Have you ever seen photos of a reborn baby and just fell in love with everything about the pictures? The pictures are perfect from the pose, to the clothing, to the lighting to the background, to the focus and exposure??? Just everything about it draws you in??? Now let's be clear. I'm not talking about photos that have a bunch of filters or edits on them. I'm strictly talking about just great pictures.Well, I have and I'm making a commitment to learn how to take better photos.
Step 1 was getting a better camera & I have. I've upgraded to a Canon 60D. And to be honest, this is probably the highest I'll go as far as a DSLR camera. I'm not a professional photographer & this camera should do more than what I need it to once I learn how to use it. I've had people from Facebook & ARC cheering me on & helping me thru this process & to be honest, I can really see a difference. Thank you Kristen (the "Torch" really helped--:::::inside joke::::). Cherie Ann & Lil Jo--I appreciate you guys so much. There have of course been others, but these are the ladies that are constantly helping me.
Step 2 is practice, practice practice. I was trying to practice every day just to learn the settings & see what they do but unfortunately I got sick. I'm going to get back to that as soon as possible. Anyway, I wanted to past a couple pictures of my progress. You can checkout my Facebook for more progress photos.
As you can see, I'm getting a little better. I'll post more of my progress later on.
Kootenay Reborn Nursery is located in Canada. You can find her on Facebook here. Please take a moment to like her page. You won't be sorry. Staci may not be one of the "big named" artist but her work is just as good if not better. In fact, one of her babies just won 2nd place in the ROSE/DEDS doll show last week! CONGRATS STACI! Very well deserved!! She has such a great heart & doesn't mind sharing her "trade secrets". In fact, I credit HER for teaching me how to paint hair. Her tips and tutorials have been a game changer for me. For that, I will always be grateful! Ok, enough of my blabbering on! Let's get to the good stuff! The pictures!!!
Thank you Staci for being an inspiration!!! I look forward to seeing your future creations
"Show Off Saturday"I've been obsessed with purchasing tiebacks/headbands for my reborn babies lately & let me tell you the prices are adding up. They start from $10 plus shipping for each tieback on Etsy! So I told myself..."Self, you can make these yourself". They didn't look particularly hard, but I didn't know where to start. So I did what any normal, computer savvy woman would do & Youtubed the directions! lol Yes ladies, youtube is your friend. And as my Facebook friend said "Youtube is like college, you can learn anything" lol.
Click here for the Tutorial I used. There are a billion of them. Just type in burnt edge flowers or singed flowers & you will get a bunch of hits. Anyway, I tried my hand at them yesterday. I went to Walmart & purchased $1 pack of regular ribbon and some hemp cord for $1 as well. I purchased a cigarette lighter as well which was less than $1. Then I went to work. I attached the flower to the hemp cord by using a needle & thread. You can also use hot glue or fabric glue. Anyway, here is my very 1st creation & I'm so stoked at how it turned out. It was sooooo easy. I actually stayed up most of the night & made a bunch of them. I'm so proud of myself. I would love to see you try it & share!
By the way, please excuse my model Quinlynn as her painted hair isn't finished yet. Please be mindful that these are cell phone pictures. So the quality isn't the best.
Topic 1: Inspiration or Plagiarism?
I receive a lot of request for private orders where the customer wants me to "copy" a reborn baby by another artist. Their words would be "I want you to make me a baby that looks just like "this" one & even provide a picture or link of the reborn baby from the original artist. I always professionally decline the request but it makes me so angry. First of all, it's insulting to me as an Artist that you don't trust my judgment to create a gorgeous reborn baby but secondly it's not fair the the artist who originally made the baby.
I would never want anyone to copy my work exactly unless they are following a tutorial. It's not right & there are so many reborn artist who do it. Their excuse is "the customer is always right" or I just used their work as an inspiration. Each artist should strive to have their own distinct style. There's nothing more awesome than looking a reborn doll & knowing who the artist is without even reading who made it. We should all strive to reach that level one day. But going around attempting to "clone" other people's work is sickening to me
Which leads to the next question. When is it inspiration or plain old plagiarism?
I'm sure we all have our opinions on this, but I will say I'm inspired by so many artist. I may love the way they paint hair, or love the way they paint lips & details & I get inspired to do better with my own work. I'm inspired to practice harder & work harder to do better, not to knock off a replica of their work.
Here's an awesome article here on inspiration versus plagiarism. Please take the time to read it. I hope it will change your mind on continuing to hijack someone else's work & I truly hope I haven't offended anyone. Again these are my thoughts & opinions.
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