Such a thing can stir emotions in just about anyone. On one had, one has opportunity to showcase one's character, but on another, they are being shown and feel like you could lose that character.

On the same things, friends may be jealous or concerned about it, especially if they also have known that character. Especially in the RP sense.

As far as me experiencing this, I have not really had it happen IRL.

But I do know you said you would wholly take the opportunity and my question is, why?

ANd then have you considered all the factors that might play into such a decision, it might be mutual gain for both of you, but it may also hinder you, especially if the initial product was not a commissioned item or something that you initiated.

[Jarmen and I already had hours of conversation on this topic, so I am trying to prevent confirmation bias and potentially force myself myself out of my own logistics]

I did not say this?

I have considered the factors, and the decision still makes it a bit difficult to truly confirm.

(I see what you mean. It's not an easy decision as many would think).

At least I thought you hinted at such on Jarmen's journal.

Would the company offering make a difference, a large company versus a small startup, Was it originally created just as a gift and then you gave permission later.



Because my thing is, is that I would not feel I deserve or even did anything to warrant such an opportunity because everything done prior would have just been for personal enjoyment and not much more. i would have not done anything more than just create a design and get a bunch of commissions from artists I liked. Unlike a band which spent hours practicing or a painter who spent a lot of time learning their craft. This is not to say that time was not spent in the character creation, but that unlike Painters and Bands, it is just the one product where a painter or band might be constantly creating new works for the purpose of commercial use through a company of sorts.

Like one of the people who became Wizard of the Coast's lead background/scenic artist for Magic the Gathering, he spent years honing his craft and then got scouted at a convention where he just wanted to hand out prints for free simply to promote his art. But he has since then constant made new works at the behest of the company so he is "earning" his pay.

I don't know if my logic makes sense here.

No no, I was just mentioning that one has a good pro to having both their character shown and gaining something from that.

It could, but if either a large company or small startup have good reputation as a business, then it should not matter as much.

I do relate to what you are saying here. Unless you have toiled in drawing the character and pushing out as much as possible for them, it could feel empty for oneself. Commissions and other pieces you get for your character feel like you barely deserve the credit aside from creating them.

That I can see as something that could make it feel like one can gain alot, both in earning that pay, and having the reputation as being an incredible artist.

It does actually. It just takes the right eye to notice whether or some something like this is what one deserves.

But deciding if one deserves it can come from a multitude of reasonings, putting a lot of time and money into the design may e enough because them it is catching a break for having a design, but at the same time it feels hollow to me personally, unless I have done something directly for the manufacturer I would not feel that I have done anything, but that is getting into morality and principles, both of which I thrive off of.

Well I was not going to rule that out. Character creation is a lot harder than just picking a species, look and colors. There is much more to it than that.

I do not blame you for that. Is something I would also struggle with.

Yeah, I will admit it not easy, there are a few characters that I am still pinning down. It is just a messy topic.

I don't blame you there.

Though, thank you for the wonderful discussion.

Likewise man.

It would depend on the character, how much the royalties were, and what specifically the product was. It would also depend on just how much creative control I had over the process (i.e. how much of the actual character him/herself I would need to sign over to this company). More likely than not, my answer would lean towards no unless I had a relative amount of control, such as ending everything at any given moment if I so chose, or at least being able to put a MAJOR damper on the amount of room they had to create products that went against my wishes if they started to just go crazy. What I mean by this is, for example, if I didn't want a character to be sexualized, but they wanted to start upgrading their action figures to sex dolls, if I didn't have the power to say no and limit their production of anything without permission, then I'd have a problem with that.

In short, I would need to read the legal terms and conditions before I could officially draw any conclusions. When getting into business and legal stuff, things undoubtedly get messy fast. I would never be naive enough to expect perfection, but I would need to feel comfortable enough with the compromises myself and the company agreed to. Context just matters too much for me to answer the question vaguely like this; sorry if that's not the answer you were looking for.

