Open Letter To FALLOUT 76 Designers

If you accepted money for designing this game, I would like money for my Pumpkinrot scarecrow and my Johnny Appleseed scarecrow which appear in certain scenes.

Payment.  You know, to pay the bills.

Gotta eat.

That Old Integrity Discussion Again

Been seeing this guy's pictures popping up more and more in my searches for Halloween images for the blog.  After checking out his website, instagram, and facebook accounts and seeing absolutely no mention of my site anywhere as the source material, well, I wanted to call him out on it.

I simply do not get how someone can feel that they are truly creating if the entire premise of their works, the very end product of their hard work, exists solely because they saw it elsewhere.  And I'm not even going to get into the issues I have when that person starts selling these works.  Is it legal?  Sure it is.  Is it honest?  Absolutely not.

Here's a photo of his "Guardians of the Gate" (Sentinels):

And here's some text from his website:
The scarecrows and corpses you see on this website were designed for this event and I have continued to produce them in varying forms and sizes. They are a culmination of my study of the natural effects of time and the elements on various materials and surfaces, while at the same time designed to have a classic, bygone era appearance that in a curious way simultaneously invites and repels. Using photos I have taken of these creatures, I have designed Halloween greeting cards featuring composites of them on the property and combined with sunset photos I have taken to create a style that is uniquely my own.

"Uniquely"... This guy has some chops.

Anyway, below is the source material for this guy's existence.  My Pumpkin Sentinels.  I love these guys, and am very proud of them.

Here's the guy's site...

thescarecrowsnest.com

Slight update on this issue:  The builder of these Guardians of the Gate, Kerry Lawton, claims that any resemblance to my Pumpkin Sentinels is, and I quote, "purely coincidental."

Unreal.

Halloween Hot Sauce

One of the earliest memories I have of Halloween blogging, and the Halloween online community in general, was of Haunted Hot Sauce.  I just checked and I have a blog entry about them back in 2008.  Great guys who love Halloween...  and make really great hot sauce.  Terrific products with wonderful designs.

I can totally understand and fully appreciate their horror when they spotted hot sauce being sold at Target which looked enragingly similar to their product designs.

Just wanted to share, and to re-promote their website and great products.


Here's a side-by-side comparison made by HalloweenHotSauce.com:

And click here for their site.



Sorry this happened to you guys.

Grandin Theft (UPDATED)

You might remember my rant regarding Grandin Road selling Grim's Cloaked Ghost design...

His:


Theirs:




Looks like they're selling another product "inspired" by someone's work.

Here's the original design by artist William Bezek.

The clothing:


The faces:


Here's the Grandin Road offering:



More information at the artist's blog. (DEAD LINK)

And thanks, wicKED, for the heads up on this.


UPDATED 8/18: I've updated this blog post to include another image of Bezek's, showing without a doubt that his design has been stolen. Grandin Road threatened him with legal action so he has removed his original blog post. They claim they are not responsible for the theft, but merely ordered the product from another company. Which probably is the case.

But it's still just as disgusting.

Do the right thing, Grandin Road. Contact the supplier and let them know you won't be ordering from them next year due to this bullshit.

Yeah, I didn't think so.


Any Halloween-loving lawyers out there?

Friendly Creative Reminder

Cite your sources.

Click below:


To me, it's just as important as mache and paint.

Just saying.

What Gives?

I've been a long-time fan and promoter of the works of artist Junker Jane. I love her stuff. It's quirky and original and loaded with heart - tons of heart. It's creepy and cute and awesome.

I saw a blog post on her site regarding some individuals recreating her works and selling them as their own designs. Infuriating, and personally staggering. I really don't know why I'm always caught so off guard by someone with artistic abilities ripping off another artist's work. I guess I hold these people to a different set of standards? I guess they're just like anyone else who commits fraud or theft. It's just so blatantly and fundamentally wrong. Like I said... staggering.

