Ripped?

Oh no! Another rip?! Well, not exactly; I'm okay with people using my work for
personal (+ non-commercial) things, and if they ask for my permission.
That's exactly what Shirin Leunissen did and she then turned my drawing into this
amazing mosaic! The Maaike figure at the left is offering cups of tea to Mark
because it's the lid of a teabox. I'm amazed how she managed to capture their
expression while working with such 'rough' material! Thanks Shirin!
Photo by Shirin Leunissen

Another rip

This is a drawing on a canvas that I made a few years ago. It was sold on an auction 

for a good cause so I don't own the original anymore, but I still own the copyrights on 

this pic (so excuse me for the awful copyright-thing I put on it).

Even though this little Maaike-figure looks so angry, she's very loved. So loved that 

I've seen her as an illustration on several blogs, I had to write an angry letter to make 

a company stop using her as their Twitter-avatar,  and I even spotted her on a site that 

offered her as a mobile phone wallpaper-download.

In fact she's so loved that you can now get a t-shirt with her... or uhm... HIM:

This was for sale on the site of t-shirt print shop Spreadshirt. It was 'designed' by 

a certain M.de Waard from Rosmalen who works under the name 'shirtdesigns.

And this person didn't stop after one design....

They even turned my angry figure into... a happy one!

Left pic: copy  Middle: Perfect overlap!  Right: original 

(Yeah, I guess I'd also look more sadly confused than happy if I had a blue head.)

Thank god this M. de Waard is so talentless that all their designs are butt ugly and I 

can't imagine anyone spending money on these shirts. 

And I contacted Spreadshirts right away, they were very helpful and immediately 

removed all the designs from the sites! :-)

(P.S. I'm okay with people using my drawings for their personal blogs, as long as it's

not commercial and they give me credit.)

Mutilated

About two years ago I designed and illustrated a flyer for ASEED, an organisation that
protested against mega stables for pigs.

This is part of the inside of the final A3 flyer. Since I thought it was a fun project and wanted to support
their cause I didn't charge them for my work.
It was great fun to make this flyer. But it was less fun when I walked on the street and suddenly spotted
my design on a poster and a sticker! Though well, it's not my design anymore... since someone heavily
mutilated it!

The poster was gone before I could take a photo, but I managed to peal off a sticker from a lamppost.
I just hope they didn't pay a designer for this mess. They did a bad trace, scribbled some lines and added
stock illustrations in a different style. And so my design was turned into something hideous, thanks a lot!

So well, I'm shocked and angry. Even though I gave them my designs for free, that doesn't mean
they can do whatever they want with it and change it like this. That's just very disrespectful.
Note: Gifsoja.nl is organised partly by ASEED, so it's not like someone stole my work. They just re-used it.
I'm not posting this to hurt Gifsoja, but I wanted to tell everyone who works with illustrators; Don't
ever mess with illustrations in any way without asking permission. Respect our art.

Update: I contacted them and they apologised. I'm still a bit angry but most of all I hope the 'designer' won't
ever do this again. Not to my work or to anyone else's.