Artistic Regret

[Cal Wright]

Let me pose this question and see how fellow artists have discovered and responded to a situation. Have you ever created a character full design powers and what not and later down the road seen almost the exact thing by someone else?

Let's take my example here. I've drawn practically my whole life. When I was a wee lad I had created this gigantic mecha. For a weapon he had this legendary sword that would become engulfed in blue flames when he used it. So I called it the 'Blue Flame' sword. (I was a kid, get over it.) Later down the road I drop the whole mecha thing, and stick to regular people. So I eventually have a main character I started drawing, and would draw him all the time. The character went from extremely cartoony, into a final very serious form, and now there is an off shoot of him that I continue to draw to this day. At one point during character design I made his outfit just like what me and my friends wear. Basically he had black shorts with sneakers and a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. I did this because me and my friends played basketball and football a lot during high school so that's usually what we wore, and I in particular always had a pair of black gym shorts with a cut off shirt. Okay, my character evolves. A couple of other characters get a similar design. As things progressed I remembered and/or found the sword idea. So I incorporate it into the story arc.

Now here is the kicker. I'm sure a lot of you know of the Street Fighter games. I and my friends loved them. Eventually I pick up Marvel vs. Capcom 2. I am enjoying this game, when I find a new character to use. The shock I had just went right through me. There was a character named Hiyato who had, you guessed it, black shorts with a form of a cut off shirt, and he used a blue sword. Sort of like a lightsabre more then anything. No matter though, because now I was just fuming that I had the design all carefully worked out for years and in one hit, boom.

So now I ask the other artists on the board. Have you ever designed a character, and later down the road seen someone else with it?

[AnimeJet]

You mean hayato? And no, i haven't.. mainly because i don't design characters. It must suck to seemingly have something "stolen" from you, but sometimes.. man.. coincedences just suck you know.. I'd hate trying to explain to everyone it was original..

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

I've had something similar happen. I created this elf ranger/mage type guy... but I needed a cool name. So one day I was flipping through the dictionary for no reason and I saw "vagabond." So I'm like, "COOL!" and thought no one could ever possibly think of using this obscure word for a character.

I hate the world.

[Stofsk]

Who HASN'T had something like this happen to them? Few things are as unmotivating and as defeating as coming up with something that to your experience, is seemingly original, yet has actually been done before.

I suppose the trick is to damn it all and go ahead with it. At least to you, you DID come up with it originally.

[Damaramu]

Ah yes, bad ass Hayato from the Star Gladiator series:

[Cal Wright]

Salt in the wound Damaramu. How old is the Star Gladiator seris? I don't know of the game personally, so it might be a Jap only, plus I know they had a 3D fighter starring him after MvC2.

[Damaramu]

Hmmm......I remember playing the first Star Gladiator game circa '96. I think that's the first time it came stateside.

They released a sequel, Star Gladiator 2 for the Dreamcast aound '99-'00.

Hayato was in MvC 2 around the same time, IIRC.

[Rye]

Everyone makes a character called dark phoenix when they're a kid . Heh. I did way back before I saw the X-men cartoon phoenix saga, unfortunately.

[salm]

happens all the time with buildings. you design a building just to find out that some other guy in the same group has designed the exact same thing.