Is There An Online Macross Line Art Archive?

[danth]

I think we can all agree that line art is a good thing. I used to spend hours as a kid looking at my Robotech RPG books just for the line art. Nowadays I buy artbooks, but it's hard to get all the lineart I want, especially when it comes to M7, M+, or MII. I'm sure it's the same way for some of you guys.

I think Macross World would be the perfect place for a Macross line art archive, but if that's not possible, it should still exist somewhere. What do you guys think? Would you like something like that? Would you be willing to contribute?

[KingNor]

you mean llike fan art? or official art?

I'd be happy to draw some valkyries if we're doing a gallery. :-)

[danth]

you mean llike fan art?  or official art?

I'd be happy to draw some valkyries if we're doing a gallery.  :-)

413644[/snapback]

I was thinking official line art, although I'm happy to accept any signed original artworks you'd like to send to my address.

Edited July 4, 2006 by danth

[jenius]

I was thinking official line art, although I'm happy to accept any signed original artworks you'd like to send to my address.

I was looking for this also. I wanted to compare Macross toys to their lineart in a few reviews on my website but it's hard to find lineart and when you do it's tough to know whether or not it's official.

[Sumdumgai]

Character line art or mecha?

[danth]

Character line art or mecha?

413711[/snapback]

Mecha, if I had my way.

[azrael]

MW doesn't post much lineart since we are not a lineart site. Never have been, never will be. We are a site dedicated to fan works and merchandise. We post highlights, but if you want to so bad, you should make some effort to go out and buy the stuff yourself. Besides fanart, you will see little official lineart here.

[Mephistopheles]

MW doesn't post much lineart since we are not a lineart site. Never have been, never will be. We are a site dedicated to fan works and merchandise. We post highlights, but if you want to so bad, you should make some effort to go out and buy the stuff yourself. Besides fanart, you will see little official lineart here.

413821[/snapback]

Is there a site, any site, dedicated to Macross line art though?

[Zinjo]

MW doesn't post much lineart since we are not a lineart site. Never have been, never will be. We are a site dedicated to fan works and merchandise. We post highlights, but if you want to so bad, you should make some effort to go out and buy the stuff yourself. Besides fanart, you will see little official lineart here.

413821[/snapback]

Is there a site, any site, dedicated to Macross line art though?

413831[/snapback]

With so many books out of print or going out of print, I'd suspect there will be a real need for one soon!

[KingNor]

I'm in support of this effort let me know how i can help

[sketchley]

http://www.mahq.net/mecha/macross/macross.htm

That's the closest you'll get to an 'all in one' line-art site.

Other options are the fan-created RPG stats - these are usually littered with line-art.

I do fully support going out and purchasing the books that have line-art in them. Support for them means more of them will be released (or reprinted!) and that can lead up the pipe to more Macross projects being released.

Piracy sucks!

[azrael]

MW doesn't post much lineart since we are not a lineart site. Never have been, never will be. We are a site dedicated to fan works and merchandise. We post highlights, but if you want to so bad, you should make some effort to go out and buy the stuff yourself. Besides fanart, you will see little official lineart here.

413821[/snapback]

Is there a site, any site, dedicated to Macross line art though?

413831[/snapback]

With so many books out of print or going out of print, I'd suspect there will be a real need for one soon!

413833[/snapback]

Unfortunately, it would also require people to tear apart their books to scan 100+ pages of lineart. There goes a collectors' item...

[Roy Focker]

What happen to just buying a book yourself. In recent years there has been a couple of affordable, easy to aquire art books with a pretty decent collection of line art.

[Sumdumgai]

Macross Design Works was a more or less recent release with great stuff for valkyries. It certianly won't be as hard to find or as expensive as say.... The Gold Book.

[briscojr84]

If someone needs line art let me know I've got the cleaned up stuff on my site plus I still have all the original 600dpi scans that I used for them. The only stuff I haven't scanned yet is from the new Kawamori book.

Myself I'd be extremely happy if they came out with a series of books that covered one specific thing in each book; like mecha, valks, characters, ships, background stuff etc.

Edited July 6, 2006 by briscojr84

[danth]

Oh, I have tons of artbooks. But I will never have them all. There just aren't enough to go around. And artbooks aren't complete: I see weird pieces of line art online and I don't know where the hell they come from, even though I own all of the main Macross TV books.

