https://artists-beware.livejournal.com/938162.html
WHO: Speed74 (furaffinity) aka Drakon, @DrakonSpeed (twitter), Speed12 (sofurry)
WHERE: http://www.furaffinity.net/user/speed74
WHAT: A digital art "hate" commission involving my personal character in a vulgar, violent, sexual manner without my permission.
WHEN: Mid-October
PROOF:
Following links are from the first incident:
No credits for concept/idea on original upload
Speed admitting ref sheet was inspired from our drawing
Asking Speed74 to credit for concept/idea. Then Speed74 getting upset
No credits for concept/idea on reupload
Follow links are from the second incident:
Artist confessing to drawing the picture in question
Confrontation Part One: Questioning
Confrontation Part Two: Denial
Confrontation Part Three: Final Confrontation
First incident that started it all:
I was notified by a friend about a commissioned ref sheet posted by Speed74 of an anthropomorphize version of Dreamwork's Toothless in military drab, named "Commander Toothless". Speed calls it his "new character." Months earlier, my girlfriend has drawn me something similar in concept, an Anthro-Toothless in military drab also named "Commander Toothless." Thinking this is too much of a coincidence, we commented on the artwork and Speed admits he had taken the idea from our drawing. I noted him asking to please at least credit us for the concept idea, or at least change the name to something other than "Commander Toothless". For a while, Speed agreed source credit to our picture but then deleted the submission and re-uploaded with a name change from "Commander Toothless" to "Commander Tyrone", this time without the crediting as asked. I notified the artist who drew the ref sheet about it and has source-credited our picture on their gallery side. Although this doesn't actually warrant a beware since Toothless is Dreamworks' property, I feel this is the catalyst for what happens next.
Fast forward some time (second incident):
The artist and I have become good friends. But recently the artist confessed that Speed had privately commissioned him one more picture right after the earlier incident. The picture involved "his" Commander Tyrone with one of my personal characters depicted in vulgar and violent, sexual scene being raped by his character without my knowledge. I confronted Speed asking if he commissioned someone of my character(s) in secret without my permission. He denied it. I then shown him proof of the artist's confession, gave him my email and blocked him on Furaffinity. I have not gotten an e-mail response yet. The picture in question has been provided to the Mods of AB in private to confirm this. What he did was highly inappropriate and uncalled for, it clearly was a hate image directed towards me because of the first incident.
If you see Speed74 trying to commission you, beware he may try to commission hate art against someone else without their knowledge.
UPDATE: MAY 22ND, 2017, Drakon has came to me with an apology admiting his mistakes. He has agreed to relinquish the rights to his Commander Tyron character to me as part of the apology and has given proper crediting where is due. He's also agreed to not commission my characters without permission again. I now consider this beware resolved. But I still advise artists to practice asking if your commissioners were given permission to draw other's characters before accepting the commissions to prevent this situation from happening again.
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