• This forum is strictly intended to be used by members of the VS Battles wiki. Please only register if you have an autoconfirmed account there, as otherwise your registration will be rejected. If you have already registered once, do not do so again, and contact Antvasima if you encounter any problems.

    For instructions regarding the exact procedure to sign up to this forum, please click here.
  • We need Patreon donations for this forum to have all of its running costs financially secured.

    Community members who help us out will receive badges that give them several different benefits, including the removal of all advertisements in this forum, but donations from non-members are also extremely appreciated.

    Please click here for further information, or here to directly visit our Patreon donations page.
  • Please click here for information about a large petition to help children in need.

Profile Pictures - Official, Fanart, and Unrelated

Status
Not open for further replies.
I'm not opposed to the usage of fan art if permitted, but random stock images would be pushing it.
 
I am fine with pics being removed that have nothing to do with the profiles.

Fanart sometimes are better than the official art so i don't really have a problem with them, and if there is no official alternative i don't have an issue with using them.

I made profiles for the Re Zero characters years before some of them had official art, if there was no fan art, honestly wouldn't have bothered making them, i dislike making profiles with no image, but that's just my personal taste.
 
As I said, I know I'm in the minority. People really like using fan art, but I don't see the problem with a profile not having a picture if there's nothing official. So what if Parahumans didn't have pictures for instance? Don't see anything wrong with that.
 
Starter_Pack said:
Fanart is only ever used whenever it is not feasible to use the original artwork due to poor aesthetics or other topical reasons, if it even exists at all.

Anyway, yes, removing images that has nothing whatsoever to do with the content involved can and will work for me.
Click to expand...
Verses such as Pokémon, Kirby and Doraemon use fanart way too liberally when there's official art for nearly every featured thing, so if anything the standards should be raised so this is really the case. Maybe an Editing Rule should be done...

Personally I think absolutely no fanart should be used (Most Wikis in general don't use it unless it's straight up "officially" featured, and even then official art is given more priority for a reason), but it seems most prefer to just feature fanart even if only to illustrate the vague idea a character from a non-visual media may look like, even if the art style heavily tends to contrast between each case out of using multiple kinds of artists (cough, Parahumans, cough)
 
Last edited:
Ogbunabali said:
As I said, I know I'm in the minority. People really like using fan art, but I don't see the problem with a profile not having a picture if there's nothing official. So what if Parahumans didn't have pictures for instance? Don't see anything wrong with that.
Click to expand...
Images are useful for illustrating articles.

A fan-created image can be just as useful, if not moreso, than an official one sometimes.

The images I'm mainly opposed to being used are generic ones that have no direct relation to the actual thing that is supposed to be being depicted.
 
Fanart and official art are equally usable imo. Whatever looks best. Using unrelated artwork that represents something similar (like using a picture of Jesus for a Jesus character in-verse, or using an image of Chuck Norris for a character that "looks just like chuck norris" or whatever) is probably a no-go for me. Neutral on the Unsong argument above, I think it steps into iffy territory but I don't feel terribly strongly on the subject.
 
Damage3245 said:
Images are useful for illustrating articles.

A fan-created image can be just as useful, if not moreso, than an official one sometimes.
Click to expand...
That's extremely relative. And I have a hard time coming up with a scenario where a physical appearance is so vital that, in a worse case scenario, couldn't be fixed by a simple line or two in the summary.
 
Last edited:
If we are using fanart it's pretty important we get permission from the artist before doing anything with it.

As for generic clouds or space pictures like the ones for Padomey or Anu work I guess due to a complete absence of anything else but it's also not good either.
 
I feel like the fanart issue is relatively solved, I think the main things with confusion left are:
  • The weird Unsong situation, where many characters are canonically-acknowledged references to William Blake paintings in their names/behaviours/roles in the story, but they don't share visual similarities to the characters in them, still those paintings are being used as their profile pictures.
  • Whether supreme beings can have pictures relating to the cosmology as their profile picture. i.e. if a cosmology involves a tree of life, could artwork or a diagram of the tree of life, from any out-of-text source, be used as the profile picture?
  • Whether mythological or religious figures without official art or fanart, such as Jesus, can have any artwork of Jesus used as their profile picture.
  • Whether supreme beings not in any of the prior situations can have some vaguely cosmic-looking art as their profile picture, like is the case in these profiles.
 
Agnaa said:
The weird Unsong situation, where many characters are canonically-acknowledged references to William Blake paintings in their names/behaviours/roles in the story, but they don't share visual similarities to the characters in them, still those paintings are being used as their profile pictures.
Click to expand...
Unsong would be a slightly weirder situation in that regard, because the profiles for which we use William Blake's painting are either from characters that get no physical description (Aaron and Metatron, with the latter only having descriptions of his human form and far vaguer ones of his angelic form) or ones that actually do resemble the figures in the painting (In this case, Ana). Uriel's popular portrayal that's endorsed by the author, on the other hand, indeed has no resemblance to the William Blake character he corresponds to, and we do have decent art of the former, so it is certainly preferable.

