Tbh

In light of the recent debate, I'm going to throw in my two cents because I mean, I'm entitled to my own opinion and all. Not looking to argue; just trying to say what I think.

It hecking scares me sometimes when I post my art anywhere, thinking that it might be used without me knowing. For more popular and well known artists, while it's still not the best, it's significantly easier for people to locate them from their pictures. But for smaller artists, we really do want a little more exposure, which we can't get if we aren't credited. That's one of the reasons why I always sign everything, not just to show I'm proud of what I did, but because I'm scared someone's going to post it somewhere without sourcing me, and then no one'll know that I'm the one who drew it. In fact, that's the main reason why I changed from just putting my signature, to just straight up attaching my social media to whatever it is that I draw. It's scary thinking that all the effort you put into a piece of art might not be acknowledged tbh.

It's a little hypocritical of me because at one point, I also stopped sourcing my characters' images, which is hella shitty. I thought it was too much effort, and since no one else was doing it, why should I? It's kinda bad how I only started realizing how meh that is once I started getting the spooks about how my own art could end up going around uncredited, but at least I know now, which is why I'm going to change that and start sourcing from now on though.

The new rules aren't telling you to change every OC you've ever made and source the photos for every single one, nor is it telling you to source every single photo for every subsequent character you want to make (though that'd be nice). It's just saying that if you want it to be featured, you should source the images, which really doesn't take that long, maybe an hour at most. I refuse to believe that after putting in so much time and effort and detail into an OC you want featured, you don't have the time to at least *try* to source the photos. I also refuse to believe that you're unable to find *any* of the artists of *any* of the photos you used. Taking an extra hour, or maybe even an extra week to work on finding the photos on your OC isn't going to make it any less likely to get featured. And yes, it's extra effort, but the artist who drew that picture also put a lot of effort into their piece, and probably want to be acknowledged for it.

If you really can't find the artist, then at least put the link to the site where you got the image from and just make a brief note about how it's not the actual artists' site since you couldn't find them, though I'm sure you'll be able to find the artist in 98% of cases.

My point is, at least put in the effort to try to find the creator of the piece.