Modblog has a history of calling bullshit on tattooist who blatantly rip off other peoples work and use it as their own. In fact lots of you guys probably remember the modblog post from 2005 where Amina Munster’s chest piece by Tim Kern that was ripped off by another artist.
That seemed like a pretty blatant rip off, even with the subtle changes that were made to the original design. However, it pales in comparison to this atrocity.
When Cat Spencer came up with a beautiful Mucha inspired back piece for his lovely wife, Carla, she insisted on keeping the two shoulder blade pieces from her youth. Well when a FAR less talented artist blatantly ripped off here design, he too incorporated Carla’s old shoulder pieces in his rendition!
This is the original rendition on Carla’s back…
…and this is the atrocious rip off of her same design, INCLUDING the old shoulder pieces.
Thanks to Lish for submitting this story to me. If you have news, stories, or photos you feel would make for a good modblog post. Please do not hesitate to email them to [email protected]
Comments
98 responses to “Another case of BLATANT tattoo thievery”
Wow. The rip off isn’t even a round circle.
What scares me the most is people who take pictures of OTHER PEOPLES TATTOOS to artists and then the ‘artists’ who will tattoo them on them. Wtf. If I took a picture of an another tattoists work to any of my artists, and said “I WANT EXACTLY THIS” they would probably laugh and tell me to leave the shop.
Its a larger piece so the person obviously put some money into getting a repoduction but if I was them id be pretty fucking embarrassed to have such a blatant ripoff on my back.
Eek!
you folks do realize that the tattoo industry is BUILT on artists copying artists, right?!?
and where did the art from the “original” piece come from?
lol gross
And ripping off another artists work is disgusting too
looking at the 2005 article linked… well, at least it was a well-done rip-off.. you know- did the piece justice?
this… thing.. is just. wow. not good at all. atrocious.
Wow…that’s terrible in more than one way.
But that said, the original IS gorgeous, I can definitely see why he would want to copy it, but…jeez.
I have a question… so the stolen part is just the 2 designs on the top corners right? I think it would be kinda silly to get upset about using the same famous piece of art as a tatoo. So the theft dosen’t refer to the mucha pice ( http://www.epdlp.com/fotos/mucha2.jpg ) but to the 2 corner pieces?
if you are going to copy something at least do it to the same standard eh?
Bwahahaha. The tool in the second picture deserves such a crap tattoo. That’s embarassing, I hope he never feels comfortable taking his shirt off again.
The second tattoo is just sad – at least make a decent attempt to make it look good if you’re ripping someone elses idea off…
Sweet shitting hell.
Really? I mean… Jesus.
I really, really hope that if it was the tattoo artist who suggested the design rather than the client, he/she gets some serious karma served up.
If it was the client… well… you already got your karma: Having an AWFUL tattoo, and then being outed on Modblog!
TK – by the looks of the ripoff, I doubt the artist even knew this was a tattoo from a painting. If they did surely they’d just use google images and there would be no way of accusing it of being ripped off.
Anyways, the ripoff made me laugh quite a lot. That is a baaaaad tattoo!
I know people will probably get pissy at me for being shallow, but everyone is thinking it:
The girl(?) with the rip-off looks like a potato from behind.
^^ This!!
baha #11 i sooo second that. omg. i cannot believe people are actually so stupid that they do not realize there are older pieces included in this tattoo. wow. and then being so fucking stupid and getting it tattooed by an “artist” who clearly has no sense of proportion nor tattooing overall. wow. like seriously i hope the fat chick sees this on here and feels really crappy about it.
Tattoo Fail
#6-
I was thinking when I first saw the top image, ‘oh come on, thats not a rip, thats a Mucha’ then I saw the little corner pieces. Rip? Eh, probably. Lazy? DEFINITELY! How can the client or the artist not see that piece and at least find the original? Maybe they’re not familar with Mucha… which would be sad seeing as though you want his art on your body and all. Also, if youre going to do a back piece at least that big, why not go a little bigger and fill the space?
But in all fairness, they DID change things up a little bit- turned her foot into a tentacle, turned the wolf into cousin It. Classy.