Agnaa said:
Whether supreme beings not in any of the prior situations can have some vaguely cosmic-looking art as their profile picture, like is the case in these profiles.
Click to expand...
I fully agree that stock images like that shouldn't be allowed, for the matter, since they're not even remotely related to the actual characters in those cases.

I've already expressed my opinion on the second point, and am neutral on the third.
 
Ultima_Reality said:
Unsong would be a slightly weirder situation in that regard, because the profiles for which we use William Blake's painting are either from characters that get no physical description (Aaron and Metatron, with the latter only having descriptions of his human form and far vaguer ones of his angelic form) or ones that actually do resemble the figures in the painting (In this case, Ana). Uriel's popular portrayal that's endorsed by the author, on the other hand, indeed has no resemblance to the William Blake character he corresponds to, and we do have decent art of the former, so it is certainly preferable.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure if we get a physical description of Aaron, but there is official art of him, which doesn't really match. I'll take your word on the Ana and Metatron ones, since I don't remember their physical descriptions, and the official art of Ana seems close-ish to the painting.
 
I don't see why people need to be so stuck up about it. The William Blake paintings are totally fine. Moreover, they're fun.
 
I am very much against the use of any fanart whatsoever, but I'm aware that's probably not gonna float here, so we should instead establish rules for the use and sourcing of fanart. Standardized rules. First off, using fanart when there's canon art readily available - not cool at all, I don't care if the author drew the canon art on ******* MS Paint with a broken mouse. Art also just... isn't necessary for a page, so I don't see why people are so obsessive about it. As far as I'm concerned, only official art should be used - if there's no official art, don't put a picture on the page. It's not the end of the world. Definitely don't use stock photos.

This isn't about having fun or anything, or about things looking better. There are issues that can arise with the usage of fanart and unaffiliated art; conflict with artists, potentially even legal complaints. So at the very least we should establish standardized rules for the use and sourcing of fanart. Also, an issue has arisen in the past of people edit warring to replace one piece of fanart with another, because, as it happens, people never agree on what looks best, and giving them the ability to fish any random piece of fanart from the internet is a terrible ******* idea that encourages this! Especially when people on this website have a problem with horny images.

And when pages have galleries, you know people are just gonna start filing them up with fanart, right?
 
Last edited:
I both agree and disagree with Prom. I do agree that fanart definitely needs to be sourced and handled very carefully, as we have had problems arise in the past for fanartists having made complaints for us using their artworks (an example that comes to mind is one of Ryūko’s Senketsu forms).
However, I vehemently disagree that we should avoid fanart at all costs, and even moreso disagree that a blank picture is better than fanart. Nobody clicks on profiles without pictures. It doesn’t draw attention, and we want profiles to get clicks. Unless it’s a lore/info page, there should be no reason for a lack of pictures, and that goes for our powers and abilities too. A prime example of a verse that could look so much better if fanart was used is Touhou. It’s common knowledge that most of the official art is god-awful and that the fanart blows it out of the water most of the time, but we use either fanart or black and white manga pics for pretty much anyone that’s not the more fortunate cast members.
 
Matthew_Schroeder said:
Unsong doesn't have canon art. It has commissioned fanart - That's it.
Click to expand...
It has commissioned fanart presented in the story itself to open each of the 4 books. I think there's a strong distinction between stuff like that and the author commissioning some fanart then mentioning that in some comment or social media post.

(Hell, the piece of art I linked in particular doesn't credit anyone. Considering it was used to introduce the series in its entirety, and the later pieces of art credit named/unnamed fans, and even his girlfriend, it seems plausible that the author himself drew it, making it canon art by any standard)

If you don't consider that canon art, then most books, and even a lot of comics don't have any canon art.
 
Last edited:
There are also cases like Patrick Star straight up having a gallery with memes that aren't just coincidentally taken as memes, as there's even text that wasn't in the original version, and serves no purpose but be "funny", which actually just makes us look less professional out of featuring this kind of content. There's also cases where art is featured even if while official, isn't really canon to begin with (Such as pages having as pictures Smash Bros. renders when there's official art from their original series).

Can we please also include some guideline for edited/featured images, and from where they come from?
 
Last edited:
Commissioned fanart may as well be official if it was commissioned by the creator.

I don't care about official art quality. Touhou art is completely fine. We're not a ******* art gallery, we shouldn't be aiming to have the best art possible. I am strongly against the use of fanart.
 