I want to see ALL of the mecha lineart, and if a new, obscure drawing shows up, I want that one too. As for piracy, I could give a rat's ass, and let's not play the moral superiority game since we're on the internet. The amount of pirated images on MW alone is staggering. There's lots of stuff in artbooks besides mecha line art -- it's not like we'll need to scan entire books.

Mahq.net is a start, but they don't have exhaustive line art nor a focus on Macross.

[jenius]

I kinda think the "Buy a book" line of thought is a bit silly. First, I can't read Kanji and i'm not even sure I just spelled it right. Second, the absolute only thing I'd be interested in is the lineart. Since every book probably only contains a few pieces of plain lineart it seems like I'd be spending a lot for a small return. Third, I don't even own a scanner. So, if someone has been putting up like ten instances of lineart from the ten Macross-related books over the year you could see how hugely beneficial that'd be.

All that said, if there was one book that was just plain lineart and nothing else at a reasonable price I could very easily be talked into buying it. I think the whole idea of piracy is a little lame here too. Remember libaries? Everyone used to just go in, take a book, and return it when they were done and pay like $1 a year for the priveledge? Seriously, if this book did exist I would use it for like a week and then I'd never need it again. In lieu of it ever being at a library I wouldn't find it so terrible for it to be archived online somewhere.

[Hurin]

Well, nothing's stopping anyone from posting line art for each individual mecha profile at the Macross Nexus. Actually, someone (Dante) already submitted some line art for the VF-0 profile.

Though, we'd discourage people from posting book-quality scans of line art (because piracy does indeed "suck") we'd be thrilled if someone actually decided to take up the job of "line art guy" for the database over there!

If anyone's interested in contributing, check out our FAQs.

Best,

H

Edited July 6, 2006 by Hurin

[briscojr84]

Unfortunately not all of us have the skill or access to some one who has the skill to pop-out good quality line-art.

[Roy Focker]

I never had a problem with a requests for a picture/scan before but talking about an entire archive. I'd imagine people would like to to be super high quality pictures from every book printed.

The refusal to "buy a book" agrument fails to hold water when the books a relatively easy to get and aren't overly expensive. The books tend to have a great amount of line art. As said it is not like the only book with line art is the Gold Book, that is not of print for 20 years, goes for over $150+ and is hard to find. More Recent leased art books go for 1/5 that price. If people here can afford countless 1/48 Yamatos but are too cheap and lazy to spend 30-40 on one art book?

[danth]

Hurin, that site looks great. I saw it before but I had since forgotten, so thanks for the link. Would you guys be interested in hosting exhaustive line art for each valkyrie? Because that's what my goal is. I think this project might need it's own site, because I'd like each picture to have a source listed so fans can go out and get the books if they want them.

And Roy, I agree that it's a good idea to buy artbooks if you're into it. Like I said, I have 7 artbooks just on Macross TV, plus an like 100 magazines (American and Japanese) with lineart. And I still want to see this.

I once downloaded a RPG rulesbook from the internet. I liked it so much, I bought a hard copy. I've heard songs on MP3 that were so awesome, I went out and bought the album. That's how people are. I don't think this will hurt artbook sales.

So, for the ethical question, how bad do you guys think it would be to make a site dedicated to only Macross Valkyrie line art, with no other material from artbooks (like interviews or character designs or color art). Each picture would also have a source listed with ISBNs for people interested in searching out the actual artbooks.

Edited July 7, 2006 by danth

[Hurin]

Hurin, that site looks great. I saw it before but I had since forgotten, so thanks for the link. Would you guys be interested in hosting exhaustive line art for each valkyrie? Because that's what my goal is. I think this project might need it's own site, because I'd like each picture to have a source listed so fans can go out and get the books if they want them.

Well, there's no reason you can't post the image and then write directly below it: "Source: Macross Book #1" and the ISBN number and even a link to Amazon Japan, etc.

However, no amount of such linking will appease the copyright gods if the images put up there are of too high quality. If they are high-resolution, I don't think we'd be inclined to host them. We do have a super-high res VF-0 lineart (link). But that was from an instruction sheet for a model (I think), so nobody is going to get upset about that.

