Well, actually, DeviantArt etiquette policy states within the first few paragraphs:

As a vibrant and growing art community deviantART welcomes all kinds of original artworks; but we MUST insist that the artwork which you submit be your own original works. Your deviations must be your own original creations and you may only use resources which are considered legitimate and legal. Submissions which make use of works without proper permission or licensing by the original author will be removed as they come to the attention of the staff. This policy applies to all Deviation submissions, Scrapbook entries, and the preview images used for written submissions.


I think that basically covers it. Though I'm sorry that some time and effort you put into those pictures has been lost, it still is not your own work. I understand that it is possible that you have a hard time drawing lineart yourself, but it is the way to learn. Art is about improvement; you don't get proficient at it without tons of effort.

Whoever reported you most likely had the good of the community in mind.

Also, some food for thought. I have a friend who is no great talent in the artistic area, but has moved from tracing images to drawing her own works by herself. They are by no means masterpieces, but she is proud of them nonetheless, and they are her own work. If you have trouble drawing, all you need to do is practice. If you wish to simply color, ask other deviants permission to color their works. But do not take linearts that are not yours and receive the credit for them. Whether you state the fact that the lines are not your own work, you are still garnering the notoriety for them nonetheless.

Secondly, what about all of the artists out here who both draw and color their own work, create their pieces from completely originality, and pour their very being into the work? They often get brushed aside because of submissions like yours, which are nothing but theft, in essence.

I mean in no way to sound harsh or demeaning; in fact the opposite. If you would like to share the things you have colored on different sites such as myspace, photobucket, facebook, etc. please do so. But do not do it here, where it will gain fame simply for its content.

Thanks for your time.

SOME time and effort? I put days into cleaning them up and fixing the broken lines and then hours coloring them and recoloring them with different colors. I re-made the entire images on photoshop.

Just because I didn’t draw the line art myself, which is a very small portion of the entire piece, does not mean it isn’t art or that it’s worth anything less than anything else on the site. Nor does my coloring of them mean that I can’t draw. It just means that I wanted to color them.

I don't honestly care what the person who reported me had in mind. It's done with now, so it doesn't even matter what she had in mind. I just want a copy of what I did. My computer crashed and all my originally files were lost. I never thought I had to worry about it though because I had copies online. But then someone reported me, and before I knew it my days and days of hard work got deleted.

--
~Caitlin

Vince: Are you possessed... by a twat?
-The Mighty Boosh, 2006 Tour

Team Jacob FTMFW

I suppose, then, that next time you will be able to do it faster and with better quality; and the simple fact that you did not have them saved on a backup reflects your lack of respect for them.

Lineart is not a small aspect of a work of art. It is the very structure and skeleton of it. In what you are doing, you cannot have color without lines, though you can have lines without color, which makes the lineart extremely crucial. If you in fact can draw, I suggest you do so rather than stealing someone else's artwork.

It is not only against the policy of this site, and for good reason, but should be against the moral code of any artist. If the work is not fully yours, you do not have the right to receive credit for it, unless you have permission by the original artist. The rules have been set in place for a reason, and the art that you steal will keep being deleted.

What distinguishes an artist from the remainder of the population is their ability to create. I am not sure why anyone would not want to do so with the entirety of their ability; art is about being creative. Why not do so by drawing your own.

What is done is done. Whether you decide to reupload here or anywhere else, it may get you fame from a portion of mislead individuals, but it will get you nowhere artistically. There is no challenge; no growth, no talent in tracing or letting someone else draw the picture for you.

If you think I'm the only one who feels this way, you are terribly wrong.

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