Falling Under the Spell of "The Clip Art"

I wish there was a better term for the royalty art one can find under the "Clip art" heading.  To me it seems to be a disservice, as prior to my recent finds, when I thought of clip art, I thought of really simple / lousy thumbnail sized pieces of art.  Thank God I'm proving myself wrong the last few days.

My latest find can also be found on RPGNow.  Eastern Raider Games has a Portrait Package of 36 images listed at $4.49 for the set.  The price drops to $1.99 for the set once I put it in my cart.  That's about 6 cents an image.  Heck, if I only like one, it's still less then 2 bucks for it's usage.

I'm very much liking the idea of using licensed art for inspiration ;)

Here's the very liberal license conditions:

The package also contains a license.txt file thus giving the buyer the right to modify the images
(crop, blend, rehue, resaturate etc.). Anyone who owns this license may use the artworks in
any way (s)he wants, in any number of commercial products without the need to pay
anything, not a cent of royalty. The only exception: the artwork (even derivative ones) cannot be
sold in themselves, they have to participate a specific project.

The package contains mostly portraits and mostly fantasy/SF/Horor themed ones.
Might be useful for Web sites, MMORPGS, forum avatars, DMs, players can impersonate their character/world

Inspiration is an Art Piece Away

Sometimes you need some inspiration.  Sometimes the inspiration finds you.  Most of the time you just sit there, looking at the computer screen.

I've found my inspiration for those times that I want to write but I'm having difficulty getting past the first gate - Clip art.

Yep, looking at the piece of art to my left, I have at least one post where I could draw upon it for inspiration (not counting this one here).  A picture can say a thousand words, or inspire you to write just as many.

This piece is from Outland Arts Fantasy Clip Inks: Spot Art Set 3.  Yeah, long title, but your 12 bucks gets you quality pieces like the one you see here.

Sure, if I was a publisher, I could be using the art in my latest publication, but I'm not, so I can't.  I'm a mere blogger and an occasional writer, and I can use this here art on my blog (the dice hanging out on top of the left column of this blog are from the same set - attribution is on the bottom of this page).

I'm looking forward to checking the other sets out, but the 30 pieces I have to start with should last me for a good amount of inspiration ;)

This Ain't Yo Momma's Bullywug!

It's amazing, really.  I get reviewer comps constantly, and I NEVER bother to look at the clip art that you can use in private and commercial projects.  Why would I?  The only project I currently have is this blog.

That being said, there is some amazing stuff being produced for really affordable prices.  What I am affectionately referring to as a Bullywug to the left (damn D&D cartoon) is but one of 4 pieces available in the Forgotten Foes Clip Art 2 Collection - that's 4 pieces of artwork for 3 bucks.

I'll be finding use for these pieces, even if it is just to liven up a blog post or two.  They should be seen and appreciated.  This does of course mean I'll be starting to use these on the blog where appropriate or even not ;)

The artist for this piece and the rest of this collection is Rene Walk.