[00:01] general, honestly, there are some people with the absolute audacity, and it is just so frustrating to see. So, this is a situation involving some emote artist.
[00:13] situation, please don't send hate to any parties involved. OP is an artist named Tai or TaiMoon, writing, "I need to vent for a second. There's a Brazilian artist, and don't worry, I'm Brazilian, too, who has been tracing my emotes for
[00:26] years. I've ignored it for a long time because I didn't want drama, but it's point. When I first saw this artist, I was like, their art looks really they look familiar, until I saw this. They made Pokimane's emotes. These
[00:39] these emotes are pretty viral. I was seeing them like all over my Twitter feed a couple years ago when they made these. So, that is why their art style anyways, they continue, "What makes it even worse is that I literally sell
[00:53] emote bases for artists to use, and she doesn't even bother buying them. She just keeps tracing pretty much every emote I make. I've had so many people DM me asking if I knew her because her emotes look exactly like mine. That's
[01:06] how obvious it's been. By the way, I blocked her, and nothing changes." cuz like if somebody is like stealing from you, and, you know, your instinct you know, not steal from you anymore. Well, because like Twitter had that
[01:18] change where now block people can still see your feed, it literally like defeats can make the argument they can make alt accounts, whatever, which is true, but, you know, kind of defeats the purpose. Tai continues, "I don't care if people
[01:30] use similar or identical poses. I don't own poses, but this goes way beyond emotes, and I sell them on Etsy, and I've had people directly one-to-one trace my emotes, okay? And it was like bad to the point where one time somebody
[01:44] like, "Oh my god, these are my emotes." Like in my head, right? And then I a little bit, you know, it looks a little bit off, the whole art piece, and bit closer, it wasn't mine. I did not draw those, but they were my emotes. It
[01:59] The streamer had no idea by the way, they just like bought an emote pack they saw on Etsy. It was so awkward cuz I literally was like, wait, what? And then they were like, oh my god, this is the artist. I'm so sorry. Like I will take
[02:12] your fault, right? You didn't know. It feels so icky. And like a lot of people emotes because emotes are small. There's not very much stuff you can do in like a such a tiny square that an emote is. So some poses like by default kind of end
[02:27] up looking similar because there's only like a couple ways you can kind of do it before you're just kind of stuck in that limitation of the space. In some ways kind of like pixel art because there's only so many pixels in a 32 by 32 canvas
[02:39] way, you know, to do it with your own style and there's one way where you are directly tracing somebody else's work to where it lines up one-to-one. But Tai only one. Other artists I've commissioned for my visual ID are also
[02:53] being affected because she copied my logo and a huge part of my branding. I didn't want to turn this into drama, which is why I stayed quiet for years. I'm going to share the evidence publicly and pursue legal action. And I want to
[03:06] when people use my work as reference or inspiration. That is part of being an artist. But this is not inspiration, it's 100% tracing. So let's take a look because like how similar could these be, right? Tai posts this video. Oh my god,
[03:21] it's bad. It's literally one-to-one. Actually, every single one of these is this video play on loop and then just pick like a different emote to watch. Like sure the eyes are like a teeny bit bigger, but why is it so damn similar?
