I have noticed lately, that when someone new to furry skins wants to start a new project, a lot come to me and ask me if I have done it before. I can understand the need to feel unique, but this feeling of not wanting to "step on toes" among the furry skinners has always confused me a bit.
I was wondering how other furries felt about this, especially those of you that make skins or who want to make skins.
In a nutshell, the way I feel is that every artist has their personal style, and even if they do something someone has done before, they add their own touch, their own flavor to the look of the piece. Just because VanGogh painted sunflowers, doesn't mean no other artist should ever paint them again.
Case in point - yeah, I made a red fox after WaltzingMouse already made one... heck, I even derived from her products to make the parts for it! But was her's the first red fox? No, SugarCat had done others before her.
Do the three red foxes look similar? No, we each had our own take on what we thought made a nice looking fox avatar.
Is one skin better than another? No, not at all, that is arbitrary and depends on who's buying it and their individual tastes.
Would I be upset if someone else did a red fox? Hell no! I would love it, and if they did a good job of it, I would have it in my inventory!
A red fox is a fairly common favorite fursona, but there are infinite ways to depict the fur patterns. There are hundreds of varieties of red fox in the natural world as well, depending on where you live. There is not a standard way to paint one.
Basically, I think furry skinners should just go for it... paint what you want and forget what's been done. It's what flows from your mind and your hand that will make it unique. Yeah, so you might be the first one to make a certain animal, but don't be hurt if someone else makes one too. Your fans will love yours the best, and they will have their own fans.
The important part is to put variety into the catalog, paint your mad hearts out! Isn't it a beautiful dream to someday perhaps have subcategories in the furry section... foxes here, with 50 different varieties of fox, maybe 10 of them red, 5 different arctic fox.... etc.... then over there is the big cat section, then another just for tigers, wolves, kitties, dragons... and so on. Get the picture?
Now the only thing I feel is exempt from this are unusual fursonas, like my leophox and Noey's ocophox... those are both totally off the wall and should not be copied. On the other hand, I feel just regular animals in unnatural colors are not exempt... say like a purple squirrel or a green kitsune... those don't take a stretch of the imagination to come up with, and the variations on the basic theme of the purple squirrel are infinite.
Overall, I don't want anyone to ever narrow their artistic options just because someone has made one already. When it comes to making furries, nothing is copyright there, anyone can make anything, and it's not stepping on anyone's toes because each artist's interpretation is unique and extremely valuable to the furry community as a whole.
All of this is simply just my opinion, but i truly believe as I said above, and I am going to say it again in case you missed it:
Just because VanGogh painted sunflowers, doesn't mean no other artist should ever paint them again!
Topic: Furry Skin Controversy (Read 4180 times)