Deja-vu and Unintentional Rip offs

[Munin Raven]

The other day I stumbled upon a piece of art that made me do a double take. Not because it was wonderful, although it was, but because I had painted a piece ages ago that looked startlingly similar with regards to theme, composition, colour, and even some small details. The other artists painting was tenfold better than my effort (I'm only a hobby artist), and there is no way that he/she could have seen my work and been 'inspired' by my scribbles (yeah, right) as it has never left my hard drive. It made me wonder if I'd actually seen the painting previously at some point before I started working on my idea, or what I thought was my idea, and it had been lounging around in my subconscious until I stumbled upon it some time later.

Luckily it wasn't a big deal in my case as I hadn't posted my painting anywhere, but maybe this sort of thing has happened to other people who have received flack from their piers for something that was completely innocent and unintentional. I know we all tend to assimilate certain nuances from our personal favourite creative minds as we go along, but when the mind plays horrible tricks like it did on me I can't help but feel that, in certain circumstances, someone can get wrongly called out as a hack and that's the kind of thing that sticks -true or false.

I still don't know if I had seen said painting earlier and my brain was being an ass, or if the whole thing was just one of those bizarre occurrences.

I'd post both images but my web 'history' is drawing a blank so I don't know where I stumbled on the other artists image (it wasn't on CA) and my own painting never left my hard drive for a reason: It is terrible – even by my amature standards.

So, has this kind of thing ever happened to anyone else? I'd hate to think peoples reputations get tarnished over a completely innocent affair. :(

[IKV Nexis]

Accidently.....yes..yes..accidently..that's the ticket.:bashful:

[Peter Coene]

Reminds me of how, as a child, I had been a big fan of the Narnia books. While in colege I had forgotten about them but for some reason was doing doodles that had to do with lanterns/lightposts and fawns/satyrs carrying packages. Later when The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe came out I was suddenly reminded of where those particular images in my head came from. Up untill then it was kind of creepy/haunting when I would draw those pictures because I had no clue where the idea to draw them was coming from.

[Burtzum]

Never. Everything I do is 100% totally original and never thought of before. I live in a vacuum.

[Raoul Duke]

Compositions often take an obvious turn. I often find my work to have the same cliches. It's not a rip off, it's just being generic. Even great artists make that mistake. Some times often. I'm not sure how many of them are straight up swiping, but it happens allot.

[Ahnem Mee]

I sometimes find mself surprised about how deep a memory can be buried, the the extent it doesn't feel like a memory anymore.

A while ago, I designed a character, young, female, somewhat jolly with blonde hair and I gave her a rather striking red-and-white striped outfit to wear.

Then, by happenstance, I came across a rather obscure comic (obscure as in, I never heard of the series before), and couldn't help but believe that I had to have seen that comic sometime in the past, even tough I couldn't remember for the life of me how or when or where.

http://www.bdtheque.com/repupload/G/G_245_1.jpg

I wish I could find a better picture, but the comic really isn't that widely known, even on the www.