Let's assume it is small amount, nothing major for royalties, you would have complete control over design and still retain all copyrights, you have simply given permission to use the characters likeness, because the person or group just really liked your character and thought it would be a cool thing to do. And let's assume that you were comfortable with the item being made.

ANd let's say there is no real legal signage, just someone wanting to make something because they appreciated they character design and then being able to sell it. And let's say the company is a one man team doing it as a self employed things on Etsy.

That should bring a little more context to it and no worries, I am kind of in the same boat with it falling into a grey area, but I already had this discussion in depth with Jarmen and it came down to a lot of different things and I am trying to leave exact details a little vague to prevent any sort of bias in whether or not it should be something someone does.

[I would say to go check on his journal and make a comment yourself, because I am did this journal as a sort of "control"]

If that was the case, hell yeah, I'd be all over it. As long as the person themselves didn't strike me as a jerk/not worth working with and basically I was this guy's boss, or that he had to report to me before he implemented any plans/ideas, then yeah, that would be perfect! I'd love working with someone like that.

I may check out that journal later and make a comment there too c: Thanks for sharing either way! Interesting thought experiment.

See and I would be on the opposite end, I wouldn't take it because it feel like I hadn't earned it. Because the design would have been made for personal reasons and even if a lot of hard work went into it, it'd feel hollow to me.

I mean a lot of people get a huge ego boost just from people saying they like their design, like the whole, I am happy someone recognized my hard work put into this design. But on the other hand I am like "I am glad you like it" and just kind of move on. I don't really have that sort of ego boost.

If that makes sense.

It's not about an ego boost for me, though I admit that I would definitely get one from someone feeling that inspired by and compelled by my work. It's about working together to create something even better than I could create alone, about the art flowing through more than one person. I can see how it would make you feel hollow if you felt deeply personally connected to your work, but for me I would enjoy adding someone else's creativity to my own, about the joy of collaboration. It's in fact what I hope to accomplish by working with my best friend  helixdragonsong once our conflicting schedules allow. Then again, that's bias of me since I've known Helix since 2nd grade *shrugs* As a side-note, the idea of getting paid a little extra for helping inspire someone else is rather appealing as well, but that's a bonus to the main point for me. Once it becomes ALL about the money is when I feel that things become hollow, personally.

Collaborating with a friend is a little different, this is more like a random person saying hey I want to make X of your character and sell it, but give you "royalties" on the sale of the commercial products.

if it was a friend or a more collaborative effort as you described it would be different, but if was just you giving direction on it. Take it from the position of someone who is more a watcher/commissioner type, not a maker persay.


For me it is a matter of principle, not really attachment.

I think you're misunderstanding. I'm not using the word collaborative as if to imply that me and this person are both working on a single project/product/whatever together, I'm using the word collaborative a bit more broadly, in the sense of working together in general. In that sense, it is most definitely collaboration - my character is what inspired this product, and in the situation where they're making work directly based off of/inspired by/etc. (whatever you want to refer to it as) my creations, then yeah, that's kinda collaborative. It would be them making a product I wouldn't be able to create, or otherwise just wouldn't have created, without their input and work, but it's still stemming from me, and involves work together. Just like a business is a collaborative effort to keep alive, this would be a small scale business that required collaborative effort to keep truly alive. Sure, we have our completely separate roles and do our part of the work individually, but we are still working together. To say otherwise is really just semantics imo.

I suppose so, but still it is more like that once all of that is said and done, you kind of just kick back and let things go from then and just start receiving money, and I don't like receiving things without giving back, unless it is around birthdays or holidays, but random gifts or whatever just makes me feel really weird, because i don;t feel like I really deserve it or even earned such actions.

I would want to do something that I feel warrants the product being made. I was talking with another person and I could cure cancer and still feel unworthy of a Noble Prize, because I didn't do it for an award or anything, I did it for the better of humanity. But then I literally have nearly no ego to speak of, so I don' know.

