Seteth oh wow ;; thats not.... fun. thanks so much for telling me, that's very good info!! ^^ <3
Previous title: is this stolen?
New title: Help me find this character's designer?
Hi there! ^^ I'm trying to get any and ALL information on this character, more specifically this art piece. If you have any information, please share it with me.
If anyone has any information on YourVeryOwnCherry 's social media outside of Deviantart and Toyhou.se, or anything in general, please let me know.
Update:
I've come to the idea that this character's design is obviously more likely stolen than it is not. The art piece I'm not sure about, I've contacted several artists about it and they've all responded with that they didn't make the art piece and that they don't know anyone who would've made the art piece.
However, if ANYONE can find the original designer, or find the original design in general, I will gift a month of premium. I've been looking for months nonstop and couldn't even find a general design that looks close to it. Which I feel like it isn't a super creative design, (as you can tell from my Toyhou.se, I prefer simple designs, so I'm not trying to say simple designs are bad LOL) but I seem to be struggling so badly with finding any information on this character?
Background:
Cherry = CherryGuroMilk, GoreyMilk, YourVeryOwnCherry (Will address Cherry by they/them, counting I don't know their pronouns.)
He/his/him = My sibling.
My sibling had made a purchase on January 17th, 2019 for this adoptable from a user named CherryGuroMilk on Deviantart. Here is proof of payment. Here is proof they, at one point, had the character in their possession.
It wasn't long after getting the design that someone had commented on CherryGuroMilk's art piece (the adoptable's) saying that the piece was traced/stolen from another artist - to be more specific, the artist commented saying CherryGuroMilk had traced/stolen their work. My sibling wasn't able to save any screenshots of this happening, nor was this archived in any sort on our end. So we have no proof of this interaction happening.
After CherryGuroMilk saw the comments, they ended up deleting all of the comments on the post. This also includes the comments where he (my sibling) had paid for the adoptable. He then messaged Cherry, asking why the comments on the post was taken down. They claimed someone else also runs their account, who also posted artwork on behalf of the account, and that that artist had deleted the comments, not Cherry. Cherry then admits in the message that the pose was taken but "not the original design." (Neither of us has seen this other picture, so we can't confirm or deny this.) My sibling had taken Cherry's word for this and left it as is, he didn't mind if the pose was used.
However, in August of 2019, he gave me the design for free because it'd be in a better home with me. I took the design and I didn't really do much with it until November of 2019. I was going through ALL of my OCs, verifying owners and asking if designers had Toyhou.se accounts. (So I could add them to the credits page, so they could update the terms to the OCs whenever they wanted instead of me having to manually check on their terms every few months.) So naturally, I had asked my sibling about the owner of Taffy (Which the character is now named.) and he told about the past he had with the owner.
Which I had already known about but I had forgotten by the time I had actually gotten her. However, I thought I'd shoot Cherry a message anyways* to ask for their terms are for their adoptables. I guess they saw it and never responded back. This message was sent on November 25th, 2019. Some time had passed, so, I thought I'd message Cherry again at December 12th, 2019. Still no response.
Obviously, when I had started working on Taffy back in November, I believed she was a stolen design. (Because of the information my sibling had told me.) So around December 4th, 2019, I posted this post, asking if anyone had any information on her. So I got a comment (obviously, as you can see below) about the previous PSA on them, or a PSA they were apart of.
At first, I read the PSA but I didn't think much about it counting it didn't contain any useful information that I could've used. But after some time of Cherry not responding to my messages anymore, I thought I would re-read the PSA against Cherry here. I actually couldn't read anything about the PSA counting it was edited to a point I didn't understand, but I did see the user YourVeryOwnCherry comment on it. I connected the two dots together and assumed it was Cherry. So, I messaged them. And they verified that they are, indeed, CherryGuroMilk on Deviantart. They said they were inactive on it - but they saw my messages? So, I don't know.
Anyways, as you can tell in the screenshot, they stopped responding to me after I brought up the design to them. Last message was sent out at December 14th, 2019. ALL of the artwork on their Deviantart account (CherryGuroMilk's) is now gone besides one piece that was posted in Nov 4 - Archive. They also changed their username to GoreyMilk on Deviantart.
Another thing, this is the watermark on the photo that we were given, which leads to a deactivated account. And they're both cherry related usernames, so I'm assuming they might be connected? Also, apparently the account has been accused of stealing a design in the past? In reality, I have no idea if they owned this account in the past, but I thought I'd throw this in here just in case they have a connection to the account.
Update 01/08/2020 - They said they made the design and that they're not sure if it's stolen or not because it was made a while back. I told them I was under the assumption that someone else on the Cherry account made it and that if they're not sure if it's stolen or not, I'm going to assume it's stolen. So they either lied about how they made the design when they didn't OR saying they didn't make the design when they did. So they've lied either way.
Update 01/10/2020 - So, the account "GoreyMilk" is still active. They're still leaving favorites onto posts that were very recent, the most recent being 01/07/2020.
Update 01/17/2020 - Added proof of payment and proof they had the art piece sometime in their possession.
