^ Best post in the topic right now. I would say that's actually worsened. With previous artworks, he has at least made some effort to change the female echidnas as much as possible, (Even if it was for the worse.) but here? It's not only a huge rip off of Knuckles, but wreaks of smudge brushing, blegh. Clearly rushed. A funny thing to say when most artists are pretty open about their techniques, but it wouldn't surprise me if Ken wanted to keep his criminally bad techniques to himself. :specialed: He really should drop this semi-realistic shading approach, because this is grosser than anything I used to cobble together in Photostudio 5 as a kid. His characters would look a lot better as clean inks and basic cells for shading. Edit : Should have checked for more replies before posting.
Penders you're a liar and a thief, you have no business being apart of our fanbase or being in the comics industry. I hope Sega sues you for every penny, you've reaped what you sewn now pay the price for it.
I was trying to be as sarcastic as possible :P I'm sure if you wanted to know his techniques, he would let you know for $20 :P
Pretend not to see him. Don't inadvertently get involved in this fiasco. If anything, I'm concerned that promoting Freedom Planet directly across from Pender's blatantly-derivative work might make Freedom Planet look bad by relation. (It might also make it look even better in comparison. No idea.)
What on earth is going on with the shadows in that image? Especially on the dreadlocks. I just can't fathom why this guy would want to continue with this project at all. It's based on someone else's IP, it's being universally panned and as we can see from his earlier art (Not the anthropomorphic enchiladas), he can do so much better. No one wants to buy his fan fiction! Penders has basically slapped a moustache on Ronald McDonald and is charging people to look at it.
I love how this comes just a week and a half after he made this tweet in response to someone calling his characters ripoffs: https://twitter.com/KenPenders/status/481314957821108224 [quotename='Ken Penders']Whoa! Let's be careful with the term "rip off". TL-SC uses only characters I created, which both Archie & Sega benefitted from.[/quote] Only characters he created. Yeah, can't say that anymore. I wonder if he seriously believes he's immune to getting sued for infringement. He can go on all he wants about his other characters being "original", but it's another thing entirely when he puts out a character who blatantly infringes on Knuckles. I guess it was inevitable, though. He keeps saying how he wants to respect his original stories, and the only way he could keep them canon was not replacing Knuckles. I just thought he'd at least do something like put him in a face-concealing mask. Lazy, sure, but it avoids this.
[quotename='Ken Penders']Whoa! Let's be careful with the term "rip off". TL-SC uses only characters I created, which both Archie & Sega benefitted from.[/quote]
Very appropriate reaction image. Needs moar animated GIFs for best effect. I figured it was sarcasm, and I'll keep my money if that were the case. :v: $20 could get me a relatively nice bust shot drawing from a reputable artist on deviantART. His skills with Sonic characters aren't even worth chump change in dA points.
This is all just... Is Penders a pathological liar? How does one get invested in their own delusion to the point where they believe they're right and the world's wrong, yet at the same time EXPECTS PEOPLE TO BUY HIS MERCHANDISE? What really gets me is the fact he thinks SEGA benefited from the comics. Compare the game revenue to the promotion that the comics gave to the games. I'm DAMN sure the comics, during the time of Penders' writing, didn't do SHIT for the games' revenue. If he thinks those stories that had zilch to do with the games in every respect (style, atmosphere, etc) helped SEGA financially even when they were actually selling well with their mediocre titles? I can't fathom where he gets that idea. The only thing close to this ever happening was Chronicles having a society of Echidnas, and I think that's even a stretch to say they were inspired by Penders' work. I mean it's not hard to think of "hey if Knuckles is the last of the Echidnas where are all the rest of them??" Even if they were inspired it's not like they couldn't think of it on their own. Good god this guy boils my blood.
If you really wanted to clutch at straws, you could say Sonic The Comic did it already with the Chaos story arc they did. It showed the full Echidna civilization. I mean, it was loosely based on Sonic Adventure, but so very loose.
Err, do we have anyone who can back this claim up, like Strife? I just find it a little questionable when Ken said the other day that photos would be free. That, and superwplf's claim in a later post that Ken kicked someone out of his booth for saying Julie-Su looks like Knuckles also sounds a bit unlikely, even for Ken. Not that I'm saying superwplf's necessarily lying, but just taking what he says with a grain of salt first here.
Yeah that's not something you can just do at a Con. There are people everywhere. How could he pick out anyone with a camera or threaten with authorities. Spoiler Unless he was the only one around.
It might've been a sarcastic post, but what's sad to me is how believable it is at first. I doubt he could single somebody out in a dense crowd, cons are always packed tight. Although, on the other hand, his booth probably isn't getting much activity.
Reminder: Lara-Su is a teenager, and Ken's decision for portraying her in his big marketing poster is to put her in a bikini. Also, something has gone horribly wrong with her and Julie-Su's necks.
Yep, that banner was at his booth alright. We weren't paying much attention to it, but there wasn't any traffic over there for most of the day except for a guy wearing a Sonic cap chatting with him for ten minutes, and another couple swinging by a bit later. I'm told that it was a laid-back day today and that there's supposed to be a LOT more people tomorrow and Saturday. In any case, based on our first day here, it doesn't feel like anyone's going to notice the proximity of our booths.
