User blog comment:Freefalling Lilacs/An Art-Based TDI:FYE Blog/@comment-2021069-20110719042536

I kind of feel like I should be here to put this little conversation to an end. This post pretty long, so if you don't feel like reading the whole thing I tried to sum it up at the end. But long story short, I kind of expected Sprink to be mentioned in the comments here once or twice, though I didn't anticipate him being mentioned so many times. And when the whole "better or worse" thing comes up, it's kind of another story.

As Sprink said, I have credited him as an inspiration because he definitely was one. One of the main reasons TDI:FYE was posted on this wiki rather than FF.net (where I was already known under a different name) is because I was able to have pictures of the characters for the story. IRL, art is one of my biggest interests. I had hand drawn pictures of each of the characters from TDI:FYE, but had no idea how to get them onto the computer without a scanner. Then I ran into TD: Boney Island on the Featured Stories list.

At the time, I was too busy/lazy (it could have been either one) to read through the entire thing. But I did see the pictures. And I was really, really impressed with the pictures, both because they were well done and that I was pretty sure that they were done in Paint because of the lines (I know that might not make sense, but try comparing a picture done in Paint to one in Photoshop and you'll see what I mean). After trolling around for a little longer, I confirmed my belief that the pictures were done in Paint and decided to try out doing the same thing on my own.

I've been doodling in Paint since I discovered it in the computer lab in elementary school, so I was pretty decent with the program to start with. I actually hadn't seen Sprink's guide when I started drawing my characters in Paint. I kind of just winged it, with the real TDI characters as reference and his characters as hints. Monique and Zack were my first two, and it's obvious that they were because of all the little mistakes I'd made, like the different line sizes and the fact that Monique's hair was filled in with the same black as her outline. Obviously some things about my characters are very inspired by Sprink's, like the way he draws guys' bare chests and many head shapes (since TDI really has only two or three generic head shapes per gender), and though I like to think that I tried to differentiate them from one another I wasn't as successful as I'd hoped, which was why I'd started trying to figure out how to make TDI-style backgrounds to try and make up for that.

In short, there's no "better or worse" comparison since this isn't a competition. Yes, it's flattering, but I find it kind of wrong to single out Sprink in specific and say "Oh, she's better than he is" (or vice versa for that matter). I know that there are plenty of people out there who would be offended by this if they were in Sprink's position. I was very inspired by him, and as Gideon pointed out, any of these pics could have easily been his except for the backgrounds. Naturally comparisons are going to come up because of the similarities, but please try and stay away from "-insert name here- is better".

(Also, I would definitely be willing to make a blog/guide/how to on TDI styled backgrounds if enough people are interested. They can be really fun and easy once you get the hang of it!)