Can he trace the official show? Yes! As long as he doesn’t sell the work… oh wait…Longtime fandom artist and vendor Neil Wacaster, also known by his artist and company name ’Drawponies’, has been longtime suspected of tracing from the show, but the time has come where he’s been caught in the act by his own fanclub.
Drawponies was running his usual livestream on Picarto when an observant fan noticed he was tracing Cadence directly from a show screenshot. His fans on his Facebook group took notice and immediately started buzzing about it.
Drawponies isn’t just any pony artist; He’s one of the most successful and well-traveled vendors in the fandom, with plans for over 20 pony, comic, and anime conventions in 2015 alone, and makes enough money off his business, he makes a fulltime income off of it. Drawponies also has turned his artist name into a company of sorts; he needs an artist team to complete all his commissions and help him trace all his artwork.
Because, you know, art is no longer an expression of creativity and should be completely commoditized and commercialized while you stomp your quiet, honest, and genuine competition with loud, aggressive marketing and at this point, unfair tracing advantage that is an insult to the rest of the communities’ artists who actually practice and train their craft and skills.We can already spot a few prints and products that were definitely traced
So much obnoxious branding
However, even for how obviously traced a lot of his work appears to be, there can always be the argument played he’s just got really good at emulating the show style. That is, until, he was caught red-hoofted by his own fanclub, who had an angry thread filled with shock and anguish from Neil’s fans upon learning their artist was a fake, before devolving into a self-promotion thread by artists who will never be as popular as our favorite tracer (stay butthurt!). Unsurprisingly, the thread has been deleted from his Facebook club, but we have a backup of the whole conversation before it was censored by Neil’s PR team.He needs a team of… 20 moderators to patrol his Facebook page? Wait… 20 head moderators. Does that mean there’s more? Jesus, that’s more moderators than EqD and HN have actual writers combined. What the hell of an operation is Drawponies even running?Now, we wanted to see if this was like, for real, and not just some guy talking shit on Facebook, so we investigated and took a look at Drawponies’ Deviant Art for if we could find any examples of finished products that had tracing. Specifically, anything that had an iconic pose we could easily trace back. Like this “The Mane 6 React to Socks” comic. And… well… the results were pretty telling.
Hmm… but it doesn’t seem he’s selling the comics? Well, lets see if he’s vending anything that gets traced.
How about that $150 blanket Drawponies sells at conventions (as shown in his vending booth picture from above)Ah, there we go, we have proof he’s selling his tracesOur eyes don’t lie, I think we’ve proven he doesn’t just trace, but he also sells products that contain his traces.
Fo real?
Given how seriously Hasbro has taken other scandals of artist and animators counterfeiting Hasbro intellectual property, we cannot be surprised if the ‘Bro takes action against Neil’s high-revenue business.Looks like someone, with the backing of 17 folks, is already on itAccording to the person who originally sent us this information, the Drawponies facebook group “ have been banning people asking questions about this, and removing posts, trying to turn the entire thing into a cover-up.”
This is like one of those Al Capone situations, where everyone knew he was doing it, it was painfully obvious. We just needed evidence so irrefutable even his most ardent fans couldn’t deny it. And then he livestreamed himself tracing. Daymn!
Meh. Selling traced stuff is kinda douchey, but all I do is read his comics, so honestly I don’t really give a fuck, personally. I’d probably be pretty pissed if I’d given him money though.
Maybe I’ll rename his folder in my collection ‘Traceponies’ though. heh.
“Traceponies” is definitely his name now. As some people have said, tracing is fine when you’re learning but to sell it? Bleh.
The lame thing is, tracing doesn’t actually help you learn anything anyway. I had a lot of trouble with hands, so I traced a bunch of hand references to see if it would help. They looked great, but when I tried it again I still couldn’t do it. Tracing is incredibly lazy and doesn’t teach you anything. It doesn’t stick in the mind. The only way to actually get it is observation and lots of practice.
In my first year at art/animation school a tutor caught someone tracing instead of inbetweening for the umpteenth time so he grabbed the page and screwed it up and threw it in the bin. (Yes I’ve told this story before. It’s still great.) Even when it’s not a matter of copyright infringement, tracing is still hilariously pleb-tier in this age of photocopiers and scanners.
A lot of us artists knew about this! In fact you don’t need knowledge of art to see he obviously traces. (I actually have a thinly veiled plagiarist character based off this guy in a novel I am writing which takes place at a fandom convention.) Anyways almost every artist I have vended near in the past two years would share me their horror stories of Traceponies. Of how he used his helper to block off the neighboring tables and funnel con goers to his booth. Of how he uses shady tactics in trying to get sales. Of taking booths that are not his or trying to take a majority of the space for himself. Of how he plasters his crude unoriginal art over everything. Of how he sucks up to people he thinks are important or will give him money and treats other people like they don’t exist. Of how he doesn’t have a single unique or original idea and has to use his “team” of meme makers to figure out what is popular to draw for the masses. A lot of us artists have spoken out about this, but no one would listen, cons turned the other way, and his fans would be quick to defend him as a “nice guy” and a “talented artists”. His “how to draw” streams in fact I think do more damage to new artists who now have a poor foundation with the poor techniques he teaches. People like him who just regurgitate the same old nonsense really do damage for the progress of individual creativity. He is definitely not an artist, his work is not art but product, and traced product at that. Though its sad it took 3 years before the majority of the fandom finally noticed.
THIS IS IMPORTANT. For all of you who don’t know what I’m talking about. The whole drama summed up.
*hums quietly*
