I can absolutely see the proof of tracing as being legit and reason to not commission or support them on patreon.
Buuuuut it's not a true, hard trace. Although I do think it's a bit gross to do that, the end result does still use a lot of strong character-specific and original details that make it closer to derivative work than tracing, at least in my opinion. If additional images show actual, full 1:1 detail tracing, than I could easily change my opinion.
I can absolutely see the proof of tracing as being legit and reason to not commission or support them on patreon.
Buuuuut it's not a true, hard trace. Although I do think it's a bit gross to do that, the end result does still use a lot of strong character-specific and original details that make it closer to derivative work than tracing, at least in my opinion. If additional images show actual, full 1:1 detail tracing, than I could easily change my opinion.
If they traced some of it then it's traced. It's not less bad because they didn't trace it 100%, they're still profiting off the hard work of other artists. It's even been pointed out that they're tracing from multiple artists and stitching it together, so you can't even be sure which parts are original and which are traced.
I'm not sure if I should be angry and very disappointed and ignore that artist, or if I should somewhat appreciate their Stelle x March work. Most of the pictures are really good, I love the one of Stelle touching March's tummy. Idk, it's obviously bad, but I wish that exact pic would exist without the tracing because it's so fucking cute lmao. What a shame tho especially because they can draw, the stuff they add and change is neat. It feels a bit like the light novel artist of No Game No Life, who was caught tracing in the end, but people didn't really care because he changed so much and "stitched" his pictures together too. I wouldn't say anything if it was just hands and complicated poses, but they traced almost everything. Would be interesting to know if some of the poses are stock pose images from dlsite or pixiv a lot of doujin artists use, or if the artists she traced from made them up on their own