... is a direct successor to, my original stylized Keybuto character.
There's your fallacy. Your keybuto was never original to begin with, and with this iteration you're just getting closer to the other design in terms of aesthetic cues.
What arguments(plural) with other members? There was like one guy. If anything, there was another user who pointed out the same issue I first made observation of.
You're literally shoo-ing away criticism, while deflecting the real conversation to be had, all while being a jerk about it.
Not worth your time
There's an issue pertaining to artistic integrity. Since we're talking about artisan grade products, these most certainly are synonymous in their visual representation to their creator. I see a fugu, I think of ETF.
I'm sure any artisan here can do a better Kosmonavt sculpt than the original and Booper would 100% agree with me on that, since it was her first cap and made on top of a cherry profile keycap(think bulky and tall), BUT do any of them do it? No, of course not...
I was just trying to understand your decision, since you are clearly able of original ideas (the thought and explanations you put in the Zen series was awesome), but in my opinion - which is clearly not shared by many of you - the keybuto is in no way an original design.
Merutz, I am being direct with you because you are taking shots at my work and integrity. Let me try to de-escalate the conversation, because I have no grudge against you personally. Although I disagree with you, I invited you to start a thread or directly contact me to discuss your concerns, redirecting criticism to somewhere more appropriate. In my book, that is facilitating the airing and discussion of criticism rather than silencing it.
Regarding artistic integrity, I feel you are unfairly conflating stealing (bad) with sharing a common theme (not bad). We see this a lot on Geekhack, yet there is usually a lot of cognitive dissonance when it comes up. There is room in the world for more than one samurai-themed keycap, just like there is room enough for the many skull, feline, robot, and monkey themed keycaps out there (to name a few). Your objection to this particular key therefore feels like you are singling me out for some reason.
Any samurai-themed key will have certain features and shapes in common, or it wouldn't be samurai-themed anymore. After comparing the shapes of the Keybuto's shikoro, tare, mabiszashi, maedate, fukigaeshi, and mempo (especially at the mouth and cheekbone areas), there is very little clearly in common with Bro's cap. All of those areas are dissimilar to the Bro cap, which is why, as seen in other comments today, many reasonable minds agree that this work falls on the "common theme" (not stealing) side of the line. Also, for the record, before I completed my original Keybuto, I had never heard of or seen that Bro cap. That's the plain truth, whether you want to believe it or not, so I have no problem identifying Keybuto as my original work.
Finally, after almost 17 months of exhausting, daily work and sacrifice producing and supporting Keybutos, I think that when someone sees a Keybuto, they think of Bambino or Suited Up Keycaps. They probably don't think of an obscure Bro cap. Also, Bro never once contacted me to make an objection after Keybuto was originally revealed. After all this, I humbly think I've earned the right to continue to promote and produce what has essentially become synonymous with my name and brand without retroactively being called a thief.
Thank you for your input and passion, but hopefully this is now more than enough to explain why I'd appreciate you taking my invitation to discuss this elsewhere if you want to continue to raise this issue. I've tried to be respectful in my words. Now I'll get back to working on getting Keybuto II into peoples' hands, hopefully with more pictures to come this weekend
