Don’t worry about it. I would still hire you.
come on Mutte, do not take that serious or even anywhere close to your heart. usually people who are sending hate-mail are poor lonely desperate, bored people with tons of self esteem issues. it shouldn’t be new to you that the internet is full of creeps who wouldn’t stand a look at your face in person, but feel all-mighty hiding behind their keyboard.
and please repost the bat. now that you have given credit anyway, there is no reason to hide your excellent variation. apart from that, there isn’t so much super original about a humanoid bat creature per se. cg forums are full to the brim with it and due to the visual nature of bats they all look alike - more or less and we all have seen the same great bats(like the one in Coppola’s Dracula for example) we are influenced by.
As I said, your version is excellent and no lesser level than the ‘original’. there is no need at all to take it down.
for you guys, Julian, DAnconia, Christopher ,…
The bat is back!!!
great work on the bat …i think aris would like it too…sure inspired by his sculpt but i love your proportions you gave it much more and the details are great too…it would really be a shame not to show this version 
If I saw Man Bat on Aris’ page, I would have just thought you did a replica.
nuff said. Theres no reason for me to question the great mutte! 
If you think your going to be able to cause ripples Matt, forget it. We have too
much respect for mutte for that to happen.
good 
Thanks for posting more pics of the bat sculpt, it’s a great study with a strong personal twist, again, 5star quality …
Really like the batman Maarten
Mr. Verhoeven - Firstly, I have never sent nor asked anyone else to send “hatemail” to you. If I have something to say, I will do so directly and publicly as I am doing so now.
Second, there is a world of difference between “a big influence” and “a copy” - and regardless of how you or your fanboys wish to excuse the effort, there is no question that your “Man-Bat” is a copy of the original “Bat Creature”. That’s not “hating”, that is simply a statement of fact.
And Third, I also never asked you to remove your “Man-Bat Sketch” from the forum, that is an action which you took upon yourself.
I only posed the question of why you, as an artist, would produce a CG sculpture which was so blatantly and for all practical purposes identical to an existing physical sculpture produced by another artist, and then not only place your own name on the render and rename the sculpt, but then offer absolutely zero credit to the original artist. I think any other artist would find that to be at the least, un-professional and a disservice to the original artist and his work.
I’m glad to see you’ve replaced the renders, you are a talented CG sculptor and your work deserves recognition - however, naming the piece as the original artist did, “Bat Creature” would I feel be a more fitting credit to the original work than the renamed piece, “Man-Bat” above your own name; but perhaps there are just some artists which are more conscientious than others.
Mr. Kolokontes is an extremely talented artist and a very nice guy, I’m sure he would be flattered that you were so inspired by his work that you would make the effort to recreate his work digitally, perhaps not so much that you would rename his design and give zero credit - but again, there are just some artists which are more conscientious than others.
http://forums.3dtotal.com/showthread.php?p=809022
And if anyone truly wants to see the work of a great conceptual artist, one who produces masterful sculpts of his own design, look up “Aris Kolokontes” on Google Images or YouTube. An incredibly gifted, creative and awe-inspiring artist.
As far as I’m concerned this issue is closed. Good day.
Matt
Mattawa -
Since you are so conscientious and obviously sensitive you could have considered a different approach to tackle this delicate subject.
For example, how about first writing a polite(!) private message about your concern to Mutte. If then he would have reacted with ignorance, you still would have had the option to bark at him in public, if that is what gives you the obviously much needed relief and satisfaction.
A few points more for your consideration:
1.) Insulting those (including me) who stepped in for Mutte here by calling them fan-boys was very unnecessary and doesn’t help your “case”.At least speaking for myself I can safely say that I am not a fan-boy for anyone on this planet, but despite my ego (still working on that) I am happy to show appreciation and sympathy for artists whose work I consider worthy of my admiration. As you may gather by now, I am in fact way to arrogant to be a good fan-boy and on my more grumpy days I do not take such insult unnoticed. Unfortunately for you, today is such a grumpy day.
For that matter, an apology of you would be very appropriate and most welcome
2.) registering here only to attack an honorable long time member, doesn’t exactly cast a very good light on you and leaves a somewhat stale aftertaste about your intentions.
3.) you have had a point in so far as the embedded title in Mutte’s first post was missleading, but he reacted right away, apologized and even took the image down which really settled the case. You could have left it at that or at least kept any ongoing conversation on the subject matter private.
Either way, Mutte is around long enough to know how small this “community” is and it seems not very plausible that he intentionally tried to sell the concept of another artists as his. Again, a polite private message before anything else would have probably settled it, without potentially and unnecessarily embarrassing somebody in public who most likely had not bad intentions to begin with.
4.) Last but not least about this whole ‘originality’ issue. There is not the slightest doubt that Aris Kolokontes is an excellent and very gifted artists, but with all due respect, his bat creature also didn’t quite explode of originality. I have seen more similar featured creature faces than I could ever count. There are masses of look-alikes in various cg forums, movies, comic books - you name it. the horror and fantasy genre to which such creatures usually belong is aesthetically surprisingly limited and we all draw from more or less the same inspirations and role models. If we really want to credit the original creatures we’d have to go way back in time and start with the old masters such as Hieronymus Bosch, Fuessli, or the fellow who did this painting here around 1800. If you take a closer look at all the sculpting on the walls, towers and pillars of the old gothic churches you will see most of the monsters staring down at you, of which we still make variations of. the faces of all those daemons, vampires , goblins etc haven’t changed much over the centuries. Add to that the newer artists like Giger, Rick Baker or Jordu Shell who had a particular strong influence on almost any young to mid age creature sculpture and it becomes increasingly difficult to claim original designs.
Nobody’s reinventing the wheel here.
Julian, your a real character, +1 from me also.
I came across this whole argument when I just happened to be looking at
Maartens profile on cghub, and Mattawa was laying into him there. You’ve
really gone out of your way to bring down a top artist, but failed. Why?
At the end of the day, who came out of this more “professional” ? hahaha!
oh dear, I didn’t know they played the same childish game over at cghub. what a weird urge to embarrass oneself 
Is it true that the WA in Mattawa stands for WANKER?
Aaaarrrrrgh, stop it. I will not tell you who’s right.
I hope the next post in my mailbox brings me to a new sculpt in this thread.
I just saw your last sculpt at cghub, omg men 
ur getting better and better i almost had an art orgasm xD jk.
Brilliant, and I really like the material you use ^^ wish you the best men
Thanks guys, something new I did in between, allways drowning in work :(.
a goat pimp and a couple of gargoyles, love doing these guys… sculpt on …
So quit your job ;), I bet what you do for a living isn’t as half as good as this stuff small_orange_diamondsmall_orange_diamondsmall_orange_diamondsmall_orange_diamond
this is absolutely amazing!!!
love the style! great work!
5*
Great work Maarten!!!
Could you share this matcap? Please