Do you ever feel guilty/ashamed when taking inspiration from other people?

I don't think you need to feel any guilt over posing your doll similarly to how someone else posed theirs, or the way a human model posed in a picture you admire. No one can copyright a pose otherwise people could be served writs for just standing about in the street!

I think if you're inspired by a certain doll in a certain wig with certain eyes and a certain overall look and you directly take all of these and create your own identical doll to one someone else has that is a bit too overboard. There's nothing wrong with a little inspiration here and there, but to take off the whole thing isn't particularly original or even flattering to the person who put their doll together. If you like a doll that someone else has (let's say MNF Chloe) and you like that the owner put her in an auburn wig, there's nothing wrong with getting your own Chloe and putting her in an auburn wig yourself - there are tons of red-heads in the world after all, so it's hardly unusual for two dolls to have the same hair colour. You don't have to get the same wig or the same style of wig though.

You can have similar colour schemes without doing things identically - I have a School B with red hair and blue-green eyes, there are loads and loads of dolls with red hair and blue-green eyes, it goes so well together in real life and we all took inspiration from that and from each other too. You can do something different with your doll and still keep the elements that inspired you e.g. my School B has pupilless sparkly eyes which make her a bit different from other dolls that share the same colouring as she does.

 

Why shoud I feel guilt about it? If we weren't allowed to get inspired from anyone else, think of how terrible...

 

I saw a bobobie sprite light blue skin with a gold face up and it looked amazing! It sold to someone else I but I still want one like it... however it was an ooak hmmmm...

 

Feel guilty when taking inspiration from others? Goodness no. As numerous people have already rightly said, creativity does not happen in a vacuum. In fact, I would even go so far as to say I've taken inverse inspiration from people-- Seeing what's been done and tried to avoid it. Yet that influence was probably just as strong as other times, when I've seen something that worked extremely well and tried to put my own spin on it.

 

I don't think you should feel guilty. As someone new to the hobby and who doesn't even have a doll yet, I actually keep a computer folder full of photos of dolls, accessories, outfits, ect. I am not as inherently creative as many other owners, so I draw much inspiration of what I want my future dolls to be from details originated by many others. I don't feel guilty one bit. I mean, there are so many ways to customize!!! At the beginning, I had ZERO idea what skin tone, size, gender, face-up, styling I wanted for my first doll. But over time, seeing hundreds of dolls, with hundreds of different artistic choices, I eventually formed my own character in my head. Even if I ended up taking exact, minute details from others, my end product would probably have a look all to it's own.

And since owning a doll is usually an ongoing relationship, I imagine there is constant room to be inspired by others. There are endless outfits, poses, modifications, and accessories one could use. Also, you are certainly not the first to see something nice and say "ooh ooh, I want that!" lol.

 

Everything has been done before. Successful artists steal ideas from the things that inspire them, and turn them into new stories/ideas/drawings/dolls/whatever. As long as you aren't straight out copying something, as long as you are putting a part of yourself in there, then you shouldn't worry.

 

To be inspired by something whether it is a thought or another artists work is all part of the creation process. Copying exactly is a totally different matter.
I have to examples as well to share.
I created a look for a doll from certain inspirations I had in my mind, and then a friend showed me a picture that was very similar to my doll. Now the thing was this picture was so similar, but I had never seen it before, so the artist must have had the same idea inspirations that I did.
The second example, was a direct inspiration for a look I wanted for a doll from a picture I found on the web, from a make up artist. So I tracked her down and asked her permission if I could create the look for my doll, to which she agreed and loved the finished creation, and appreciated that I had asked her first, as you can see here:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v57/michpowell/Ipsie/9a13d733.jpg

 

Well, what are all these beautiful works of art are there for, if not to inspire others?

 

"Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing." - Salvador Dali

It's pretty hard to do anything creative without drawing your inspiration from somewhere. I feel that as long as you're not blatantly copying someone, it should be fine to do something similar. You shouldn't feel guilty for being inspired. ^_^

 

I saw a doll zone head on a doll chateau body. The doll was so amazingly cute! It really grabbed my attention, and inspired me. I wanted to do the exact hybrid. But the body is out of my price range. So I decided to get the head and put it on a body I can afford. Sure it wont be the same exact doll, but it will be special to me. Im so excited about doing a face up, and mixing companies. I cant wait ! I did feel bad about wanting to do the exact same hybrid and in a way I felt like I was copying someone. But Im just channeling that inspiration into my own creation so to speak.

 

Absolutely not! In fact, one of my favorite things about DoA is being able to come here and get inspired by all of the wonderful and creative things that others have done with their dolls.