I’ve gotten requests to publish a list
of free-licensed resources used for Lunatics, and I have accumulated a
very long list of them in my browser bookmarks collection. I don’t
really have time to edit this down into a more digestible format, but it
wasn’t too hard to export the bookmarks and import them into my news
blog here. So here you go: links to all kinds of free art resources!
I’ve gotten requests to make a list of free-licensed online
collections available, since I have been collecting them for a long time
for Lunatics. I don’t have time to do this in a carefully-curated way,
but my browser does have a bookmark export tool! So this is a
lightly-edited output copied from a bookmark export, and there’s not a
whole lot of description or prioritization. However, I generally do move
the most important resources to the top of the list in each category as
I’m browsing, so there is some order here!
-
Video
Prelinger Archives : Free Movies : Download & Streaming : Internet Archive
PRELINGER.COM
- You’ve probably seen some of this stuff — very popular for remixes.
Stock Footage : Free Movies : Download & Streaming : Internet Archive
- Nifty collection of short clips. Sort of clip-art for movies.
Steal This Footage
- Raw footage from interviews that went into “Steal This Film II”, which is
about Pirate Bay, copyright, free-culture, etc. Some great stuff here,
under free license.
NASA’s Fortieth Anniversary: Audio and Video Clips
- Want to find a NASA film?
Home – Digital Tipping Point
Browse Top Level > Moving Images > The Digital Tipping Point
- Neat collection of interview footage on free-culture and free-software topics.
- NOTE:
I can’t advise you on whether using free-licensed interview footage
will give you legal trouble with “personality rights” of the people
being interviewed. You’ll have to investigate that on your own (some of
the sites above may address this issue, but I’m not sure). -
Music
Top music source for Lunatics, by far.
CC Trax
- Recent add — looks great.
Music Creative Commons Attribution License free download and re-use « RADIO-TOM.COM
- Folk music stuff.
Libre.fm — discover new music
- All free-licensed music. Kind of a sparse site design, designed for mobile
use, but the collection is nice, and they have a lot of stuff that has
disappeared elsewhere.
opsound: free love, free music
- Collaborative music production site.
Musopen – Free Public Domain Classical Music
- Classical music, all PD — awesome archive, and these folks commission new work, using crowd-funding.
Free Music Archive
- A meta-archive.
Search Tracks on SoundCloud – Create, record and share your sounds for free
- Everybody knows about soundcloud. Licenses are hit-and-miss, and I don’t always
trust authors to credit their own sources. Be wary. - Waaka.fm was awesome for J-Pop, but no longer exists. On the other hand, there’s more J-Pop on Jamendo now.
- Other stuff:
Music collaboration, share music tracks, Pro Tools, GarageBand, Sonar, remix, share beats – Kompoz.com
The Roots Music Listening Room
Country/Folk | Fun Fun Fun Media
Free Music List — Public Domain 4U
American Popular Music 1900 to 1950 – LSC-Kingwood
Public Domain Music
Releases | aaahh records
Space Disc Jockey
paniq: music from the other side of the universe
tawalker | The 50/90 Challenge
-
CCBySA-Safe Sound F/X
Best source for F/X sound, categorized by license – many are CC 0, CC By, or CC By-SA.
:: soundtransit :: home
- Best source for sound ambience, all By-SA licensed.
Category:Sound – Wikimedia Commons
- Don’t forget Wikimedia.Others are mostly cruft, but you might get lucky:
-
3D Models
Blendswap.com | Free Blender 3D Models | Come swap some blends with friends.
- The best!
The Official Blender Model Repository – Free Blender Resources
- I think this is where the best used to be, but anyway, there’s still some stuff here.
Blender Open Material Repository – download blender materials/shaders for free!
- Great collection of PD pre-configured materials for Blender. Great as-is or as a learning resource for making new materials.
Art Mainpage | duion.com
- Textures, mostly.
OpenGameArt.org | Free, legal art for open source game projects
- Mostly low-poly stuff.
3D Models – ShareCG
- Searchable by license. Variety of formats.