We generally encourage people to post images that will fit within the width of the central window (about 550px). I think that resolution would keep quality to a level where nobody would feel that they could forego buying a book. . . but people who just want to know what a Q-Rau officially looks like would get what they need at an acceptable level of quality.

It is possible to post higher-res images, but then a thumbnail should be the one shown initially, and then linked to the larger image (as was done in that link above). But again, we'd want to avoid posting super-high-res images that might discourage people from buying the official products.

In a nutshell, we want web-ready images. . . we don't want "print quality" images that would piss off the Macross powers that be.

Best,

H

Edited July 7, 2006 by Hurin

[yellowlightman]

Since every book probably only contains a few pieces of plain lineart it seems like I'd be spending a lot for a small return.

414053[/snapback]

Uh no, The Design Works, This Is Animation and other Macross sourcebooks have loads of lineart. More than enough to justify the prices even if you can't read Japanese.

[eugimon]

Since every book probably only contains a few pieces of plain lineart it seems like I'd be spending a lot for a small return.

414053[/snapback]

Uh no, The Design Works, This Is Animation and other Macross sourcebooks have loads of lineart. More than enough to justify the prices even if you can't read Japanese.

414242[/snapback]

don't worry, this is macrossworld, people will never give up their sacred cow over something so trivial as facts...

[Roy Focker]

Yeah you past even fan ethics if you are posting a ton of high-quality pics. I don't think will mind a pic or two. If you're talking about say a 1/2 of the contents of one book and all high quality pics. I don't it will matter if post a where to buy link or not. Since nearly thing is avaliable in high quality why would someone buy a book? You have to consider actual rules of fair use and fan accepted fan use. If the makers of the art work came to you think if you can defend infront of them your use of their art.

[Pat Payne]

I never had a problem with a requests for a picture/scan before but talking about an entire archive.   I'd imagine people would like to to be super high quality pictures from every book printed. 

The refusal to "buy a book" agrument fails to hold water when the books a relatively easy to get and aren't overly expensive.   The books tend to have a great amount of line art.   As said it is not like the only book with line art is the Gold Book, that is not of print for 20 years, goes for over $150+ and is hard to find.   More Recent leased art books go for 1/5 that price.   If people here can afford countless 1/48 Yamatos but are too cheap and lazy to spend 30-40 on one art book?

414114[/snapback]

Amen to that, Roy. Especially since, particualrly in California and the West Coast (and to a lesser degree in New York, Chicago and other metropolitan centers across the US), there are Japanese bookstores like Kinokuniya and used manga/book stores like Book Off that have a decent chance of having it -- or if they don't, they can special order it. These books are not the holy grail (except the Gold Book, but I'll pass on it...that 800-year-old knight creeps me out )

And as for fair use, to be fair, if it's purely for a fan-based purpose (such as the hypothetical archive) it probably wouldn't hold water if a company decided to make a stink (fortunately, in most cases, they see it as free publicity, so long as the sites don't go overboard with it). fair use was meant to make sure that researchers could draw on earlier works or reviewers could criticize novels, plays, movies and the like without running into copyright problems. It was never a carte blanche for anyone to post anything so long as they scrupulously keep to the amount prescribed by law (which is pretty small, when you think about it). Remember all the Simpsons fansites that had their fair use claims laughed out of court when 20th Century Vole told them to knock it off.

Edited July 8, 2006 by Pat Payne

[Pat Payne]

razzinfrazzit wrong button pushing...clicked "quote" when I wanted "edit..."

Edited July 8, 2006 by Pat Payne

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

On a related note: Do you think some fan out there who owns Macross Design works could do a translation of the text in english for people who can't read this and want to know what is being said?

As for the buying of books: I can recomend macross design works as it has most of the valks and thier transformation shown that you will need. (I don't think VF0 is in it though) The hidetaka design works on the other hand has stuff on the destroids if you liked them.

Piracy: I'm ok with it if the books themselves were like rare and hard to find, but if your a fan the first thing you want is to help contribute to the thing you are a fan of, so I have a contribute where you can attitude.

If you are poor student maybe it is ok (I doubt anyone here can say they've never pirated anything in thier life especially when they were younger) but once you finally get working, your dollars go towards seeing more of that work and maybe helping other fans see more of it.

