Legal Issues

[Big Bene]

There's a difference between what is legal and what is formally illegal but still save - you can be pretty sure that no one will take legal acrions (or even notice) if you use third party's art in your Heroquest stuff. But stricly speaking, it's still illegal, so this would be the answer to your initial question.

But if you want original art, why don'T you just post a request here in the forum? There are some people here who are quite capable of doing some decent art, and who might be willing to help you out (I would).

[sadkitchen]

You could always try and contact the artist to see if you could get permission. You never know, (s)he might say yes. Weirder things have happened.

-SadKitchen

[Ethica]

I did that once, I used the music from an old amiga game called Agony in a stop motion animation I made, I contacted Joroen Tel the original musician and he said I could use it.

[torilen]

sad-k - that is a great thought. That hadn't even really crossed my mind.

Ethica - as far as not being worth it because you don't have cool artwork. In my personal opinion, which isn't much
as far as art work and product publication goes, I would say this: Don't judge your products by today's gaming
industry standards. They seem to base a large portion of their customer interest on artwork, it seems to me,
and gaming materials are not about artwork.

I say that they base their customer interest on this due to the fact that, for a while, wizards of the coast started
using artwork that was very similar to anime artwork. They did a lot of this in their Eberron setting books. One will
notice that they moved away from that type of artwork with 4th ed., and that eberron is not as prominent as they were
trying to make it.
I think the reason they moved away from it is because they realized that the anime customer base was not going to buy
their books, and that's because the books were not that great, and couldn't be sold on just the artwork.

Again - just my opinion there. I honestly don't have any numbers or stats to back up what I say - just what I have seen in
the bookstores and online.

Another thought - and again, just my opinion, which won't mean much, mainly because I like older-looking things to begin
with - plain black and white artistry is perfectly fine for gaming materials. Look at the old D&D material, like back when they
did the Rules Cyclopedia...you know, the basic, master, companion, and expert sets...the artistry in that stuff was fine. A
lot of it was black and white, with only a couple of full color pieces.

[drathe]

I also prefer the duotone card art of the original HeroQuest to full colour card art. Perhaps in this day and age the majority of consumers require the added stimulus. They've been bombarded with flashy advert and packaging all their lives they've become desensitised.

[el_flesh]

heh - maybe you prefer the duotone color because that's what original computer monitors were! AAAIIIGGGHHHH!!!!

Just like my dweeb father insisting that dreams are always in B&W (the TVs and movies he grew up with) when I knew full well mine were always in color!

[Ethica]

I prefer the old b&w heroquest art.

I also can't abide the anime art it would be like warhammer meets pokemon, so in that way the art would put me off playing an RPG.

[Baylor_OgreBane]

this is a very stick issue!
having to dealt with this myself with what i do, the main complications arise with who owns the intellectual property of the piece, and the exact nature of the copyright that it has.
because copyright isnt an international law, u dont contend with 1 set of laws but them all!
for the case of "(say, larry elmore - the art he did for tsr/wizards of the coast)" this is because he was contracted, and most artist are placed under the same contract, that all intellectual property produced during the enforcement of the contract is property of the company that the contract is with. so not all artist have a say in what is done with their art work anyway!
in the UK we are affected by the 1957 act that carry's the bulk of the copyright law and most subsequent acts of copyright law deal with television and broadcasting.
most copyrights last for a term of 14 years, with the artist being able to then re-new their copyright after this time, the same applies for companies. for intellectual copyrights of the owner/producer of the work can last up to 70 after death or 50 years for digital work!
so unless you know exactly where the work has come from what kind of copyrights it has and who(if anybody) owns them, and that you have permission then it's really not worth going to court for!

on the other hand i agree with Big Bene, i would happily help you out and produce pieces for you, it would allow me to bulk out my portfolio a bit more and you will get permission to use the works produced.

as for the whole b&w art work that was used in the original books, that was to keep printing costs down. the stylized sepia like art on the cards was a design rather than art idea, simply because if you have too much colour in a small space then you wont be able to see what it is clearly at a glance! this is used even today with pokemon/collectible card games, where a limited palate of maybe 7 colours are used for the entire picture so as not to make it too busy to look at. count the colours on the monster cards they use the same technique. this is why anime is used a lot for this kind of thing because by its nature it only uses a limited palate with 1 level of shadow and highlights.

if you want to know more about UK copyright law then i have a more in-depth peice on it that states the exact nature of the laws, but its massive, and this reply has gone on long enough!

[Ethica]

I think just to play it safe I'll post my questbooks but keep the covers (containing art ripped off from other artists) to myself.

If anyone likes the quest books and wants to paint/draw illustrations for the covers that would be awesome, then it would be what I would consider a complete package.

Posting my questbooks later today .

[torilen]

Here is something else that I just remembered, if it might help you out some:

If you really like a piece of art, here is something you can try...if you have a good pic editor program.
Take a portion of that piece...preferably a portion that is not totally recognizable...a portion that is not the
main focus of the piece, if you can. Cut that portion into a square, or whatever shape you're going to use it for.
THEN - here is the important part - change it somehow. Maybe use your editor program to recolor it, or turn it
black and white, or turn it into a pencil drawing instead of painting.

If you can find a way to change the piece enough, while still keeping the part you like, it basically becomes your
"new" piece of art. At that point, you might be able to use it without fear.

Just a thought.