Terms and privacy
Painter Fly is a free, non-commercial art project by Max Lin. Last updated 20 October 2026.
Using the site
Everything runs in your browser. Pictures you upload to paint stay on your device and are never sent to us. Videos and saved paintings are made on your device too.
The archive
If you choose "Add to the archive", you send us the fly's painting, its brushstrokes, the title and the name you type, if any. The picture you started from is only sent if you tick "Also show the picture I started from"; it is then reviewed and shown next to the painting.
- Every submission is reviewed before it appears. We can decline or remove anything, at any time, without giving a reason.
- Only show a starting picture you have the right to share.
- Don't submit anything hateful, harassing, sexual, violent, illegal, or that infringes someone else's rights, and don't paint pictures of people who haven't agreed to it.
- By submitting, you let Painter Fly show the painting, its title and your name in the archive and in posts about the project. You can ask for it to be removed at any time.
- Up to 5 submissions per person per day.
What we keep, and for how long
- With each submission we keep two scrambled codes: one made from your internet connection's address and one from a random ID stored in your browser. They can't be turned back into your address. We use them only to enforce the daily limit and to block people who break these rules.
- These codes are deleted from submissions after 30 days. A block lasts 90 days and then expires on its own.
- Reports work the same way: a scrambled code stops one person reporting the same painting twice, and is deleted after 30 days.
- We don't use accounts, cookies for tracking, advertising, or analytics. We don't sell or share anything.
Reporting and removal
Use the Report button under any painting. Paintings with several reports are hidden until they're checked. To ask for removal of your own painting, or to complain about one, email max@maxlin.art; complaints are looked at within 48 hours.
Credits and licences
The brain wiring is from the FlyWire Consortium (Dorkenwald et al. 2024; Schlegel et al. 2024), licensed CC BY-NC 4.0, so this project is non-commercial. Brain model: Shiu et al. 2024. Visual system: Lappalainen et al. 2024. Fly body and walking: NeuroMechFly (Wang-Chen et al. 2024). Gallery paintings are in the public domain. Music is an original score played on VSCO 2 Community Edition orchestral samples by Versilian Studios (public domain).