Animation Source Forums

It baffles me when a member steps up and accuses another member of stealing their version of Saba/Dingo/Red-faced pup/red Aleu twin. I can understand if they took the character and tacked on the same name or if they have identical personalities (which is a stretch). If someone took my version of one of the Wolf Quest pack wolves and named it Dean, I wouldn't be happy. But it's when the only thing they have is design in common it's perplexing.

OF COURSE they're going to have the same design, nimrod! They showed it in the movie! It's not like you can dye Saba purple and turn her tail into ravenous venus flytraps with tongues that have Cameron Diaz's face on them that spit corrosive peanut butter, it wouldn't make sense and people would be very frightened.

Sure, you can make subtle edits to make it your own. Catwings' Saba has two differently colored eyes, CatWhoHas14Tails' red-faced pup, Kiona, has white chest fur that ends with a cut across instead of rounded on the neck, and my version of the red Aleu twin, Angiak, has a missing paw from frostbite.

But if you just take the design right out of the movie without any alterations and then point fingers at another person who also didn't do anything, you really don't have the right to cry theft. I'm not saying you're a bad person or uncreative because you have a version of one of Balto's pups, they can be a great starting point for creating your own characters. But c'mon people, mix it up a bit!

This leads me to my next point; the people who believe their version of the pup is the one true version. I'm now speaking to you. You scoff at the others, calling them posers because they can't draw as well or didn't think of it first. They're all copying you. Psh, Sora-kun has a red Aleu twin named Angiak? Lame. Angiak is just another clone of RandomJapaneseName. You make a mental note to have your rabid fans of RandomJapaneseName drag Sora-kun out her house and stone her for such treachery. You hold your version like it's the holy grail of Balto. RandomJapaneseName would probably even have his/her own movie if the creators stumbled upon him/her. Fools. They don't understand the genius of RandomJapaneseName.

Uh-oh! Here comes a thylacine with a chainsaw to cleave your pedestal in half and then dice it for good measure. You're not the only one with a version. Do I go around and say "YOU COPIED ANGIAK. OMFG IMMA REPORT YOU"? No! Because I know Angiak isn't the only red Aleu twin out there! If someone made a red Aleu twin with a missing paw, I might be a little suspicious.

This is really just common sense, but if you suspect them of theft, PM them to talk it out in private first. Don't go straight to the mods. I've had people apologize and change their characters. From my experience, they were new and didn't know what they were doing. Hey, sometimes it was a misunderstanding and we come to a compromise. Most people are willing to talk it out.

Give them a chance, teach them a few things, help them out. Don't burn them at stake for being idiots. We've all been there at some point. When I first started drawing, the members of an advanced oekaki told me I sucked and never to draw again because I'm a disgrace to internet art. If it weren't for one person, just one person, who supported me, I probably would never have gotten to where I am right now.

So I'll make this offer to newbies, if you need help with anything, anything at all, PM me. The mods are also great people, so PM them too if you need help with stuff a little ole member like me can't handle.

If we want more people on Balto Source, we can't look like we're caught up in the Salem Character Theft Trials and charge people with crimes against Balto for having a version of a pup. We're better than that, folks. Steet worked hard for us and we can give back to Steet by treating each other with respect and using common courtesy.

----

Now for another rant; complicated fursonas.

I will do art trades with people of their fursonas. I like it, I like branching out and making people happy with drawings of their characters. However if your fursona looks like this;

(name of fursona blurred and artist removed. I just found this.)

I'm not going to draw it. Why? Because usually the people with these types of fursonas are the ones to complain about inaccuracies.

I don't have time to draw five pairs of wings, thirty piercings, three tails, anime hair, and over 9000 various accessories, screw that. Why is it cool to have fursonas that look like the product of a rainbow Chernobyl meltdown? Most people I talk to despise drawing fursonas like that. How do you even REMEMBER all of these accessories without a reference sheet? Mine has a collar and an eyepatch and that's all. Heck, even my bat fursona has just a beanie with a hatchet pin on it and that's all.

If you have a fursona like this, you're welcome to keep it. But don't throw a hissy fit if an artist refuses to draw it, you should be expecting this by now.