I remember this from 2001 when Cat was doing my left sleeve. The really sad thing is the original is designed for Carla being standing, the photo is her sitting which distorts the tattoo a bit. The copy is from Carla sitting, so the copy is even worse than it looks.
anybody can get inspired or reprodruce some Mucha.s thing for a tattoo but when you use an already existing tat.s and fuck it up this way……. for my part the supidest is the client …but the ungifted and unprofressionnal is the tattooist….
anyway sorry for my bad english hope you get me
Max
Although there are subtle differences in the second picture, it does not measure up to the first one
at all, as far as color and composition, the integrity of the copycat tattooist is questionable.
Personally, I would not like for my tattoos to be copied [I have 60 so far], my tattooist will not copy
any of my tattoos from his portfolio to anyone else.
–
me and a few artists i work with were having this kind of discussion (like what TK- #6 is talking about) just the other day… there are lots of tattoos out in the world that have all probably come from the same reference picture (i.e: movie stills, posters, paintings, etc.), but we all agreed that it’s a whole different story when someone references ANOTHER artist’s tattoo work for their OWN tattoo. that’s just lazy, and a bit disrespectful.
Wow. That’s just horrible. I think everyone has covered most of the fail things in the second one. Taking a look at the older right tattoo in the original, and the ripoff, you can get a good idea of the artist’s actual ability to draw. Which isn’t that great.
Also, does it look off-center to anyone else?
Ok. Wow. Many of the people who have commented here: you come off as complete shallow, assholes. I’m ashamed to be a part of this community with the comments you guys have made.
The rip off may be someone’s first tattoo, and maybe they didn’t know any better and went to someone who was a shitty tattoo artist. They wanted to emulate something they thought was beautiful: can you really fault them for that?
Granted, someone more involved in the community would have had the foresight to research an artist etc. so being new to tattoos doesn’t completely absolve them of responsibility, but what I’m basically saying is all of the assumptions you guys have made and the comments are absolutely ridiculous. Who know, maybe the person on whom the ripoff was done really LOVES their tattoo in which case you guys have no right to say things like:
“…wow. and then being so fucking stupid and getting it tattooed by an “artist” who clearly has no sense of proportion nor tattooing overall. wow. like seriously i hope the fat chick sees this on here and feels really crappy about it.”
The person who is without a doubt at fault here is the tattoo artist. But geez, we preach acceptance all day long and then when something like this happens you guys are the first to shoot someone down without ever hearing their story. Way to go.
Wow that is just a TERRIBLE ripoff
The feet are like overly stretched and its not even centered?
I feel bad for whomever got this tattoo.
The artist should have his license removed.
I want to reiterate though: I don’t think this (tattoo thievery from either end, the customer or artist) is in any way ok or right. I’m just saying, consider other circumstances.
Even though this is a post about a terrible occurrence, I just want to thank BMEzine for finally giving me the name of an artist I’ve always admired. I’ve seen Mucha’s artwork everywhere, but never with a name attached.
That said, hnnnnnnnngh @ the ripoff. What strange colouring.
#6 & #15 got to it before me… That isn’t “mucha inspired,” that is a person getting a very well known Mucha piece put directly onto their back with like, zero alterations. Probably a lot of people have that piece as tattoos, or very similar ones.
The shoulder thing is hilarious and awful though. Both the artist and the person who got that tattoo should have done their research better! It’s not like it’s hard to find a reference picture of that piece.
Ironically enough, I checked the site right after I got done e-mailing an artist about my Mucha sleeve…Creepy! O.o
Why is everyone assuming the wearer of the rip off is a male? When I saw it I immediately thought female but I suppose I could be wrong. Either way, it’s something to laugh at.
HAHA Lish likes to whistle-blow in every community she’s a part of, apparently.
Stealing is gross.
Why does everyone assume that the wearer of the rip off is male? When I looked at it I immediately thought female, but I suppose I could be wrong. Either way it’s something to laugh at. (I may have accidently posted this twice.)
