I'm always surprised when people on an art thief's watch list express shock and disbelief when the thief gets busted. There are usually some fairly obvious signs when a gallery is full of stolen art. Although I'm sure most of you are aware of these signs, I am going to run through some of the more common things. I am in no way making a definitive list, this is just from personal observation, and may not apply to all stolen art (some rippers are smarter than others) and some legitimate galleries might have one or more of these traits (I know my own does), so use your judgement!

1. Obvious inconsistency in style.
Before you watch someone and gush all over their art, take a peek at their entire gallery--does the overall style seem more or less uniform? I know it's possible for an artist's style to change, I for one cannot adhere to a particular style because I am a gigantic retard, but usually there's some sort of consistency: how the artist colours, facial and physical composition, subject matter, etc.

2. Obvious inconsistency in quality
Does the artist submit an amazingly detailed watercolour piece one day, then a blurry, badly sized pencil drawing the next? An artist can get better, of course, and they can have bad days, but is the difference in accomplished-ness so glaring that it consistutes a traffic hazard?

3. Cluelessness about medium/categorization
Ok, so the dA categories are shit. Half the time I cannot find where my stuff is supposed to go (I haven't tried out the new system since have nothing to submit. Maybe it will prove me wrong) However, artists usually can state accurately what a particular piece was done in. I once found a gallery where the person had been clever and stolen from the same Japanese page, so the quality and style was consistent, they also went so far as to construct elegant, detailed artistic descriptions that went something like "I worked so hard on this in art class for 6 weeks, watercoloring is so hard for me! It was worth it though because the teacher said that it's the best watercolor piece he's ever seen from a student and during the critique session BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH CONTINUE FOR SIX MORE PAGES"

...it was of course, an obviously CG'd piece.

oh boy, I Lol'd all over that one.

When an artist can't tell the difference between an oekaki line and a ball-pen line, they usually didn't draw the picture.

4. Ridiculous descriptions
This one is more subtle and have to be handled carefully. Sometimes a description doesn't quite match up with the picture, the subject in the drawing isn't exactly what the description claims it is...sometimes they're too flippant, too clueless, too detailed or too vague. I know this applies to all the descriptions in my own gallery because sometimes people who draw and don't steal are braindamaged idiots too.


Those are some of the most common mistakes rippers tend to make. I'm sure there are more, feel free to share with me. And again, it's usually not wise to mount a giant flame surge on a deviant's page even if you're aching to do it (god knows I want to, oh god)--deviantart's "policies" will usually work against you when it comes to giving an art feef hell. Trust me, it's even sweeter when you find the evidence, THEN bring the fury in a titanic tsunami of righteousness and reportation. The snarking is so much sweeter then. Yes.

AND REMEMBER, KIDS, IT'S NOT WISE TO STEAL. BRING YOUR OWN ORIGINALITY TO GLORIOUS BLOSSOMING AND FRUITION *fades away into a haze of heavenly light amidst harp music*



bestowee of creepy shoulder touches (friends)



future ninja kitchen vampires