Home | 3D Resources (Beta)
- NASA spacecraft models, mostly. May not be detailed enough, but excellent as reference.
Vegetation A – G
- Greens models.
Yorik’s blender greenhouse
- Greens modeling stuff based on ngPlant
- Others:
The3DArchive.com – 3D Models and Objects
Free 3D Models | High quality 3d models library
Tell Your Story in 3D: 3D Software, 3D Content, and 3D Community on 3DVIA.com
The3DArchive.com – Standardized 3D Object Database
Free 3D Models, 3D Studio Max Models, 3DS Max models, Free 3D Textures, Download free. For Interior Design
Only Delicious 3D Models! | Top 3D models
3D Model Libraries Free Download, GDL Objects and 2D Shapes
Free 3d Models
Free download textures, modelli 3D, free 3d models, free rendering tutorials
Digital Animators Models
60 Excellent Free 3D Model Websites
- Meta-list. My 2011 review for Free Software Magazine.
Human photo references and textures for artists – 3d.sk
- Reference photos. I got this referral from Angela Guennette/Ponder Studios’
character modeling tutorial. Also, I found a camel here. - Other / Uncategorized Stuff:
The Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Fiction.
openfootage
Content Directories – CC Wiki
Blender Addon List
The Humble eBook Bundle (pay what you want and help charity)
The Digital Comic Museum
Open Culture
The Getty Adds Another 77,000 Images to its Open Content Archive – Open Culture
Explore the collection – Rijksmuseum
- Museum art collection.
National Gallery of Art | NGA Images
- Museum art collection.
GSG: highlights=Open Content Images
NounProject
Creative Commons — Kickstarter
BurningWell.Org – Free Public Domain Images and Photos
The OpenPhoto Project
Safe Creative: Log in
AGF81 on deviantART
Free Stock Textures – High Resolution Free Photos
Mayang’s Free Texture Library
texturemate.com
– Free Textures, Brushes, Patterns, and Design Articles! | Welcome to
my Repository of Free Textures, Brushes, Patterns and Design Articles.
Free High Resolution Textures – Lost and Taken
World of Free and Open Source Art – P2P Foundation
Statens Museum for Kunst: Free download of art works
- Freaking awesome high-quality paintings from the National Gallery of Denmark. The “print” in Anya’s office is from here.
The Public Domain Review |
Open Font Library – Open Font Library
Free Cyrillic Fonts
- Truetype fonts. In cyrillic. Looked hard to find this!
Jovanny Lemonad
FREE Andrew Loomis Art Instruction Downloads | ILLUSTRATION AGE
- Free e-book on drawing.
WikiPaintings.org – the encyclopedia of painting
The British Library Digital Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts
Photojournal: NASA’s Image Access Home Page
- NASA/JPL planetary photos.
Digitante on deviantART
- Don’t discount Deviantart. A lot of content is free. But it’s not so easy to search by license.
Vector Art – A Digital Illustration Blog
Free Vector Graphics free download and share your vector
Reusable Art
Public Domain Clip Art
Public domain book illustrations – a set on Flickr
Wikinfo:Resources/Public Domain Images – Wikinfo
Famous People – Guides, Reference Aids, and Finding Aids (Prints andPhotographs ReadingRoom, Library of Congress)
Portrait Gallery — University of Texas Libraries
Hey Oscar Wilde! It’s Clobberin’ Time!!!
- What?
Commons:Free media resources/Photography – Wikimedia Commons
Project Gutenberg – free ebooks online download for iPad, Kindle, Nook, Android, iPhone, iPod Touch, Sony Reader
G U T E N B E R G – D I G I T A L
The Compleat Muybridge Home
- Animators love Muybridge.
Importing Google SketchUp files into Blender 3D : KatsBits TUTORIALS
sketchupblender – alexvaqp
IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library: Free Public Domain Sheet Music
Search Results – Search Yale Digital Commons
DUBLAB Turning on Tomorrow Proton Drive
The Project Apollo Archive
- Hi-resolution digitized photos from Apollo lunar missions.