How do you differentiate using references versus plagarism?

[kinggambit]

I'm still a newbie to game art; I'm making an asset of a stained glass mural painting of a lady:

Updated WiP:

 

I wanted to use the pose for the lady but similarities are clearly there between my drawing and the reference.

Is it different enough or should I burn with fire? I'm assuming there's a lot of similar issues in the art industry but it seems like people aren't quite sure from what i've read online.

Edited June 14, 2015 by kinggambit

[Vorontsov]

Use many references to try and create your own piece, what you're doing here isn't really making too much of your own. An example is when I painted a realistic Fallout 3 Wallpaper, even though it was hard work and hours from my part the work still wasn't 100% mine, because I only used one reference and drew exactly as it was in the reference, now this isn't how references work and what I did is basically try to copy / draw the same for practice but this is what you're doing here aswell.

A reference is nothing more than that, a reference or a source of inspiration, but when it's almost a copy of it, it's for you to decide if you feel like the work is yours

Combine many references instead to create your own unique piece, it will feel better aswell. 

Edited June 14, 2015 by Vorontsov

[kinggambit]

Use many references to try and create your own piece, what you're doing here isn't really making too much of your own. An example is when I painted a realistic Fallout 3 Wallpaper, even though it was hard work and hours from my part the work still wasn't 100% mine, because I only used one reference and drew exactly as it was in the reference, now this isn't how references work and what I did is basically try to copy / draw the same for practice but this is what you're doing here aswell.

A reference is nothing more than that, a reference or a source of inspiration, but when it's almost a copy of it, it's for you to decide if you feel like the work is yours

Combine many references instead to create your own unique piece, it will feel better aswell. 

Thanks for the explanation and suggestion. I decided to scrap it and make it out of scratch.

Pretty new to art in general so I felt a bit weird when i drew that. Curious what the rule is for maps' landmarks and locales. Lots of community maps have identically referenced buildings and layouts (but I'm assuming the situation is different since they're creating a whole entire environment and translating through different mediums).

Edited June 15, 2015 by kinggambit

[kinggambit]

I decided to not have my reference out when I drew from scratch and used other images as well. Still a bit of similarities but I've emailed the reference's artist to make sure she was okay with it. Seems to stand on its own legs but then again, I dont know squat. 

[kinggambit]

I would suggest looking at more old Chinese and Japanese art. You don't have to worry about plagiarism as much since the artists have been dead for hundreds of years. Also your current painting uses too many lines and too bright of colors to look like old styled art, but I like how it's going. Make sure you Chinese letters follow the correct stroke order too, right now "女" is too stretched.

​I definitely agree about the inconsistent style. IIRC, glass wasn't even discovered in Eastern Asia until a few hundred years after Europeans did (it's why walls and windows are paper/wood).

The real reason is that I just wanted to use the "refract" shader for a fun little stained glass mural effect. The bullshit reason is I've invented some story of a European artist sending the mural of some Korean king's daughter as a gift-- which I can conveniently justify with a small placard with some words on it.