I already said my piece, Official art always takes priority over fanart unless official art is non existent. And Fanart must be used by permission. Or if what by Prom said, Author commissioned art technically counts as official, such as the case for Christopher Paolini's works and their current images.
 
Note: I didn't count "like"s for this. If you want to clarify your view, either leave a comment here or on my wall, and I'll add you to the tally.

As with all vote tallies, this is from my interpretation of your posts. If you'd like me to change where your vote lies, feel free to tell me.

On official art vs fanart [26 total votes]​

Official always above fanart, alternatively use nothing: 4 (DontTalkDT, Antoniofer, DarkDragonMedeus, KLOL506)

Official when it's nice, fanart is an option otherwise: 14 (Ultima Reality, SamanPatou, Antvasima, Starter Pack, Celestial Pegasus, Damage3245, Mr. Bambu, The real cal howard, Agnaa, Planck69, Soldier Blue, Matthew Schroeder, Zaratthustra, AKM sama)

Only use official, never use fanart: 4 (QuasiYuri, Ogbunabali, Bobsican, Promestein)

Only use fanart if explicit permission is received from the artist, just crediting them isn't enough: 3 (Abstractions, Qawsedf234, Armorchompy)

Only use fanart if the author considers it an accurate representation of the characters: 1 (Andytrenom)

Conditional on there being no official art or fanart, can pictures/art that match the character's described appearance be used? [7 total votes]​

Only paintings/drawings, not pictures: 2 (Ultima Reality, Matthew Schroeder)

Has no issues with doing this, but didn't elaborate on specifics: 1 (Planck69)

Only for places/objects, not for real people: 1 (SamanPatou)

Not allowed: 3 (Mr. Bambu, Antvasima, Starter Pack)

Unsong's specific weird case [8 total votes]​

Allowed: 4 (Matthew Schroeder, Ultima Reality, Planck69, Antvasima)

Not allowed: 2 (Agnaa, Ogbunabali)

Explicitly neutral: 2 (Mr. Bambu, Starter Pack)

Conditional on there being no official art or fanart, can pictures/drawings/diagrams of the cosmology/concepts associated with it be used for supreme beings? [8 total votes]​

Cosmology Diagram Allowed: 5 (Matthew Schroeder, DontTalkDT, Ultima Reality, Planck69, SamanPatou)

Only if there's an official one: 3 (Ogbunabali, Antvasima, Starter Pack)

Conditional on there being no official art or fanart, can other artwork of religious/mythological beings be used for one verse's description of it? (i.e. using Renaissance-era paintings of Jesus for a profile) [8 total votes]​

Allowed: 2 (Matthew Schroeder, Planck69)

Religious figures should be avoided, mythological figures are fine: 2 (Planck69, Ogbunabali)

Not allowed: 4 (Mr. Bambu, Agnaa, Antvasima, Starter Pack)

Conditional on there being no official art or fanart, can random stock photos be used for abstract beings? See these three pages for examples. [10 total votes]​

Not Allowed: 9 (StrymULTRA, Damage3245, Starter Pack, Ogbunabali, Abstractions, Celestial Pegasus, Ultima Reality, Agnaa, Antvasima)

It works but isn't good: 1 (Qawsedf234)
 
Last edited:
On official art vs fanart
Click to expand...
Add me to Official when nice, fanart otherwise.

>Conditional on there being no official art or fanart, can other artwork of religious/mythological beings be used for one verse's description of it? (i.e. using Renaissance-era paintings of Jesus for a profile)

I'm not really for use of famous religious figures but mythological figures is fine.
 
Oh, I'm pretty sure I've seen him sincerely defend them before, but I'll remove that until he clarifies further.
 
I of course 100% agree with Promestein. We are a wiki after all, and pictures are there for minor flavour and not even required.

As for the other issues. I think it goes without saying that we shouldn't use paintings as profile pictures if a character's connection is only just referenced, let alone not even sharing similar physical characteristics.

Supreme beings should be fine with having a cosmological chart or something, if there's an official one, but not if there isn't. Having the Kabbalah there for a random god character is no different than using a random stock image.

Religious figures were already banned from having profiles for being so close to their real life counter parts so using depictions of real life religion (if no official art is available of course, like using a picture of Jesus from American Gods is obviously fine) is just poking the bear for no reason.
 
I can agree to using official art and art comissioned by the author. I also wouldn't mind using fan art if there's no official art and the author considers the fan art to be an accurate depiction of the characters
 
Damage3245 said:
Images are useful for illustrating articles.

A fan-created image can be just as useful, if not moreso, than an official one sometimes.

The images I'm mainly opposed to being used are generic ones that have no direct relation to the actual thing that is supposed to be being depicted.
Click to expand...
I agree with Damage.
 
