Sean I get what you're saying but I still think there's a difference between "inspired by" and a downright rip-off.

Making a wizard robe that MIGHT look like something from a certain scar-faced young bespectacled wizard's universe is one thing. Meticulously copying it to the slightest thread is something else (but hey.. if someone has.. let me HAVE it LOL)

Fan Art is all about making things recognizable. If you can't see what it's supposed to be, then there's no fan art in it.

Mind you, I've seen HP fanart where it was VERY far fetched. Beautiful art, but it was only because it was posted in the HP fandom that it was ever being recognized as such, I bet. And in a way it's the same with my "book Snape" - he looks nothing like Alan Rickman, but he looks like my mental image of Snape from the books. And people who likes and follows my "art" in the HP fandom knows that this is my rendition of Snape. Even if he looks different from their vision.

Look at this:

This is probably the most awesome Snape-fan art I've ever seen. Yet few people outside the HP (slash) fandom would ever even SEE this as "Snape"

To make fan art *everybody" will recognize, it has to LOOK like the original! And if nobody models it, how can all the non-modelling people ever make fan art?

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