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please keep in mind!...
◦ this is not an "AI-free" list, it is a "less-polluted-than-google" list.
◦ any site with user-submitted content should be treated as potentially contaminated.
◦ if an image looks sus to you and has a post date of 2023 or later, it may be best to cast it aside.
◦ "AI or not" and similar tools are about as reliable as a coinflip.
slop evader
https://tegabrain.com/Slop-Evader
hands down the easiest and fastest way to run a quick search without getting trash results. this is a browser extension for chrome and firefox that allows you to search the web exclusively for results from before the public release date of ChatGPT. you can do this manually on your own, but the extension makes it much faster!
istockphoto, getty images, shutterstock, & alamy
https://www.istockphoto.com/ & https://www.gettyimages.com/ & https://www.shutterstock.com & https://www.alamy.com/
MIRACULOUSLY, these have not yet fallen to AI. they will probably advertise stupid AI "tools" loudly at you, but those are for modifying images after-the-fact. they do not actually allow generated images to be uploaded for sale. their size and popularity, along with the fact that stock photo sites tend to be good about specific keywords and descriptions, makes them ideal places to search. ime these sites were like half of google image results pre-AI-boom anyway LOL.
pexels
https://www.pexels.com
free stock photo site. large selection, pretty good search tools. explicitly does not allow generative AI uploads.
https://pixabay.com/
free stock photo site. requires AI images to be labeled and lets you filter for authentic images only. (unfortunately they aren't super diligent about moderating; be wary of images posted after about 2022. thanks for the heads up leigh)
unsplash
https://unsplash.com/
free stock photo site. explicitly does not allow generative AI uploads.
morguefile
https://morguefile.com/
another free stock photo site! this one doesn't have an explicit policy about AI, but they are a long-standing institution. my test searches didn't turn up anything that smelled off to me. not 100% guaranteed AI-free, but i do guarantee as of this writing, it's 500% less polluted than google.
flickr
https://www.flickr.com/search/
not completely AI-free, but it hasn't been cool since yahoo instant messenger still existed, so the slop peddlers mostly ignore it. GREAT search tools, lots of Creative Commons stuff, you can even use advanced search to narrow your search by date to pre-AI-boom times. heads up, this is one of the rare big long-standing gallery sites that still allows some NSFW images, so be warned if you don't use the filters DICKS WILL BE ON YOUR SCREEN. (i guess that probably also means you could find nude reference there.)
the wikimedia commons (thanks for the suggestion, pagodrink!)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/
huge, searchable database, and while it's not 100% AI-free, they're pretty strict about AI. (additional info here.) The vast majority of Wikimedia images are authentic. also fun because the images you'll get here usually have more context around them than a random stock photo. keep in mind: wikimedia is an educational resource that does not shy away from potentially upsetting content. graphic images of human and animal suffering/injury/corpses can easily turn up in searches. (you can try using openverse's search tools to narrow to wikimedia and filter/blur sensitive content, though ime it's more likely to time out and misbehave.)
nappy (suggested by multiple people)
https://nappy.co/
free stock photo site specifically focused on Black and Brown models. all CC0! no anti-AI policy that i can find, but having looked around, nothing has the AI stink on it. photographers also have profiles that link to their websites.
https://archive.org/
can be a little tricky and clunky to use at times, but filters can often turn up interesting stuff you won't find in other places. definitely not AI-free but can be filtered by date to pre-AI-boom uploads. lots of books here, btw. books with IMAGES in 'em.
the base mesh
https://www.thebasemesh.com/
a fantastic growing archive of basic 3D models of common objects. easy to download and view an object at an angle.
same energy (thanks for the suggest, animtrash!)
https://same.energy
works a lot like pinterest's previously excellent visual search and doesn't seem to turn up heinous amounts of slop (i tested with some keywords: beautiful girl, castle, scifi city, etc. and didn't really see anything that set off the alarms). you can upload an image or keyword search. left click on an image to get more results similar. right-click to see the source and enlarge the image. to be totally clear, this does use machine learning-- it would have to! but it's the kind of machine learning stuff that was in use and actually useful before the Besloppening of All Things.
zerochan & safebooru
https://www.zerochan.net/ & https://safebooru.org/
these aren't without problems and i do not post them uncritically; unsourced posting (and reposting without permission, usually from JP artists on pixiv and twitter) are long-standing problems on these sites. BUT they also house a lot of official/promo art from various anime and games, and they have pretty meticulously detailed tagging. if you're looking to figure out how to stylize a specific thing, they can help. zerochan forbids slop, safebooru allows it (put -ai_generated in your search to exclude most of it). try searching "official art" on both if you want to exclude stuff yoinked from pixiv and twitter with dubious permission. as an aside, i also highly recommend the Character Design References Visual Library for finding all sorts of examples of how professional artists do their thing.
animal photo reference repository (ty epsi for the suggestion)
https://www.animal-photo-references.com
repository of photos of lots of different kinds of animals! nothing here is generative. "Artists creating derivative or transformative works without Generative AI have blanket permission to reference these photos." (look at theeeeeeeeese...)
iNaturalist (ty for the suggestion Luna!)
https://www.inaturalist.org/
tons of photos of animals, easily narrowed down to specific species. great search tools. heads up: includes dead animals! but if you absolutely don't wanna accidentally see a dead animal, you'll want to narrow your searches to "alive". if you DO need to see a dead one you can narrow to that too. (horror artists, rejoice.) a heads up thanks to fluffgar - unfortunately site staff seems to have been taken in by AI, but generated images are, as of this writing, still not acceptable. the quality of the information (and unfortunately the photos) here may degrade over time, so keep that in mind if you're from the future and the AI bubble hasn't burst yet.
vishopper (ty gingervitis!)
https://www.vishopper.com/
a more specialized stock image library-- "creator and distributor of cut out images and textures for architectural visualization". LOTS to see here; humans, animals, plants, backgrounds, neatly cut-out from photos for compositing. unfortunately allows AI images but also lets you exclude them from searches. (search narrowing tools are also great here.)
openverse (ty cogdog!)
https://openverse.org/
a search engine that pulls from a lot of the places mentioned previously in this list (see their sources page). all content is under a creative commons or public domain license. as always, scrutinize your sources here-- AI could easily slip through-- but my test searches didn't return anything sludgy looking. it can be a little finicky, but it turns up good results.
