum a violation of trademark. It’s certainly actionable. And if someone else took the pix and holds copyright then you’re also violating their copyright (and at a minimum owe them some percentage of proceeds and probably a penalty for not asking permission).
Now if you saw them walking along Rodeo drive dressed like that and you took some pix and sold them you’d be perfectly within your rights to profit from it.
But they didn’t. And you didn’t.
Wow, you made some money pasting celebrities’ heads on porno pics. Whoop de fucking doo, loser. Get a job. And a life.
:::the summer wind/came blowin’ in/from across the sea::: Ok, how’s this? Britney’s hair is fine and not treated in any way, whereas Christina has used a LOT of styling gel on hers for her big slavegirl march. So a light breeze is kicking Britney’s hair way up and leaving Christina’s lank…
Actually this is well within the purview of the Gor novels, which features an established black market trade in which Gorean agents kidnap Earth girls to be Gorean slavegirls. I’m sure they’d think ballgags were incredibly cool and buy them by the gross. No mention of them buying or using ballgags in the novels, but you know, fanwanking covers a multitude of sins.
What’s generally mentioned in the Gor novels is leather gags with built in leather wadding. This would have been a hell of a lot easier to do in Photoshop than the ballgags, but I thought the ballgags more dramatically proclaimed that they were silenced. For the record, these are made of a special, very rubbery wood which has all the physical characteristics of rubber except it’s not rubber, which grows only on Gor.
It’s probably hard to see in the image you’re looking at, but Britney and Christina are both wearing slave collars with a big ring in front, to which the chains attach. Britney is holding Christina’s chain in her bound hand – you can see it dangling out the end there. Christina is holding the chain of another, unseen slavegirl, and a fourth unseen slavegirl holds Britney’s chains. Their arms are simply held behind them with short lengths of (unseen) chains which attach to the metal cuffs on their wrists.
Britney’s breasts are fakes, one belonging to a stripper, the other belonging to a bondage model, both heavily reworked, in fact, the one belonging to the bondage model I might have done better to just draw from scratch. That’s Christina’s actual breast, copied, blown up and rotated slightly to account for the way it would sit on her chest with it’s fuller volume. I think what you are seeing as the nipple is actually Christina’s nipple ring. In a more high-res, non-crapped-up version it’s more evident what’s going on.
In my vision, both wrists have metal cuffs, with a short length of chain between them permitting some adjustment and movement as they walk. But you don’t see that because most of her back is blocked or in shadow as she stands slightly facing the viewer. I am not completely happy with the way Britney’s arms are held, however. I may have to do further work there. I was thinking of doing Japanese style shibari bondage on Britney, but it seems out of context with all the chains and cuffs.
BTW, Britney’s stance facing the viewer is why she’s wearing panties and Christina’s not. In both original images, they wore panties, but I liked the way Christina looked without them from the side just fine. Taking the panties off Britney would have been fun and all, but revealing her genitals would have gotten me out of the R-rated movie poster/romance novel territory I was shooting for. A lot of work to accomplish something I didn’t really want to accomplish.
Thanks for the astute criticism, you made some good points.