Interesting rant. When ya were talking about people claiming that others stole their drawings or characters I think ya should have mentioned something else. Coincidence. If people draw lots of wolves or dogs, no matter how many different "little" things ya do to them with over ten-thousand people on here and with lots of them doing drawings, the day will eventually come where somebody will think their drawing was stolen. Unless people look at every single drawing in every person's gallery and what-not then eventually somebody's drawing will look like another person's.

This is a-little off-topic but when ya showed that example of a fursona, do ya know what kind of program that person might have used? I would love to know both how they got it to look like something out of an anime, and how they got those colors that they used. If ya are familiar with how they might have done that, I would be very interested.

I agree with just about everything you've said here, and this is the main reason why I don't think Im really not keen to make my own fanversion of Balto's pups, because no matter what original twist I try to add to it, It either wont look like the ""original"" or it will have been done before by some randomer [insert some stupid boring username here] before and they will shriek "OMGOd THEIFF  !" and then I will have to get my fire extinguisher to put out all the flamers spamming up my inbox. XS Its a cruel world.

Personally, I think it's the fault of the animators for not making the pups interesting enough in the first place! Seriously, half of them are Jenna clones, yes thats Kodi/Dingo/Saba. And the red bar-nosed pup even doesn't have his nose-bar painted on in some scenes!! His one distinguishing feature..and they can't even get that right. Infact, the non-movie-of-their-own pups meaningless desings and acts (they barely say or do ANYTHING) are so boring that people have to go out and create their "OWN" designs of the pup! But of course, since everyones little "personal" version is based off the same meaningless design, some people *not metioning names* throw mega tantrums and shout at eachother and go "Ooooh, you stole my Dakotaa! He's minne- Totally my own desiggn!!" I mean geez,..pfft.-_-
And I agree with the thing about fursonas. I cant stand ones that look like weird punky rainbows gone ugly XS but I can also seee the reason for this...people think that if they make their fursona IMPOSSIBLY difficult to draw, so spend like 4 hours choosing every aspect of the design, from the exact designs of the 1000 charms on their metre long necklace to the exact colours of their 20 rolled up socks piled onto each leg e.tc. :S then it will be UNIQUE and noone can COPY it..and we're back where we started

You can't really blame the animators, since the pups don't play a huge role in the movie like Aleu. Therefore, it would be a waste of time to give them more interesting designs, because Wolf Quest was made on a tight budget. The animators probably did not take into account the fact that years later, fans might start making their own fan characters.

To add onto what JC said, if you didn't copy, you shouldn't worry about if people say you copied xD Cuz obviously your conscience is clear then. And the fanart mods will certainly know if you copied anyone (Draco especially). Besides, I even like other peoples' versions of the red-faced pup. Some are just as convincing if not more convincing than Kiona is. And DIFFERENT than Kiona is in almost every way possible.

And yes, I have made it clear on a number of occasions that Kiona is MINE and not UNIVERSAL'S, in other words she's UNOFFICIALLLLLLLLL. It still doesn't give anyone any right to copy, but there certainly isn't any reason for anyone else to not have their version of the red-faced pup.

Personally, I'm just sick of all the Sue/Stu versions of the character. I don't think anyone would complain about anyone copying if they weren't all the same anyway xD ("Randomjapanesename is nice yet stubborn then meets a wolf and they have babies WHEEEEEEEJOINMYCONTEST" whoop de doo.)

I /am/ sick of it, frankly xD Its like "Are you a Wolf Quest fan?" "OMGYES" "How many times have you seen it?" "347653 TIMES!!!" "Then tell me where the hell they say the pup's name is Kiona?" "umm...". I mean I don't care if people want to draw her, I love gift art as much as the next person, so long as they don't get the wrong idea xD

I mean, I actually /researched/ to make absolutely sure that those pups were basically /nobody/ before making a fan character at all xD

Kiona - http://baltosource.timduru.org/en/chars/Kiona/3.html
Tiana - http://baltosource.timduru.org/art/Beau ... display=30
Duce - http://baltosource.timduru.org/en/chars/Duce/687.html
Shank - http://baltosource.timduru.org/en/chars/Shank/2742.html
Denali - http://baltosource.timduru.org/image/ca ... display=30

These ones look pretty different from the others