I also think that the train has passed regarding using no fan art whatsoever, as long as it is based on the official character designs. A very large part of our profile pages do use it, and I am a perfectionist who wants our profile pages to look as good and be as reliable as possible.

We should obviously give credit whenever we know where the art came from though, and remove and delete it if the original artist asks us to.
 
Anyway:

On official art vs fanart

Official when it's nice, fanart is an option otherwise:

Agreed.

Only use fanart if the author considers it an accurate representation of the characters:

I am uncertain, but leaning towards agreeing.

Conditional on there being no official art or fanart, can pictures/art that match the character's described appearance be used?

No.

Unsong's specific weird case

Not allowed:

I am currently leaning towards this, yes.

Conditional on there being no official art or fanart, can pictures/drawings/diagrams of the cosmology/concepts associated with it be used for supreme beings?

Only if there's an official one:

I am leaning towards agreeing with this, yes.

Conditional on there being no official art or fanart, can other artwork of religious/mythological beings be used for one verse's description of it? (i.e. using Renaissance-era paintings of Jesus for a profile)

Not allowed:

Agreed. We do not allow either religious or mythology-based profile pages any more.

Conditional on there being no official art or fanart, can random stock photos be used for abstract beings?

Not Allowed:

Agreed.
 
And what does it not being viable even mean? What significance can the lack of such an image possibly have? That our userbase doesn't get to look at a pretty picture? God forbid. We all know that's what they come to the wiki for, the pretty picture of x badly drawn Touhou girl. **** everything else, really.
 
Promestein said:
And what does it not being viable even mean? What significance can the lack of such an image possibly have? That our userbase doesn't get to look at a pretty picture? God forbid. We all know that's what they come to the wiki for, the pretty picture of x badly drawn Touhou girl. **** everything else, really.
Click to expand...
First impressions are everything so yes, a garbage picture or no picture at all would have them **** everything else if they don’t click on it in the first place. If you don’t wanna use Touhou as an example then Undertale, which I completely vouch for using the tarot card art (which is official and even if it weren’t I’d make a case for it) over the sprites.
 
First impressions are nothing. If the art's official, use it. I don't care. If it's not, don't use it. If Undertale didn't have good official art I'd advocate for using the sprites. Touhou art isn't even that bad, it's fine.
 
It's already been marked where I stand on the use of fan art when no other good options are available and random stock images for dieties. As for the rest...

I do not feel comfortable using other pictures that "resemble" a character if there are no alternatives. I would rather leave a profile without a picture if there is no official art available than use a picture that could be misleading.

If there are official diagrams of cosmological beings and such, I will be fine with the use of it in the stead of actual art. If it's not, then it's just the stock image problem all over again, so no.

No on using unrelated pictures of religious characters if there is no art. Either have art for the specific character, or leave it blank.

I'm not too sure about Unsong's case, honestly. I'm remaining neutral on it.
 
StrymULTRA said:
Not to make pressure, but:

When will the pics of these 3 profiles be removed? Literally everyone agreed with them not being good to use as they're useless, unprofessional and unrelated.
Click to expand...
Calm down, Strym. The pictures will be removed once everyone comes to a consensus on everything here. Have some patience.
 
The_real_cal_howard said:
First impressions are everything so yes, a garbage picture or no picture at all would have them **** everything else if they don’t click on it in the first place. If you don’t wanna use Touhou as an example then Undertale, which I completely vouch for using the tarot card art (which is official and even if it weren’t I’d make a case for it) over the sprites.
Click to expand...
Cal, users that come into the wiki are going to go into what they're interested into in the first place, which generally includes series they're already into.
They expect there to be an official picture that they're already familiar with, not random fanart that makes us look biased and less professional (especially if there's official art avaiable, no matter how "ugly" compared to the fanart it is).

If there's no picture possible out of the series in question simply being on a non-visual media (non-graphical novels, etc), they are most likely going to be aware of this and not take it as a big flaw that heavily discourages them from being in the wiki. Not even Wikipedia has an image on every page, and the solid content in them is what backs them up.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

DarkGrath
Caption Every Staff Member's Profile Pictures
Replies
7
Views
837
Deidalius
Deidalius
Just_a_Random_Butler
  • Locked
Proposal for Official Use of the Border Template
Replies
36
Views
3K
Just_a_Random_Butler
Just_a_Random_Butler
Catzlaflame
  • Locked
Sandboxes and CRTs
Replies
11
Views
1K
Catzlaflame
Catzlaflame
ImmortalDread
  • Locked
Regulation on the Use of Art in Vs Battle
2
Replies
70
Views
4K
Antvasima
Antvasima
Raincutter
Terrifier 3/Novelization Upgrades and Revisions
Replies
14
Views
1K
HorrorHistory
HorrorHistory
Back
Top