You are perfectly welcome to skip this intro but damn buddy you might want to read it.
begin intro:
I don’t know how to stress how goddamn important it is for artists to learn to use free resources. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen someone use a copyrighted image (see: something that belongs to another artist) in their illustrations and, worse, in their commissioned work and web shops.
I dunno if you remember this, but that thing that happened with Sheperd Fairey and the “HOPE” illustration was a huge mess. I was in art school when it went down, and it was a great teachable moment because damn. It was a mess, and it was also sort of laughable in some ways if you read more into it. But there’s a takeaway here:
Without having the appropriate rights to use the photograph that Fairey yanked off the web, he landed himself into a bigass legal mess.
It was so messy y’all. and EXPENSIVE. do u know how much money $25,000 USD is? it’s definitely more than i can spend on being punished for yanking an img off of pinterest
I promise you don’t want to deal with that. In this economy?? You don’t want to deal with that. I don’t want to deal with that. Nobody wants to deal with that.
"Damn though Fox, I still need references and 2D images that I can use to do my job, and idk if you looked around but everything costs fucking money these days." - you, maybe
Yes. We need references and 2D images in order to work and so many great resources cost money. This is just kind of how it is. Things like Photobash and collections on Gumroad are resources made by artists, and they cost money because artist also need to eat. BUT NOT ALL OF THEM COST MONEY. :D
There are websites FULL of free images that YOU CAN USE. You! For paid work! like in commissions! and comics that you publish later! and prints in your shop! Some of these sites even say “use it for whatever, just don’t repost it and call it yours.” Just spend enough time and effort with the images and you’re good to go.
This is Very Cool and you should know about it.
end intro
free image resource websites
so u can avoid lawsuits
just make sure you read the dang licenses
im not sponsored and i dont get paid to say any of this stuff, this is just what i’ve found along the way
- Fox Favorite
Anything here can be used for personal and commercial projects. Check out their license.
This is my new favorite. The search is solid and brings up what I’m looking for. The quality of the photos are fantastic. And everything is accessible for free.
The photographers are generous contributors and while credit is always appreciated, they do not require it for their images to be used.
Anything here (excluding the new Unsplash+ collection) can be used for personal and commercial projects. Check out their license.
I use this resource all the time. I’ve used it for textures, patterns, backgrounds, composition and lighting references and more. Attribution is not a requirement, making this a deeply generous resource with generous contributing artists. This is great if you have ADHD like me and don’t want to forget your way into a lawsuit.
you arent even ready for this one, you dont even know how wild this one is. you are gonna get ur socks blown off i stg. if you are a creative person in any way, i IMPLORE you to take a look at:
listen. listen.
Fossils. Textiles. Orchids. Glass bottles. Minerals. Quilts. Furniture. Instruments. Embroidery. Aircraft. Postage stamps. Vintage posters. Jewelry. Scientific illustrations of fish.
to be fair occasionally you will find yourself sort of lost in the archive. today i got like 200 thumbnails deep into the results where there were just photos of envelopes full of seeds from the botanical department before i realized i probably needed to refine my search, but even that is still pretty cool because u gotta be committed to archive that many envelopes of seeds
youre not even ready for this one adjfhskjhfds
this is taken directly from the front page:
“Welcome to Smithsonian Open Access, where you can download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images—right now, without asking. With new platforms and tools, you have easier access to more than 4.9 million 2D and 3D digital items from our collections—with many more to come. This includes images and data from across the Smithsonian’s 21 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.”
holy shit y’all. did u see that??? it speaks for itself. im telling u, i am begging u, you need to check this out. words cant even describe the value of what’s here, especially for an artist.
As usual I will be posting more as I find more, but things are changing faster than I was ready for. For instance, in setting up this post I saw that one of the resources I used to use has no regulation in regards to generative image crap. So while it has valuable free vectors and stuff, I really don’t want to recommend resources that are reckless in that way.
So uh
Enjoy ˙ᵕ˙ Enjoy making art with a little bit less stress. I hope you found something helpful here because I use these all the time and they have been very helpful for me. so maybe they will be helpful for you.