I mean, if you were given this opportunity, why would you take and would feel that it was earned? And Why/how do you think it was earned.

I earned it because I did the original work that the royalties are balancing out here. I'm the one who started this process.

Ignoring copyright laws for the sake of an example: The best way I can explain it is if I wrote a book and I sold that book and made money off of that book because I put the work and effort into writing, publishing, and marketing that book, and then someone goes and writes a fanfic based in the world *I* built, possibly even with the characters *I* created and developed, then they publish and sell it, then the money they're making isn't really their money, it's mine. Yes, they wrote their own whole story, and yes, their part of the work is entirely their own and they deserve to be credited for that much, but without me, they don't have the previous marketing to piggyback off of, they don't have the world the story takes place in to piggyback off of, and depending on the fanfic, they don't even have the characters to piggyback off of. This is why if they came to me first and went "Hey, your book REALLY inspired me and I wrote this book based off of it. Do you like it? Would you be willing to let me publish it?" I would read it, and if I agreed with it and liked it enough, I'd be like "Yeah sure! I'll make a small royalty for my part in inspiring you and the work I did previously that you'll be gaining from, just to balance that out, and the rest is yours!"

That's, at least under my understanding and the specifics of the scenario you and I have agreed upon, the exact same scenario here. I created and designed the character, and without my original design, there is no design to ask permission to use in a separate product - there's just square one, where the person can create the character themselves or go to someone else. I don't just give away my hard work and characters for free. In an ideal world I'd be all for sharing great things like that, but this is a capitalistic society, and being too generous screws you over in the end. If I'm putting in work and effort to sell my work in some way, shape, or form, then yes, I have absolutely earned the piece *I* put in the work and effort for regarding someone else's profit.

And while I admire your humility, I don't think it's healthy to not recognize your achievements either. In the example you offer about curing cancer, that prize is a symbol of your work, your effort, and the very thing you mention - the purpose that drove you to put in all that work and effort in the first place. Yes some people are assholes and take it as an ego boost that makes them think they're "better" than someone else, but that's just them being a dick. That prize would be yours because YOU cared enough about people to cure cancer - not for the prize, for the sake of curing cancer - YOU put in the work and effort and research and time to find that cure, YOU did that. So yes, you deserve to be recognized for that, because while you're not a better person, generally speaking, than other people for doing so, but you are the one who did that as opposed to someone else, and why should someone else get that award who did less than you for the cause YOU cared about when YOU did all the work to deserve it?

Hopefully that makes sense.

I get what you are saying, and I think the amount of work would be a factor for me as well.

Like with my characters, I didn't make them other than that I made some characters which did take some creativity and thought, but again I did it for myself ultimately and in my free time. I'd be fine with selling designs or a usage fee, but I don't look to gain off things I did just because it was fun. I guess another analogy would be model rocketry or model building. Something I used to do as a hobby, and a lot of time I just gave that stuff away if someone really liked it, and sometimes I sold it. It really just depends.

I try to do more art trades than anything else and even then I have helped people design characters for free, granted I kept the work simple, such as designing a weapon or even some aspect of the character. I never did anything in color or anything like, but part of why I did it is that it benefited me and my skills.

I'm not a capitalist and unless I am hired directly to do work, I try to not take payment for something. And if someone asks about getting something made, I tend to ask what they are expecting and if it is just really simple I just do it, and I tell them that it may take a little time because I have a regular job and work a lot, but if it I'd free I am not stressing about it and generally they are just happy to be getting something. Plus I get to have fun in the process.

So I don't know.

And I really appreciate and admire that. For me, I just worry about the accumulation of the losses at a certain point, but it strikes me as just a difference in perspective.

probably, it is just I don't worry about stuff like that. Loss accumulation is not something I am terribly concerned with because it is related to something a friend told me way back when. Only lend money if you don't intend to be repaid.