Probably this happens more than we realize. Years ago when I did  
textbook illustration the art directors would send me a pile of  
similar illustrations from competing texts - like the life cycle of a  
corn plant or the cross section of a root - and say "Do it like these,  
only different, so you're not plagiarizing." I took biology and botany  
classes and had a general understanding of what was going on. But  
neither was this process about watching the plant grow myself or doing  
a drawing from a real microscopic cross section, which I would have  
preferred. There was neither the time nor the funding for this. The  
publishers ran my art past other people - and in most cases, I think,  
had scientific people of some kind checking for accuracy. Only once do  
I recall working directly with the botanist/author, who turned out to  
be such a curmudgeon that for the first and only time in my freelance  
career I asked to terminate the contract.

Lynette
lynettecook.com

On Feb 14, 2011, at 11:20 AM, Mieke Roth wrote:

> Hi Diana,
>
> I also don´t have a real example, but one of the things I see over  
> here a
> lot is illustrators copying illustrations from other illustrators  
> without
> looking into it themselves. And thus copying mistakes also. And a  
> few years
> back I saw an illustrator advertising himself as medical illustrator  
> with a
> portfolio of drawings of medical plastic models.. and where you  
> really could
> see that he didn´t understand what he was drawing.
>
> Mieke

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