fuck my judgment // vent by DeliriousGray on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

yeah I’m working on a new main but that’s not important rn. I’ve got something else to talk about tonight, something that honestly had me fully questioning every judgment call I’ve ever made.

I consider myself to be pretty good at reading and judging what people are like before I get to know them well, but there have been quite a few times lately when I got too ahead of myself and immediately gave them the benefit of the doubt: even when I have my suspicions about someone, though, I ALWAYS try to stay respectful and kind until they turn the tables. No one deserves hate unless they ask for it, but even then, what’s the point?

The case this time around is EchoFeral (I don’t need to tag them cus I know they’ll see this post)—a lot of you might know there’s some drama surrounding whether or not their art is legit, and I believe that it mostly is, but the most drama came from one piece that started the whole ordeal.

Echo was accused of tracing the above lineart (as stated, the one on the left is the original and the one on the right is Echo’s), and though I can see where they may have improvised a bit as a former serial tracer, it’s almost entirely traced. That said, this is very much so art theft.

When I first asked Echo about it, they were insistent that they hadn’t traced and the way they said it, claiming that they’d drawn it before the artist even made the base (which wound up being incorrect: the base was made in 2016 and Echo made theirs in ‘19) and that people were harassing them over it, made me feel guilty enough to take their side. I then got a response to a comment I’d made on one of their posts from someone who had found the original base they’d used and things kinda went downhill from there.

I confronted them again and they denied my claim again: this time I tried to level with them, telling them about my past as a serial tracer and that it’s nothing to be ashamed of, then that they needed to at least credit the owner of the original base, all while trying to stay kind and helpful—I even offered to show them the original base for a reference point.

They clearly didn’t like that, as they didn’t even want to see the base: they then tried to prove to me that they hadn’t traced with the same drawing (but flipped) alongside another similar one, which appeared to have been derived from the same base: I’m not saying the second once was traced, but it looked similar style-wise to the first.

Upon becoming frustrated over this, I went to the original base’s page to look for shit to build my case, and what I found was this: the base is free, but the OP (who reposted it from another artist’s Facebook) EXPLICITLY said “don’t claim the lines, the original artist is [facebook artist’s name]”. That said, my problem isn’t entirely with the tracing, it’s with the fact that Echo traced the lines and then completely disregarded the OP’s very direct instruction.

So for Echo, since I know you’ll see this: all I’m asking is that you credit the original poster/original artist. Just because a base is free doesn’t mean you can just take it and use it without giving them credit. Also, if you continue to refuse my peaceful offer, I will be blocking you. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to risk my art being traced as well—I am VERY protective of my creations, and I am EXTREMELY against guilt-tripping, which is exactly what you did to me. I feel manipulated, and I refuse to put my creations in harm’s way.

Hopefully this helps straighten things out a little, even though I’m sure it won’t, and I hope you guys have a good rest of your day/night. 😊