Anyways. So I figured I'd do a cursory search on Etsy.com to see if I could find any dolls that resemble Junker Jane's work. I instantly found two. Two sellers whose works came out of nowhere in the last couple months. One of which had a dramatically different style in 2008 only to suddenly start sporting a fresh new style - Junker Jane's. I mean: She went from THIS to THIS.

Love that she addressed this topic on her blog. And I love that these people are getting notified of their immoral acts. I happily fired off some emails to these folks letting them know how I feel about this sort of thing. And letting them know we're all watching.

Here are the two shops:

Lame

Lamer

i

Come ON. Have some integrity. And get your own creativity. Leave Junker Jane's alone.

i

Junker Jane's blog.

Junker Jane's shop.

i

Here's a blog for dealing with this sort of thing.

Blood Splattered Candle Holders

Or, rather, Witch Jars.

Remember that post a while back on Integrity?

Someone was cool enough to email me a link to a blog where my Witch Jar design was being shared as the blog owner's original design. After 23 comments from people admiring her work, I was a little surprised to see not one comment from the blogger saying something like "Thanks! I based it on a design I saw on the Pumpkinrot blog!" But nuthin. So we figured we'd post a comment saying something like "Great to see you dig my Witch Jars! Yours look great!" and we provided a link to my Witch Jar blog entry from back in July.

The comment was never posted, but a disclaimer was suddenly added at the bottom of the post:
*Please note that this craft was inspired by another blog, but for the life of me, I don't remember who's it was. If you recognize it, please let me know so I can give credit where credit is due!

Pretty shameful. And fun to call her out on it.

My pretties.


Here's her original cached post without the disclaimer.

Here's her revision.

Integrity: The Artistic Variety

I've always had a problem with the word "artist." I remember a Halloween night where an older woman was inspecting all of my props and was fascinated by the use of glue mache to make a lawn of undead. With each cluster of children coming up for candy, she'd step away and let them, and me, do our thing. Then she'd return and study each prop. When she was preparing to leave, she complimented the display and said "You must be an artist." I replied, "Nah, I just love Halloween."

For me, art is something that a person does. It's how you spend the bulk of your free time. Even if it's dark and twisted and offensive, I think art is a form of sanity. Kurt Vonnegut Jr. once wrote that the arts are "a very human way of making life more bearable." And if you're passionate about your art form, it's magic. Sadly, I think very few people are fortunate enough to make a living from something they're passionate about. Thus the sanity requirement. I work in a business setting. As far away from creativity as a person can get. I keep a pad next to my computer where I'll jot words down like "corn witch" or "black paint for cloaks" or "sentinels" or "cheesecloth" or "Tin Man"... SANITY. Huge doses of it.

I love that my passion is a slave to Halloween. It's truly all I ever think about. Everything in my life is murky and inked and stained by it. And I respect it. I think a major component of my joy and success with my creative output is the respect I have for it. It's a way of staying on target, of pushing myself, of avoiding lazy pitfalls.

One of the things I absolutely love about having a Halloween blog is the exposure to other people's artwork. I'm always hunting for works that excite me. That can be original masterpieces or works that are re-imagined pieces. The haunting community is a neat and respectful one. It's always cool to see someone following a how-to on someone's site or recreating a popular prop with their own personal spin. The key here is integrity. If I'm building a piece that has been inspired from somewhere other than my brain, I'll make sure to cite the source. My HOLLOW scarecrow is a good example of that (scroll to the bottom). If one of my works would not have existed had I not seen it elsewhere, I make sure I mention it. It's really the only way I could keep that respect thing going.

I've been meaning to write about this topic for a while now, but never got around to it. A friend of mine sent me a link that brought it all home - an Etsy.com shop modeled after ours, selling extremely familiar items with equally familiar titles, descriptions, and store policies.

This is a perfect example of integrity. Sure the guy has a right to sell Halloween items on his shop. There were people selling pumpkins and corpses long before we started to. And thankfully there will always be macabre peddlers selling their dark and creepy wares. But it comes down to the litmus test of artistic integrity: Would this have existed had I not seen it elsewhere? Respect yourself when you answer that question. It's the key to creativity, originality, and integrity. And your artwork is going to show it.