not just posting but also explaining the meaning and techniques and inspiration behind it, since I always feel insecure posting the pretentious bits on IG bc I don't want to look like a tool. so I will post that here and hopefully it can either hel...
As a creative note, I just want to make a quick write-up on my generous, gratuitous use of "free images". For those who do not know, pretty much everything that's pre-1925, is fair game to use however you want. So if you've ever wondered why people get away with plastering paintings from Van Gogh, Monet, Mucha, Renoir, etc. on clothing, furniture, etc it is because of something called public domain. Essentially, if the artist is way long hella dead, you can basically put their stuff on whatever the fuck you want and make as much money as you want off of it. And it's 100% legal. And not only is it legal- it's fun! (and saves everyone so much time)
That's right, many of my images are straight-up edited victorian era advertisements and images that I have re-tooled to my own sadistic artistic desires, and to create art which the original artist would probably hate and be offended by, if they weren't, y'know long hella dead.
This is not me being a copyright lawyer, because frankly, I love piracy and I don't pay for any type of digital file or software. I edit all of these on a cracked and outdated version of adobe photoshop that I've been using since pre-covid.
Also, there's a few things that I have hand drawn, but more or less HEAVILY reference/trace. I don't actually own any tracing table or light box, so I more or less do it by eye, so my recreations won't exactly "line up" with items that I have traced, but they are similar enough that if you saw my drawing and the source image side by side, you'd be absolutely right in saying that they are one in the same image. And I have no problem sharing my sources, if you follow me on pinterest, you can probably hit "view all pins" and see several things that I have shamelessly ripped off.
I do this because I can, and because, I don't really care about things like purity. I create what I want and how I want to, and if people have any objections, they can have them to themselves, because it doesn't effect what I do or how I do it. Everyone is free to do as they please, and I won't stop anyone from saying what they will, but they can't make me care. I used to actually be a purist, and care a lot about this. I wouldn't copy any poses or aspects and I would make up everything entirely of my own imagination and interpretation. But now, I'm simply too old, and too plagued by chronic illness to give a fuck. If that's lazy, then it's lazy.
In example:
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As you can see, the blood splatters are a photoshop brush layered on top, the font is a digital font. and here's an original image. I actually couldn't find on my computer that image in I actually used, because I probably deleted it by mistake but you get the idea. I more or less scraped off all of the text that I didn't want, and either added in my own, or I use it as a border, or took little bits like flourishes in order to frankenstein my own little graphic, out of things that dead people made a long time ago. It does save time, but I also like the aesthetic and I think it reflects well with adding a vintage type of aesthetic that comes directly from the time and source.
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One of the tactics I use is to go into the color mixer, and like with this one, take the slider for "yellow" or "red" and lighten it before I make it black and white, which gets rid of a lot of the grey tone. Then I'll mess around with levels/contrast to make the black more black and the white more white, and if theres any type of blotches I don't want, I can erase/draw over them to create a more homogenized image.
This is an image that I lifted from some really old ass book scans. I simplified it dramatically because I wanted to make it so that I could use it as a template for my cricut machine. So I decreased the amount of little extra spaces that I'd have to weed out vinyl in order to make it into an iron-on decal.
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As far as finding images I like pinterest, though many times pinterest will compress the images when you hit 'download image', so you have to click of the actual source of the image and pull it up that way to get a better resolution to start with. Websites like "the graphics fairy" (who is the OG legend of finding and scanning these) are made by crafters and collage artists, you can find many awesome 1800's images.
Project gutenberg is also great, but it's pretty difficult to find images, you really gotta sift through a lot of stuff to find great clips to use.
Flickr does have many scans that are free use, HOWEVER, flickr is primarily used by artists, so please read the captions of the image to see if it is actually an antique scan that is free to use, or if it's someone's art work that is modern and NOT legal to use as clip art.
