If I illustrate a real person as a fictional character in a painting or graphic novel without their expressed permission, can they sue me?

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If I illustrate a real person as a fictional character in a painting or graphic novel without their expressed permission, can they sue me?

Essentially I want to use a real likeness of person to model a character in a story after. The character will be humanoid but not human and because I have a limited number of images to work with the plus the alien features that will be added the final character will only vaguely (if at all) look like this person and only with certain expressions probably while other expressions will be completely improvised from generic rules of face movement/mechanics. The problem is that I contacted the person doing an exact mimic of her as the character (which she didn’t do) and now she’s unreachable.

Asked on February 16, 2012 under Business Law, Pennsylvania

Answers:

FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney

Answered 12 years ago | Contributor

If the final depiction of the art that you are creating is not remotely close to what the actual person you are modeling your art on, then I see no real problem with you using a photo or other depiction of that real life person from a liability standpoint so long as you do not mention what real life person was used as your "inspiration" for the painting that you wish to do.


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