Artists Beware: kaplantai on Chicken Smoothie

Posted 5 years, 1 month ago (Edited 4 years, 8 months ago) by Tendo64

UPDATE: My ticket was answered this morning and the art shop has been closed. Hopefully, those who had orders open have been refunded. I could be wrong, but it also seems that they were banned.

I sincerely apologize if I'm doing this wrong, I've never done a PSA before but feel like I should make this. I've read through the guidelines so many times I might even know it by heart, but if this doesn't qualify, please let me know and I will take it down promptly.

Okay, as everyone should know, please do not harass this person. I am making this to warn others of their actions so they don't have to experience the same thing.

Who: kaplantai, user #628292 on Chicken Smoothie and PixilArt, kaplantaii on Tumblr
When: January 13th,  2019
What: Traced artwork for my commission and claimed it as their own.

On January 13th, 2019 over on Chicken Smoothie, I commissioned kaplantai for a chibi pixel, as can be seen here: Forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=3840366&start=220&p=123286755&view=show#p123286755
They delivered fairly quick, sending me my art in the same day. I was really happy with the pixel, and didn't notice how different the style was to that of their other work. https://sta.sh/01jsjqwu8mc6
Fast forward to a few days ago, I was looking up some chibi poses on Google and discovered this picture: https://www.deviantart.com/catplus/art/ ... -210153844 (Look at the second one on the top)
I recognized the art immediately and lined up the pixel with the original. Unfortunately, my suspicions were correct and the lines are almost a perfect match. It should also be noted that no resizing had to be done to line them up. https://sta.sh/024232jz704p
I promptly PMed them ( https://sta.sh/0mnm73ex241 ) and they refunded me, but insist they only referenced the image. https://sta.sh/0r9zkartdog
Even if so, it'd be clearly heavily referenced and purposely recreated to be almost exact, and the original artist doesn't permit profit off their work. https://www.deviantart.com/catplus/jour ... -541306285 They combatted me by saying they didn't mention C$ in particular, but because C$ is purchased with real money, it has monetary value and it counts as profitting off the art. They also never credited the artist and claimed it as their own.

I got my refund, but I'm reporting them and making this PSA because I fear they will do this again, as they have not owned up for their actions. They get lots of customers and I don't want anyone else to be scammed or have their art traced or heavily referenced.

Again, please let me know if I should take this down. I'd hate to risk ruining someone's reputation if what they did was fine.

zinnia

looking through their examples, its very very likely all their recent examples are traced, from style inconsistencies. the first and third examples are confirmed traced, googling sleeping cartoon wolf was enough to tell me that

their version is on the left, original on the right

yLDkiqy.gif8c55fdf46744a04.png

part of me feels like these were both traced/heavily referenced from the same base/source but i cannot find it



12zi5ks.gif_sad__but_true__008_by_cloudstar_wolf-d4

idk why the spoiler is broken

you might want to report them to the chickensmoothie admins, as cs has a clear 'no trace' thing on the very top of the forum

Tendo64

zinnia Oh goodness, thank you for alerting me of this! I have reported them but got no reply yet, I just set up an artists beware as well because last time my ticket wasn't answered for two weeks and I wanted to warn others about their actions at once.

I will be adding this to my ticket.

BOGH0UND

Oh wow, definitely report to the CS mods. The second example Zinnia pointed out will be super helpful for them, as Cloudstarwolf (dA/CS) used to offer those on ChickenSmoothie. As an ex mod of the site, know that sometimes we left big cases like this open / without answering the ticket creator for a bit so we could gather up complete evidence and pursue it. We were able to comment on tickets / reports amongst ourselves where the original reporter could not see, so we could store everything in one spot.

That being said, if you message and ask specifically for a response ('Hey, it's been a while and I see their art shop is still open; I don't want other users getting scammed. Can I get an update on this, please?') you might get one depending on who sees it. I know the job was always very busy and hectic.

Tendo64

Nihil Ah I see, well if it's to any help, I did recently add more to that ticket if that bumps it up. If it doesn't get any replies for a while I might ask for an update though.

Otherwise I feel like I might have to let some others know so they can report them as well.

Tendo64

UPDATE: My ticket was answered this morning and the art shop has been closed. Hopefully, those who had orders open have been refunded.

FluffyMilo

Holy crap. I had that topic bookmarked and was planning to commission them... I can't believe they're a tracer. Thank you so much for the heads up, I'm glad I didn't waste my stuff on them.