[03:37] Like to everything. That is so icky and as an artist, that is so violating to have your artwork like overlaid one-to-one by somebody else's, you know, tracing. And for more context, they had quote retweeted one of their bases right
[03:50] writing, "By the way, these are the emo bases available on my VGen. They're you do, you get both personal and commercial rights to use them." Because, yep, if you buy their emo bases, right? You get personal commercial usage as
[04:03] well. You can use them to sell commissions, as long as you credit Tai they had put. But, it's like a even bigger level of like [ __ ] you, right? that you want to take inspiration from, but you know, you don't want to be too
[04:17] creepy, they have bases where you literally can use it. You can use their long as you follow everything they have laid out, and you just say, "Nah, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to save myself the 12 buckaroos." It's like 950,
[04:32] I think. And instead, I'm going to go trace all of their artwork." And because they're getting commissions, right? So, then the commissioner, again, like, "Oh, you know, can you make me an emote where I'm going like yippee?" And
[04:47] yippee base, then they're like, "Well, I'm just going to go and rip one of the somebody else that looks like that, and just trace over that instead. Yay." And other clients are quote retweeting and being so upset because they all didn't
[05:00] know. They were like, "Yo, I spent like how much money on emotes, and they were all traced?" And the artist is being so kind in the comments, kind of for people without knowing. The artist is like, "I am so sorry. Like, don't worry, it's
[05:13] Don't worry about it. Like, it's not your fault at all." Which is so shouldn't have to be in a position where they do this, but like that is such a big move of them to be this kind in such a situation. Again, some people in the
[05:28] understanding cuz they were like, "Oh, well, like the base is the same, but tracing, you know? If you trace 50% of the art piece, you still you still trace the art piece. And the artist is selling artwork, like this your character here
[05:42] emote set, which features some of the traced works. Like this one, which is pose, and the eye position, and everything. It's all traced. Then, what is interesting is this artist on June 23rd, which was the same day that Ty
[05:58] artist, where they didn't name the artist, but they vaguely kind of them. Half a day later, also the same day though, June 23rd, all of a sudden the artist post this work in progress, where they show themselves drawing in
[06:12] their drawing app, which looks like Procreate on light mode. They're drawing finger? Where's your Apple Pencil?" I mean, everybody has their own choice. Most people, I feel like on tablets do draw with an Apple Pencil, but there are
[06:24] people for certain reasons will draw with their finger. You know, there was got a hand injury. So, now they draw with their finger on their tablet. But, overall, you can see over the course of their drawing process, they're drawing,
[06:37] how I draw, etc." And because it's kind of filmed over their shoulder, you can't hidden layer in Procreate. One of the know, looking at this video, is this artist literally drawing with their
[06:50] hands? Yes, we are seeing them use their hands to draw. That doesn't really negate the fact that there is like evidence of at least like 40 emotes one-to-one lining up with the original artist emotes. Yeah, they're doing more
[07:02] of the artwork, some more rendering, etc. Cuz like, at the end of the day, sort of like tracers, scammers, whatever, is the original person can etc., they have some drawing capabilities. They are capable of
[07:16] drawing, but for some reason, they choose to just trace somebody, either they really like the artist, maybe they're lazy, and so they're like, me to do it." So, yeah, they have hands,
[07:28] they can draw. But, I mean, if we go back here, we do have this video of like the emotes one-to-one lining up. This doesn't happen on accident. If you might have like one or two that looks like kind of similar, etc. But, how is
[07:43] lining up one-to-one? Like here, you know, the face doesn't line up, but the hand is like the exact same hand. And it really becomes an issue, like what this artist was saying, is because people are mistaking the other person for them.
[07:56] original artist, and it's causing brand confusion. And on top of that, again, you're tracing their work. And a commenter adds, "I feel more terrible begin to imagine having your style traced off and monetized for years. Will
[08:10] infringement? I found her through Coffee at the time, but I don't know how lenient the site is with issues like this." And the artist says, "I will. My you so much." The commenter says, "Good luck." And they also add, "No wonder she
[08:22] wondering why she isn't on Vision if her emotes are so demanding. Plus, the art style is so cute." Cuz, you know, it it was it was taken from somebody else. Of course, it would be popular. Now I know. Though, this is so frustrating at the
[08:35] end of the day, like to kind of have somebody exist as a second person wearing your skin, tracing all of your emotes, selling them as your character, here's whatever to profit off of it, and possibly, allegedly, right, part of the
[08:47] branding aspects, as well. That's so creepy and icky feeling, and I am so violating. I will have them linked down below if you would like to go check them out. Their art looks really, really cute, so I recommend you check them out,
[09:00] because they deserve it. Nobody deserves to have their artwork taken like this. But, yeah, with that, if you like this video, I appreciate it if you like and anybody, guys. I have an Etsy shop if you want to see emotes, but check out
[09:13] also have a Coffee with free resources, like a free sponsorship guide. And I and Saturdays at 6:00 p.m., and Thursdays at 7:30, where I do a podcast with my friend. So, I hope to catch y'all there, or in another video. Peace.