[drawing a cartoon] please help me with my problem =)?

I think almost all cartoons and designers start with an idea they see somewhere else..their inspiration. But they use the parts they like and alter it enough to make it their own. This doesn't make it a copycat.

It's not plagiarism to receive inspiration from the work of another. If he doesn't like the concept of inspiration, then tell him to burn all his records, CDs, DVD, posters, magazines, books... anything with any creative content - because the people who created those things were _inspired_... Inspiration can come from many things, nature, the inner-self, and amongst other things - the work of others. Very few people have the ability to be 100% original. Those are the ones we call "genius". The rest of us are just talented :D Rawlyn.

It is a very fine line between copying and gaining ideas from another artist. The other person are entitled to their opinion of your drawing, but if you drew it creatively then all other people will know its your drawing and your friend was just being an @&&40!3. If even other people think its too close to the basis then yes you're copying. This only applies if it is another piece of artwork or cartoon. If you're drawing cartoons of real life objects than it doesn't matter because you drew it end of question.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz and Isaac Newton invented calculus. They did so independently of each other. The Royal Society, an English body of scientists, decided to send a set of problems to these two and would announce the inventor to be the one who answered first and best. Newton very promptly answered the problems. Leibnitz, weeks later even, was still trying to understand the questions. In fairness, Leibnitz did devise the standard notation which is used with calculus. The moral of the story, someone else could easily do the same thing--but you do it better. Besides, cartoons are simplified drawings with simplified lines. Considering all the cartoonists in the world, surely several are doing the same thing for the same reasons. Copying is saying I saw this done elsewhere, so I'm doing it too. If you didn't see it elsewhere but did it anyway, that is sometimes called serendipity. Critics are merely dippy.

That's why the word "influences" works, we get some ideas from other people works and try to make our own in more better and good ways. Being creative is where your imagination can take you as long as it has been a part of you and not someone's.

To me, the real test of an artist is that they develope a style that is their own. This takes time. Perhaps you are inspired by another artist... fine, try drawing like them just to see if you can.... but if you keep repeating this then it isn't your work. Same as if you keep repeating yourself. My daughter wants to draw, but she keeps drawing the same pictures over and over, because she has gotten good at it. I tell her: draw things you haven't drawn before. Draw things that are hard for you to draw. That's the only way to get better. Challenge yourself.

As Mare 139 stated in stylewars interview, "Everyone bites. You gotta bite. Dere is no one that unique...". As long as what you take, you modify it to your stlye and add/subtract from the original. Just change what you got a lot.