Anonymous asked: hey uncle mod i have a dilemma i need to share that i need help with. i have a character ive spent a lot if time on (years, mentally), but ive noticed theres many ocs who look similar to him. one of them ive seen even has a similar job, although their personalities are different. i havent taken much (if any) influence from any of them; however i dont want to be accused of copying. changing his design would be hard tho bc its pretty established. should i change his appearance or keep it the same?
stay true to the character and your story- whether its design or personality, the best thing you can do in these cases is just listen to the character and be honest about them and their creation when people ask- I had a lot of ‘have you read Saga?’ and ‘oh! nice FLCL ref’ when I first made RGB, neither of which were influences on him or the story! (I still haven’t read Saga…) heck, I didn’t even know object heads were a whole thing until I started TPoH! people are always going to draw comparisons and make assumptions, especially when you’re starting out, but when you’re going strong and you have established who the characters are, what your direction is, what their individual voice is etc. you will worry about it less, and people will compare less! you will still get it, but it will be more of an ‘oh, I wonder if that influenced their character/story…’ and the attitude will usually be that these influences are additive, not derivative.
It’s a frustrating thing, that last point; people are quick to assume that characters/stories which are similar to existing ones are in some way ‘extractions’ of them, and therefore are less than the originals. In fact very often these characters have multiple, very personal influences from many sources including the life of the individual who created them, and therefore are an amalgamate which can easily add up to something or someone who is as equal a ‘person’ as the single entity they are being held up to.