An epic fail, to say the least.
it looks like crap, but i don’t see the point about ‘ripoffs’. sure, it’s sad and pathetically done, but in my opinion, especially with tattoos, you need to be pretty careful about what you consider a ‘ripoff’ vs. appropriation vs emulation vs modification of other designs. there’s no copyright or any method of stopping the reproduction of your design…
these issues aren’t simply black and white. it’s a fine line, and anyone who can’t see that is deluding themselves.
This is almost as bad as when someone ripped off the skateboard chest piece Marc did.
DISRESPECT
haha woah that is a wicked shitty ripoff!
The only thing worse than this is not updating the galleries since March 3rd!
Wow, that’s a beautiful painting and a nice rendition of it in the first picture, although the shoulder tattoos kind of ruin it.
The second woman should be pitied, she’s probably not that smart or educated. She couldn’t tell that the shoulder tattoos didn’t belong, she didn’t/couldn’t do any research about the piece, and she didn’t/couldn’t do any research to find a talented artist. The artist themselves were not smart or educated. So she ends up with a horrific permanent mistake.
I never understood why someone would want the same tattoo as someone else, unless it was done as a bond type thing.
*shrug*
Of course its not done well but if someone wants something on their body then its their body. Its very hard to be 100% original and when youre trying to be such you stop becoming yourself. If you want something, go for it. You guys are just as bad as grandmothers telling their grandkids not to get something because its immoral because the devil will eat their soul or something.
If you dont like their mentality about copying other’s work, then don’t. We’re all human and none of us are fit to judge the other.
The worst part about this isn’t the fact that it’s a ripoff, but that the person who got the second tat obviously went to the artist (Who, I’m sorry, probably doesn’t have experience in this type of work), and said “Here, I want this!” Not only that, but the artist DID it?! The girl in the second picture might like her work, but thievery is never good.
I’m on several other forums and sites and I always see the posts that are concerning tattoos (mind you, this is from 13-16 year olds who are getting their first piece because they are dying just to be inked). It usually starts with; “I want this design exactly, where should I get it?”…I always look at these posts and sigh. Not just because they are blatanly forging someone’s work, but because they have no personal meaning whatsoever.
I love Mucha’s work, and I think it would have been fine if the girl at least did her homework. It’s obvious she doesn’t know the piece, the original artist, or have any meaning to the piece other than she likes it. That’s fine, but in my opinion, tattoos should be an expression of who you are. I imagine she took a pic of he internet and said, give me this.
Ugh. Sad story all around.
…and this is why I haven’t submitted photos of my tattoos to BME. Sorry BME, but I’m just too afraid of being copied.
And it seems like a valid fear.
The worst part about this is “artists” will use tattoo pictures from other sources and pass them off as their own in a portfolio. The unwitting client thinks they are going to get an AMAZING tattoo when in fact they get something like you see at the top of this post.
what a bummer. i’d be pissed, to say the least…
[email protected] Lish.
Honest question:
Why is it ok to get a tattoo that copies a painting (like the “original” tattoo above), but not ok to get a tattoo that copies another tattoo (like the “rip off” above)?
I have to say I agree with John H. here you guys have been so adamant about keeping negative comments off the BME girl posts, yet here it seems like your advocating it. Even if it is a rip off, art work stolen, yada yada yada this women definitely doesn’t need to be bashed upon. Artist have been having there work copied for THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of years. That’s how they get famous. That’s how there work is know by millions of people. Even here this artist is befitting from this even though his work was copied. Now even more people know who he is because of this person coping him and this being posted. Butcher’s comment should be taken down, that would only be consistent with your rules about bashing girls for there looks. Beautiful work though. Even though is was disappointed with the post I loved the artwork simple stunning.
you put something beautiful out there, it’s gonna be copied
people are stupid
being copied dosn’t negate the fact that the original is stunning
personally, i’d be proud to have a tattoo that somebody else wanted/got… cuz then i’d know i really do have good taste, haha
actually, makingtrouble, there is such a thing as intellectual copyright.
and its not really a “fine line,” especially in this case. before you try to play the devils advocate, get your facts straight.
It’s too bad that the copy is so poorly done. They say imitation is the highest form of flattery, but unfortunately this imitation is more of an insult.