Hi! I wanted to get in contact with you for a couple reasons. You can feel free to answer this publicly or privately, whichever you're comfortable with, and your welcome to DM me if you need to have me clarify or explain more about the situation.
1, sorry for the spam, and 2, I'm really glad I have finally found your blog, Because I've been looking for a minute now. For starters thank you for unaware and subtle influence to my art style and my own outfit designs, I've really become super into outfit design wayyyy more than I was years ago when I first saw your outfit meme, and better at it two and secondly, one of your outfits was the first set of clothes i ever drew when I was redesigning my first OC from being a fandom and animal character to being more stand alone and human, years ago, and that means personally a lot to me, especially since I'm hoping to make something like a webcomic or animation outta my own characters and story eventually.
Although, to be fully honest and transparent, the reason it took so long to find your blog is because I didn't find your meme through Tumblr, I found it on Google images on Pinterest and lost the image and etc when I moved phones (where I do my art on), and full transparency, I do suffer from some mental health issues and one of those unfortunately means I have a really bad memory, and admittedly, I must of at some point just forgot that I had drawn the outfit from your meme originally and have continued using it? Im actually embarrassed to admit that and I feel awful about using your design for so long before I actually remembered that it wasn't mine or just something I saw someone wear once irl or etc, and I wanted to let you know that now that I am fully 110% aware now, and are older/wiser enough to know better than to use even others outfit designs like it's no big deal and that I wanna do what I can to fix things?
I'm planning on redesigning my main OC, who rn you can see clearly in the outfit on my icon/blog to have a different default outfit, and trying to go back to everything that has the old outfit and give proper credit, but I wanted to ask if there was anything else I can do or etc to help mend myself forgetting the outfit wasn't mine and using it so long without permission/credit. Because as someone who ended up making my own outfit memes, and has had designs and art basically stolen or having others take credit for, I feel awful that I somehow got myself to this point where I was absent mindedly using your design this whole time. Your art and designs are really fantastic and I don't wanna contribute to you not getting that attention/credit as I have been doing, and I feel bad I even forgot that kinda thing in the first place. I'm just glad I woke up and realized that I had basically gaslit myself into forgetting it was your design/one from a meme and not mine, because the last thing I'd want is to continue being a design thief now that I'm aware, and I'm glad at least I caught it before I started making my own comic or etc and had continued doing it.
TL;DR I've been accidentally using one of your outfits designs as a default on a main character of mine for a few years now, unaware I was even doing it because of certain memory issues I have, and now that I am fully aware, I want to deeply apologize and try to fix things and tell you that I plan to stop and change their default attire completely and go back and credit you wherever I can wherever I have used it, and ask if there is anything more I could do to fix this mess I've made?
Hi! First of all: Absolutely no need to apologize for spamming me with likes! That was great, and really made me smile. Thank you for that!
Secondly, thank you for having the courage to message me about a matter like this. Of course, I feel sad to know that my outfits memes are floating in Pinterest and who knows where but that is something many artists these days have to face. The internet culture currently is about sharing and many people don't stop to think about the consequences, and that sharing images might cause problems for artists. Without sources people can't find the right artist or they may not know that the content was not for taking. Obviously I don't want people to intentionally take my designs or art, but I am aware that it can happen completely unintentionally: which I'm sure was the case with you.
So, please don't feel bad about the situation anymore! We all make mistakes, that's just life. The fact that you're choosing not to use the outfit in the future is enough for me. It actually feels great to be an inspiration and to know that my outfits are well liked, so if I can offer any further advice it's this: go forth and design more cool outfits! Be inspired by others but always create something that is yours. When you look at the old outfit on your character, think about what was it that made it seem so perfect for that character. Then take those parts and transform it into something new, something better, something more you. That's really the cool thing about designing, you really get to express yourself and your characters through outfits. It's why I love doing it so much.
I wish you all the best and good luck with your webcomic project! ✨
