23 Comments
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Marie Drouvin's avatar

The differences in licenses are also often a question of : work of art vs a picture of a work of art. The work of art might be in the public domain, but not the specific picture of it you find online. This is more evident in music: a lot of classical compositions are in the public domain, but that doesn't mean you can use just any recording of it.

Exeunt Press's avatar

Yes! This is particularly an issue with photographs of artifacts in museums. The Met is thankfully quite clear about which ones are open access, but not all museums do that.

angek's avatar

<3

Steven Bode's avatar

I love public domain so much ❤️

Jasper MacLeod's avatar

Thanks for the list!

Exeunt Press's avatar

Glad it’s helpful! Thank you!

Ricki Sparks's avatar

This is great, I hadn't thought of this.

Exeunt Press's avatar

Nice! Glad it helped!

Jason DAlberti's avatar

I've been using Old Book Illustrations for my new project...used it before for some old demon imagery as human anatomy. I'll usually layer it and change the blend to get a different look and feel

Whiskey, Blood and Dust's avatar

Super cool post. Thank you for providing all these resources!

Exeunt Press's avatar

Thanks for checking them out!

Rodeodoctor's avatar

What applications are you using mostly for the changes and graphic design? Very helpful post.

Exeunt Press's avatar

I use Affinity Publisher and Affinity photo for almost everything.

Rafe Meager's avatar

This is incredibly helpful, thank you for making this guide!

Exeunt Press's avatar

Thanks! I'm so glad you found it to be helpful!

Marco Serrano's avatar

Another gem <3

Allen Hall's avatar

Thanks for the compilation! I've used several of these, but some I've never heard of. Your tracings for Rabbits & Demons definitely inspired me to construct my own art from public domain images. It's so satisfying when you finally zoom out and turn off the reference layer to see all those little black lines turning into a neat little image.

Exeunt Press's avatar

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed this one!