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Originally Posted by SkinnyPupp
Oh this is the first I've heard about him copying work in his other art... That's pretty sad.
It sounds to me like he is a very good technical tattooer, but not a great artist. Like he doesn't have the creativity or the drive, and relies heavily on reference in his tattooing. Sounds like he relied so much on reference that it devolved into flat out copying when he did his digital art... Oops!  |
There was some questionable stuff in his digital art work. He might of rush into that side of art. Maybe he is not as well verse in with the digital tools as he is with the tattoo machine. He probably shouldn't have shown off those work. You know how when you start out tattooing you copy flashes until you perfect them. Tristen's digital work feel like that stage.
I challenge the not having creativity argument though. Tristen does traditional asian piece. The topic material is re use over and over in this style. Ask any neo-traditional/traditional asian artist to draw you a koi and 90% will come with up with a similar looking koi despite drawing from memory. There is a few style of kois artist like to draw and you can look at an artist "freestyle freehand" koi and you can tell which type of koi he started out copying and perfecting as his own
You draw a dragon 1000 times all your dragons starts to look the same. How about Nikko Hurtado and Carloes Torres who's portrait work is entirely unoriginal and 100% reference base, are they also not a great artist? I mean the entire traditional japanese style was founded on a single book that got reference over and over and over. All the Hori-master of the world needed these original reference to produce their work.
Tattoos is such a special art form just because you took reference doesn't make it any least special/creative. There are people that reference Tristen work and attempt their own spin and it looks like ass. There are also the copier of the tattoo world that just straight up copy design one for one. Tristen is not that. Being able to take reference material (however extensive it may be) and turn it into your own is part of tattoo creativity.
This whole thing does not translate to digital world as you can see.
To add more fuel to the fire. @meltedbun reference her drawing from a gaming character, she actually uses ALOT of anime and CGI references.
Nobody is truly original in the art world. They both use reference and they are both amazing artist