Requiem Art

With all the people in the world who make and have pullips, the issue of copying comes up a lot.

Everyone has their own definition of copying. Mine is pretty lax: The doll has to be obviously alike in multiple ways, excusing painting ability/differences. There are a finite number of wigs/eyes out there, and some combinations are pretty popular, and certain dolls look better in certain colors.

I also have one of the most lenient policies on people copying my designs; ever since I started customizing My Little Ponies, anyone who has ever asked to copy one of my dolls I have given the OK to provided they asked before they did it, and it was for their own personal use and not to sell. As far as the mild modifications I do to stock dolls, if other people do them too, I don’t care at all. Removing the interior eyelashes, far more specific than a wig swap, is one of the most common facial changes to Nero/Oren dolls, and originates with Ash. Whenever I see it, I smile.

Bill Kaulitz is a verrrrry pretty man. He might as well be a doll, so it’s no surprise he’s been made into one several times.  Here’s mine:

Here’s Sheryl Design’s Bill (full custom)
Here’s Variya’s Bill (modified Lead Taeyang)
Here’s Annacortezbeautyqueens’ Bill (I think this one is also a modified Lead)
Here’s BillundTomXFur_Immer’s Bill (Another modified doll)

…etcetera.  Those aren’t the only ones by far.  They all look like Bill, but none of them really look much like each other; everyone had a different idea of how to do his eye makeup, his eyebrows, his lips, everything.  Everyone applied a their own style and made their own doll version of Bill.

But Bill’s a person, right?  Of course the dolls are going to look a lot different.  How about an anime character?  Let’s pick a very distinctive one, Ulquiorra. Here’s mine:

 

 

 

Here’s Ochiva’s's gorgeous version.
Again, they really look nothing alike, from the way the face was done to the clothes and accessories.

 

 

 

 

What about doll versions of other dolls? The dal-pullips are very popular. A lot of people associate them with me, but I was not the first person to make a dal version of a pullip, and I have absolutely no problem with other people who make their own versions of other dolls. That would be silly. The key words there are “Their Own”

Here’s Leprotto with my Leprotta.
Here’s Angelberries’ Leprotto Dal
Here’s Cybermelli’s Leprotto Dal

While they are more similar to each other than the other types of customs, they’re all pretty obviously different. All have very similar hair color, if not the same wig color, but they are all styled differently. All have different eyebrow shapes/styles. All have very different lips. All look like Leprotto, but not so much each other.

So what’s this whole TL;DR post about anyway?

Here’s the Noir family. I really like the Noir design. I’m not the only one. Lots of people have made their own versions of Noir, and they all look different. Everyone makes their own slight changes.

You would think that if someone made their own Noir version of another doll like a Tae or a Dal, they’d be similarly different. As shown with the leprotto dals, everyone translates the faces/wigs differently. Which is why this custom has me a bit annoyed. The eyebrows are very similar in shape, but a tiny bit skinnier, the lips are a similar shape. The hair is even the exact same wig–and not an obvious choice for Noir. This doll looks more like mine than their Noir looks like the ‘real’ Noir, and much more like mine than any of the dal versions of other dolls look like each other.

Because it was commissioned, I contacted both the owner and the customizer with a simple “Did you commission or buy that doll?” to the owner and “Was that doll commissioned?” to the customizer. No accusations or anything, I was just trying to figure out what was going on. I got back 3 paragraphs of explanation from the customizer as to how she is a big fan of my work but didn’t copy me, which was weird in itself. Then I asked why that particular wig was chosen, since they had gone into such detail of explaining away all of the other similarities before I even mentioned my doll. They said that was the most noir-like wig out of 3 options, the other two being gray and black, except I had already also found out by that point that the doll was originally in a different wig, a medium brown much closer the the original doll and the customized doll’s wig than mine, which contradicted the story I just got. If it was true, why hadn’t the original wig been mentioned? Why would they change a wig to one less like Noir’s?

By this point the owner (whose earliest flickr favorites are OF Noirius and the Noirs from 2008) had also contacted me back with a much simpler answer, saying she had sent her Timulus off to be customized into a male Noir. However the customizer had already explained that the eyebrows were just Jade’s eyebrows done over in black. So now we’re not even talking about the same doll and things are getting even weirder.

I’m not going to say 100% that it’s a copy. I am going to say that the multiple coincidences make it far more similar to my custom than any 2 dolls based off of the same original design that I have ever seen. I am also going to say that most customizers, if they know an existing doll has been done of a particular character/design, try to make sure that if they do their own interpretation, will make sure their own design is more distinct from the other one, not less. I’m not going to push it, because there is a chance, even if it seems pretty small, that all of the coincidences are just coincidences. I am also asking anyone who has seen the custom not to harass the owner, customizer, or anyone else who has taken their picture.

Now to anyone who has seen my dolls and wanted to try their own version of a doll I’ve already done, like an anime character or dal/pullip, or even a alternate version of one I haven’t but was hesitant because it’s already been done: Go ahead! As long as your version is your own design and no one else’s, there’s no reason not to.