Help on sites which have lineart:

-there used to be one guy (alan mccain?) with a site dedicated to macross stuff but I think it went down. It's actually what made me want to seek out books with lineart a I was curious about the mecha in the shows and wanted detailed info on how they transform and stuff. Anyway on this site there was lineart for the valks and stuff in pretty good quality so you could at least see enough detail and know what it is you are looking at. (had thumbnails and these would blow up into bigger versions of the thumbnails) I wonder if he hangs around macrossworld and can bring it back up?

-Otherwise MAHQ is pretty good place for stuff.

[KingNor]

arn't there rules that if a book has been out of print for a certain amount of time you can post its contents freely?

[Totoro242]

Since this is turning into a piracy debate, I have to wonder how many of you who are against posting high rez line art have bootleg copies of or have downloaded Macross DYRL, 2012, Macross 7 and Macross Zero?

Those of you who do should get off your high horse, because unless you own the original Japanese releases, you are guilty of piracy. From your perspective, I don't see the difference between posting high rez images and downloading Macross Zero.

I know a couple people here do own original versions of all the Macross releases, but the vast majority do not.

Or maybe you're just mad because you spent hundreds of dollars on a Macross library and someone wants access to whats in those books for free and its gonna drive down prices on your collectibles?

[Roy Focker]

arn't there rules that if a book has been out of print for a certain amount of time you can post its contents freely?

414654[/snapback]

Yeah but I think that is like 80 or a 100 years.

Since this is turning into a piracy debate, I have to wonder how many of you who are against posting high rez line art have bootleg copies of or have downloaded Macross DYRL, 2012, Macross 7 and Macross Zero?

Those of you who do should get off your high horse, because unless you own the original Japanese releases, you are guilty of piracy. From your perspective, I don't see the difference between posting high rez images and downloading Macross Zero.

Well there is a difference. Several actually. These images are easy to get from still very easy to aquire books. It not like as said they are ultra rare, expensive and unavaliable. If there was only one Macross art book ever made and it was 20 years ago and only 100 copies printed I don't think fandom would mind a few fans with copys posting 80% of the contents up in high res pics. The general feelings among fandom is the it is okay "bend" the rules if something is not avalible, not going to released ever in english. Of course those that download Macross Zero boots are getting what they paid for. They are far from professional quality? I think most would by an offical english set just to get the better quanity. Now in the case of line art. Wouldn't high res pics be of professional quality? Also it is not like these books are hard to get. They are avaliable at decent prices.

I know a couple people here do own original versions of all the Macross releases, but the vast majority do not.

Or maybe you're just mad because you spent hundreds of dollars on a Macross library and someone wants access to whats in those books for free and its gonna drive down prices on your collectibles?

Like I said it is not like these books are hard to find and for the most part don't cost that much.

[Zinjo]

Well as far as I am concerned if it still being published in Japan it's taboo.

The new Kawamori art book is a perfect example. I own a copy and would be a bit pissed if someone posted hi-res scans of the pages that I paid good money for.

Now the out of print books are, well... no longer in print and those who benefited from their sale (Big West, Studio Nue, artists) are no longer receiving royalties from said books.

The only ones who are profiting from these sales are used book stores in both North America and Asia as well as E-bay and Yahoo Japan sellers.

If the books were to be re-issued that would change things and make the scans inappropriate to host without permission from the publishers.

As far as I'm concerned, until the subject matter contained in out of print books are re-issued in a new publication, I don't see any problem with scanning and hosting the images.

This won't stop avid collectors from buying the books anyway, because it's the having of the item that is the main part of collecting, not the contents of the item.

Edited July 10, 2006 by Zinjo

[Pat Payne]

arn't there rules that if a book has been out of print for a certain amount of time you can post its contents freely?

414654[/snapback]

No. The closest thing that there is is public domain. In theory, after a set amount of time (for the US usually 70 years after the author dies, or int he case of works for hire either 95 years from publication or 120 from creation -- whichever is shorter From this page) copyright expires, and the work becomes public domain -- society as a whole owns it and can do what they will with it. But merely being unpublished for a period of time does not by itself make a work public domain unless the author or copyright holder him or herself explicitly relases the work into the PD. Further PD status has nothing to do with when the book was published last -- Shakespeare's plays are PD and they've been in circulation since the 1600s. Sherlock Holmes has never gone out of print and all of the Holmes tales are PD.

Edited July 11, 2006 by Pat Payne