I'm not at all familiar with the characters in question so my assumption was that it was original until I read the rest of the posts.
I don't have a problem with tracing to learn. I did it as a kid all the time. I think it helped me learn. At a minimum you could be clear upfront for people like me who don't have a clue.
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Funny (and scary) True Story Alert!
Years ago when I worked as a dishwasher in a restaurant to pay for school an old friend introduced me to someone who needed a logo for a new "Dojo" he was starting.
This person was... uh... scary. If any of what he was telling me was true I should have run away screaming. He claimed to be a "top level" expert in several forms of martial arts and told many frightening stories (he claimed to have beaten up several police officers to escape being arrested).
He also had bunches of shoe boxes filled with "Polaroid stories"... sequential photos of he and his friends acting out kung-fu movies.
I tell you this to set up what I was dealing with for what happened later.
He came a few days later to talk about the logo design with me and brought his own "artwork". Not only was he skilled in kung-fu he was also a very talented artist and wanted to show me his work.
Well... it was terribly and tragically obvious to me that every thing was traced... badly. He only had a few very simple line drawings of popular cartoon characters.
At this point he then informed me that he was the reincarnation of Bruce Lee. In my status as a non-kung-fu expert I was NOT going to point out the fact that Bruce Lee was still alive when he was born. (It was 2 in the morning on a slow night. My backup was 1 waitress and the stoned cook).
Nor did I make any comments about his traced artwork. I just nodded my head and made positive "hmm mm" noises. I didn't want to set him off... like I said this guy was very scary.
He pulled out 3 Polaroids from a shoe box filled front to back. I mean these were stacked vertically tightly packed. Must have been 150 at least (how many polaroids fit in a shoebox?) and this was just one box. He insisted I take them... no really I said he shouldn't "break up the set" but he insisted. Like if I didn't it would be an insult.
I acted like it was honor to have them and thanked him.
He never came back after that night and I completely lost track of him and never finished the logo... I was relieved to be honest. Maybe he met someone who's Kung-fu was stronger.
True story.
-vern