✪ the holy trinity of "what does that look like from that angle" tools
reference angle
http://referenceangle.com/
a much more specific tool. pose the 3D head, search, get photos of real humans at the angle of the head.
animal photo art reference search (thanks for the suggestion, seb!)
https://x6ud.github.io/#/
it does what reference angle does... but for animals!
pose search (ty to scazrelet's big-ass list)
https://x6ud.github.io/pose-search/#/
pose a skeleton, tilt a camera, find ref photos!
✪ more specific stuff
smithsonian open access (thank you deramin for the suggestion!)
https://www.si.edu/openaccess
lots of content, lots of it copyright-free. since it's a museum, a lot of this is going to be more on the historical side. they have some 3D scans of things that are pretty neat and viewable in-browser-- look at this crab!
swordis (ty for the suggestion gingervitis) & museum replicas limited
https://swordis.com/ & https://museumreplicas.com/
these are stores, but they've got a ton of good high-quality photos of different types of melee weapons. museum replicas limited also has a lot of what i'd call renfaire-wear, a lot of it historically accurate!
filmgrab (ty to scazrelet's big-ass list)
https://film-grab.com/
big archive of screenshots from movies.
sakugabooru (ty for the suggestion kradeelav!)
https://www.sakugabooru.com
clips of sakuga (extra-quality animation) from various anime. no explicit anti-AI policy i can find, but probably unlikely to get polluted as basically anyone contributing to this would have to have something resembling taste lmao
roomstyler (ty jurplepicks!)
https://roomstyler.com/3dplanner
build a 3D room for background reference!
art libraries
https://www.creativeuncut.com/ - video game concept & official art
settei dreams - anime production art
characterdesignreferences - "character-focused art within the realms of animation, illustration, games, and comics"
https://artvee.com/ - high-resolution, public domain paintings, posters and illustrations (anon suggestion, ty!)
clothes!
this part of the list is pretty thin, and the topic is broad. my #1 tip is if you're drawing historical clothing, look for costume shops for theater/reenactment (a couple of those are included here). they tend to have good photos.
https://urstyle.fashion - remember polyvore? it's polyvore 2
https://vintagedancer.com - my go-to for historical fashion from the victorian era through the 1990s
https://same.energy/ - mentioned above, seems pretty good for searching specific style keywords
suitpic - not very searchable as it's a bluesky feed, but INVALUABLE suit reference
https://tokyofashion.com/ - japanese street fashion! really cool stuff here!
https://www.osfcostumerentals.org/OSF-Costume-Rentals - a good place to start looking for any period fashion
traditional russian costume and glebushkin (ty Seb!) - good reference for lots of traditional Russian clothing! you may need to autotranslate some stuff if you can't read Russian.
hikishop (ty Seb!) - WWI/WW2 reproduction military costume shop, geared toward historical reeanactors, with lots of detail shots. (content warning: yes, they do have Nazi Stuff; use it to draw historically accurate images of Nazis dying in hilarious ways 👍)
adorkastock, trueref, theposearchives, nullentitystock, sambeawesome, jookpubstock, fatphotoref, nyxnaiastock
figure drawing tools by & for artists! (suggested by many!)
posemaniacs, line of action, quickposes, rkgk, sketchdaily, adorkastock
poseable 3d models! (ty splanet for the first one!)
posemy.art, justsketchme, magicposer, designdoll
mesh2motion - cool project i ran across on bsky. allows you to see a humanoid model (and a few animals) at different angles with a bunch of pre-set animations you can pause and turn around. you can upload your own models and set the bones, too; this is a project-in-development that could have a lot of useful applications for artists.
✪ suggestions welcome
comments on this blog entry are open even if you don't have a dreamwidth account. keep in mind i'm not looking to make a full list of all the art resources online; the goal here is to patch the google-shaped hole left by AI. some ideal criteria:
- free
- low friction (no barriers to entry, ideally about as quick and easy to use as google)
- AI shit not allowed OR required to be marked and easy to avoid/exclude from search
- images should have sources
- good search narrowing tools/categorization/etc.
- broad range of content; likely to return a lot of varied images, rather than just one or two pictures of something
- lots of creative commons/public domain stuff is a huge bonus
some shareable posts on different websites that link back to this list:
bluesky, mastodon, tumblr, pillowfort, cara
some people get a 403 error; send them to the archive.org page.
(feel free to make your own posts on other sites i haven't posted it on!)
not-entirely-shameless self-promo: if you wanna see what i'm making, you can find a haphazard series of links to it all at https://doodlemancy.com, the world's most website that is online. doodlemancy dot com: it's website!™®
* wait, hang on, what do you mean the filters "don't work"?
pinterest uses a combination of metadata and AI to detect AI content, but it isn't always reliable. people seem to have varying experiences with pinterest. because individual feeds are so tailored, it's hard to tell exactly what's going on, but if you check out the subreddit a lot of people are always complaining about AI.
duckduckgo and extensions that filter google image results most often rely on a popular uBlock Origin blacklist. unfortunately, the blacklist has been getting less effective over time as the internet has gotten more polluted with AI imagery.
you will always have to rely on your own judgment at least a little. searching in less polluted places helps minimize risk.
