Today I received a PM over FurAffinity about my current icon at the time. The icon was drawn by Gilligan aka _gilligan_ for a mere $2 in teenycom.



It turns out that he has been tracing over someone's art for the icons. The actual artist is Mitchell, whom provided these overlays as well as a link to their original submission. (They don't use LJ, so here I am.)
Ref: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v94/luso_skav/Arrtsystuff/goddamnit.jpg
Ref2: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v94/luso_skav/Arrtsystuff/goddamnit2.jpg
Original: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1773461/

I know a lot of people have bought those $2 icons from Gilligan, and I even advertised him to my friends here and on FA-- not at all knowing that people were paying for work that had been traced from another artist. So as a customer, I am really upset about this. I was trying to be nice to another artist, only for find out I got burned, and caused friends to spend money on traced art. :/

What's worse, is that he asks for payments to be sent as a "gift". I didn't think anything of it at the time-- of course I'll spend the few extra cents to send over $2, lol. Except now, knowing that it's traced, I can't ask PayPal for a refund. Argh!


I quickly searched through the teenycom community, and his most recent post is here:
http://community.livejournal.com/teenycom/193725.html
--also advertising the icons.
edit: He's removed them since I originally sent in this post.


TL;DR: Gilligan traces and profits off of it. Do not buy his face-stuffing icons. Also I suggest checking his sales in communities to ensure nothing else of yours is being traced for profit. :/


Edit: Adding more screenshots--

From my journal entry here.





Both from here.