* = In this message I said I had bought the adopt - which, I obviously didn't. However, me and my sibling share a PayPal, so it's a habit for us both to say we both own the adopts on each other's behalf. This actually isn't important AT ALL but in case someone was curious why I claimed to buy it when I didn't.
He/his/him = My sibling.
My sibling had made a purchase on January 17th, 2019 for this adoptable from a user named CherryGuroMilk on Deviantart. Here is proof of payment. Here is proof they, at one point, had the character in their possession.
It wasn't long after getting the design that someone had commented on CherryGuroMilk's art piece (the adoptable's) saying that the piece was traced/stolen from another artist - to be more specific, the artist commented saying CherryGuroMilk had traced/stolen their work. My sibling wasn't able to save any screenshots of this happening, nor was this archived in any sort on our end. So we have no proof of this interaction happening.
After CherryGuroMilk saw the comments, they ended up deleting all of the comments on the post. This also includes the comments where he (my sibling) had paid for the adoptable. He then messaged Cherry, asking why the comments on the post was taken down. They claimed someone else also runs their account, who also posted artwork on behalf of the account, and that that artist had deleted the comments, not Cherry. Cherry then admits in the message that the pose was taken but "not the original design." (Neither of us has seen this other picture, so we can't confirm or deny this.) My sibling had taken Cherry's word for this and left it as is, he didn't mind if the pose was used.
However, in August of 2019, he gave me the design for free because it'd be in a better home with me. I took the design and I didn't really do much with it until November of 2019. I was going through ALL of my OCs, verifying owners and asking if designers had Toyhou.se accounts. (So I could add them to the credits page, so they could update the terms to the OCs whenever they wanted instead of me having to manually check on their terms every few months.) So naturally, I had asked my sibling about the owner of Taffy (Which the character is now named.) and he told about the past he had with the owner.
Which I had already known about but I had forgotten by the time I had actually gotten her. However, I thought I'd shoot Cherry a message anyways* to ask for their terms are for their adoptables. I guess they saw it and never responded back. This message was sent on November 25th, 2019. Some time had passed, so, I thought I'd message Cherry again at December 12th, 2019. Still no response.
Obviously, when I had started working on Taffy back in November, I believed she was a stolen design. (Because of the information my sibling had told me.) So around December 4th, 2019, I posted this post, asking if anyone had any information on her. So I got a comment (obviously, as you can see below) about the previous PSA on them, or a PSA they were apart of.
At first, I read the PSA but I didn't think much about it counting it didn't contain any useful information that I could've used. But after some time of Cherry not responding to my messages anymore, I thought I would re-read the PSA against Cherry here. I actually couldn't read anything about the PSA counting it was edited to a point I didn't understand, but I did see the user YourVeryOwnCherry comment on it. I connected the two dots together and assumed it was Cherry. So, I messaged them. And they verified that they are, indeed, CherryGuroMilk on Deviantart. They said they were inactive on it - but they saw my messages? So, I don't know.
Anyways, as you can tell in the screenshot, they stopped responding to me after I brought up the design to them. Last message was sent out at December 14th, 2019. ALL of the artwork on their Deviantart account (CherryGuroMilk's) is now gone besides one piece that was posted in Nov 4 - Archive. They also changed their username to GoreyMilk on Deviantart.
Another thing, this is the watermark on the photo that we were given, which leads to a deactivated account. And they're both cherry related usernames, so I'm assuming they might be connected? Also, apparently the account has been accused of stealing a design in the past? In reality, I have no idea if they owned this account in the past, but I thought I'd throw this in here just in case they have a connection to the account.
Update 01/08/2020 - They said they made the design and that they're not sure if it's stolen or not because it was made a while back. I told them I was under the assumption that someone else on the Cherry account made it and that if they're not sure if it's stolen or not, I'm going to assume it's stolen. So they either lied about how they made the design when they didn't OR saying they didn't make the design when they did. So they've lied either way.
Update 01/10/2020 - So, the account "GoreyMilk" is still active. They're still leaving favorites onto posts that were very recent, the most recent being 01/07/2020.
Update 01/17/2020 - Added proof of payment and proof they had the art piece sometime in their possession.
* = In this message I said I had bought the adopt - which, I obviously didn't. However, me and my sibling share a PayPal, so it's a habit for us both to say we both own the adopts on each other's behalf. This actually isn't important AT ALL but in case someone was curious why I claimed to buy it when I didn't.
Edits:
Edit: 01/19/2020, to see the post before this edit, go here.
Edit: 02/22/2020, to see the post before this edit, go here.
If they don't know if they stole it or not then that's just admitting they have in the past and I would for sure just assume this one is stolen and ask for your sib's money back if you haven't already.
tbh i looked at that art and immediately thought mysterytian o-o; im not sure how that stash screencap prooves they were the artist and given the only pic in their gallery is pretty obviously heavily referenced from prince-nos style (if not outright stolen/traced), im not too confident on that tbh.
it might not be mysterytian but im p sure its safe to say that piece is stolen as well fkdjbfjf TvT