oh dear lord . . .

I have to post this because of how terrible it is.

screentones.deviantart.com/art…

If you really think thats a valid way to create a background, then stop.  Stop drawing, and let those of us who are actually TRYING take it from here.  You cheapen us all as artists, you cheapen our skills.  You cheapen our degrees, our years spent honing our abilities, our desire and passion.  

Here at my DA page, images stretch as far back as 2003.  You can see my evolution from a cocky highschooler to an indentured grad student, but the thing I always had throughout was the desire to improve.  

Oh God . . . I just . . . gah!  I'm literally so mad right now I can't think straight.  Unfortunately, this isn't the first jackass to do something like this, here on DA or in the art world period.  There will always be someone using images the "found" with google, or tracing other people's work, or thinking comic sans is the greatest font ever.  There will always be people who can't draw for crap but think they're God's gift to the art world.  And because 80% of people can't tell the difference between "bad" and "good" art, they'll get away with it. Because life is, to a large degree, a popularity contest, people who are "famous" can get away with artistic murder.  

Don't be that kind of douchebag "artist."  Even if these things are "royalty free," money should not be the sole end all - as artists, especially as comic artists and illustrators, we are STORYTELLERS.

So I've been told my attitude is pretty terrible.  And I'll apologize, I am a bit huffy.  Or a LOT huffy.  I'm not doing this to make myself feel good - well, not completely.  I really want people to learn how to draw.  I think you are cheating yourself out of your full potential when you take the "easy" way out.  The fact that whoever made that tutorial is proud of his/her work when its just things she commandeered from google sketchup means that that is as far as she will progress as an artist.  She's set her limits there, and has no desire to improve.  She may someday, but for now, thats her limit.

I may not be the world's authoritative source on what goes and doesn't go in the art world, BUT I have graduated with a degree in illustration, I did work as an illustrator full-time for two years, and I am pursuing my MFA as a comic artist at SCAD.  You can take or leave what I say, but in my experience, not knowing perspective - or at least enough that you can fudge it - will only hurt you as an artist in the long run.