Land uses his reference well.
When did I fall into Bizzaro World?
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Pretty much most masters in art used plenty of references. And some even used prisms or camera obscuras for tracing their drawings
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As an artist in a role that is considered more formal because I paint in oils, I find that over the past three decades people are more and more opposed to sitting for a longer period of time than it takes to snap a photo. I can paint from life, but rarely do it for portraits because people refuse to do it for lack of time.
Thomas Eakins and Ewan Euglow were the most rigid painters I can think of, mapping out their compositions with geometry and/or plumb lines, but then you have other artists like Degas (or myself) who see the shapes within the 2d picture plane, and allow the eye to resolve the objects in the mind, which has seen more contemporary use for over a century.
One segment of realism that has been gaining some traction is the Perceptual painting concept, that realizes the geometry our eyes perceive is vastly different from that which specially ground photo lenses designed to minimize the curvature of space observe. A few of these artists, like Peter van Dyck or Rackstraw Downes paint specifically to observe the non-Euclidean geometry that occurs within the orbit of our own eyeball observation of space.
Peter van Dyck
Rackstraw Downes
One of mine on the same theme:
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I’m pretty sure the only people who think using a photo reference is cheating are those who are not drawing.
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As revealed in the comments on that post, the original source was the Comics Journal, #118, December 1987, the interview starting on page 84.
Online version is paywalled here:
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I think there really are some people that think the pros just “make this stuff up” out of their heads. There was a time as a young “aspiring cartoonist/artist/scratch-on-paper maker” that I thought so (when I was in the 8th grade, drawing fairly rudimentary cartoons for my friends to look at). It wasn’t until I picked it back up in college that I realized it’s okay to use all the tools at your disposal.
I was so happy when I saw this:
How Wall Street Journal Stipple Drawings are Made
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I’ve come to appreciate Liefeld. Check out those teeth
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So. Many. Teeth.
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There are people who are pretty good at drawing from their head but the masters we all look up to all used references at every turn. Having taken many life drawing classes, art history, sculpture, etc i would say that the quality of a drawing is generally much much higher when using even some references. Be it for the pose, how fabric folds, what the lighting needs to look like, etc.
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The possibility of Vermeer using a camera obscura for his paintings has been batted back and forth for a long time (the first note at the bottom of this long page on the subject notes Canaletto as an example of an artist known to have used the camera obscura):
http://www.essentialvermeer.com/camera_obscura/co_one.html#.WjPy1zdOk2w
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Link to the David Hockney book that talks of Vermeer. I’m not a big fan of Hockney’s art but this book was worth a look.
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Sorry, can’t. Too distracted by pouches.
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And tiny, or non-existent feet.
Slavish interpretations of photos CAN be problematic for beginner artists, who may have their imaginations and ambitions constrained by the sources (Gerhard Richter-itis), but a suggestion for beginning students (to learn to synthesize rather than regurgitate) is certainly NOT an anti-photo-source precept to be enforced by the small-minded pedants of the Online Arts Inquisition.
The proof is always in the pudding. Or rather, the painting.
People who push these kinds of arbitrary rules about art making usually do so as an extension of their own insecurities.
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Surprisingly good book. Changed my mind about Hockney, in fact. I adore his composite polaroids.
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I’ll concede that I did like those; still not a fan of (most of) his painting, but he’s still curious and learning, and I like that in an artist.
There fixed that for you.
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feels vindicated I’ve been using Frankenstein’ed photo clips (combined with sketches I’ve done where I’ve already captured the armature I wanted) for years. I end up with some interesting layout combos for my sequential comics.
A lot of times I can find stuff in GIS, or using some pose stock providers I like, but I also will model for myself on occasion… which can lead to some funny quasi-fumettis of my multiple selves. 
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Nice. Kinda reminds me of Richard Corben.
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