Lammy wrote:And what do my emotions have to do in this discussion ? Stop defending Ken blindly, especially by bringing things that have nothing to do with this discussion.
It has plenty to do with this discussion. Emotions, whether positive or negative, tend to cloud one's perspective to a degree if one is passionate about something. You are a fan of Sonic. You are obviously very passionate about it if you are studying graphic design and contributing to something like STC Online (Kudos, by the way. I like your art syle). I'm passionate about Sonic too. When I first saw this Lara-Su design, of course I got excited about it, as she is a character I enjoy very much. If I just left it at that and ran on just emotions alone, yeah, you would absolutely be correct in saying I'm blindly defending Ken. However, even if I am a fan of Ken's work, there comes a time when I have to take a step out of the fandom shoes and objectively look at the facts and do the necessary research, this Lara-Su design being just one instance of this. Judging solely on the wording of your previous posts in this thread, I can only conclude that they were emotionally driven because of either your passion for Sonic or your passionate distaste for Ken and the current situation, potentially obscuring your view of the facts. Posting remarks made by someone else on Sonic Stadium about my comments in an attempt to get a reaction out of me only further adds evidence to this and shows a lack of maturity on your part. While my line about my degree and my comment to Paul may have been influenced by my own emotions, at least I have the guts to admit to this one instance of hypocracy and take it into account before writing and submitting this post and not try to dodge the issue like you did. I'm only human, after all. If you are upset or fearful that Ken is trying to destroy or tarnish something you truly hold dear, or think he is crazy or whatever, that's fine. But let's try and be a little more civil and mature about things, please.
Lammy wrote:
With Knuckles : Same facial features, same dreads, same spiked knuckles, same tail.
With Rouge : Same kind of body, same curves.
Same style for the socks. Dress very similar to Sonia the Hedgehog. And there are other similarities, as seen in my picture ! Oh yes, the wig is new. Woah !
Yeah, totally not the same art style, of course
I believe there are some things you may have overlooked in this comparison. First let's take a look at Knuckles' facial features. His nose is cone based with a pointy tip while Lara-Su's nose has an elipse base. Knuckles has sharp corners for his eyes while Lara-Su's is round. Knuckles' dreads and tail have sharp tips while Lara-Su's are rounded. Knuckles' knuckles are cone-shaped while Lara-Su's are fang-tooth-shaped. Moving on to Rouge, that is a nice comparison and I understand where you are coming from, but there is no Uekawa echidna design with that body-type. For her body to be infringing on Sega trademarked echidna designs, she would have to have the same body-type as Tikal at least. However, even if you look at Tikal, her body-type is very similar to Knuckles, just with slightly wider hips. Lara-Su's arms, legs, hands and feet have more-human-like muscle structure and proportions compared to the Sega standard of round, tube-like arms/legs and large, round hands/feet. Next, Sega-standard Uekawa Sonic characters stand at maximum around 2.5 heads tall. Lara-Su can easily be seen as 3 heads tall, making her height proportions significantly different enough. Moving on to the Sonia fashion comparison, there are a couple of things I want to point out. First, Sonia's dress is clearly a two-part ensemble with two different colors compared to Lara-Su's one-piece, single-colored dress. Sonia's belt sepreating the two-piece outfit is designed signifcantly different than Lara-Su's belt too. Second, I ask you this: why do fashion designers not copyright or trademark their clothing or shoe designs? It is becuase all someone has to do is change one element, be it a button, a zipper, the stitching or anything, and the design is considered completely different in the eyes of the law. This situation is no different.
Keeping with this train of thought, I would like to share another comic book-related example of a similar situation. Back in the late 1970's-early 1980's, Disney threatend Marvel Comics with a lawsuit becuase they thought Howard the Duck was too similar to their own Donald. In attempt to make the litigation go away, Marvel decided to put pants on Howard. Howard wearing pants was a significant enough change visually to make Disney give up pursuing the suit any further, as none of their duck characters wore pants and would be extremely difficult to prosecute because of that. When you consider this anecdote, along with everything I've stated above, it should be clear that Lara-Su's design is significantly different enough from the Sega trademarked designs, let alone their female echidna design. Just because she is easily recognizable, doesn't automatically mean that she was drawn in the exact same style as Sega's characters. Using your logic, you could make the case that the original Oshima Sonic design is too much like Mickey Mouse because of his muzzle, gloves, pot-belly and eye design alone.
While I am fairly certain you will most likely dismiss everything I have just written as merely nothing more than, as VEDJ-F and the other commenters on SSMB put it, "bullshit" and probably berate me further, please do not think that my last post was a personal attack against you, becuase it was not and I apologize if you took offense to it. What I generally find disheartening is that a vast majority of the negative comments I have seen not only on this matter, but others as well, is that most of them are based purely on raw emotions, prejudice or assumptions and not on thoroughly researching the facts. Again, I admit my last post may have been done, in part, out of emotion, but the statement about the designs being different was based on what I have just written, which are researched facts, not emotion. I admitted my slight hypocracy, learned from it and moved on. While you probably won't do this, I ask that you think about what I posted here. Otherwise, go ahead and continue venting your frustrations if it will make you feel better. But as a Mod, I ask that you just don't break the rules of the board, please.
