The rig discourse is super interesting and definitely a conversation that needs to be had in the VTuber industry. I genuinely feel like serious considerations need to be made on both sides of the aisle. As an artist, I totally understand wanting to protect your work / techniques / trade secrets from bad actors who may try to steal or take credit for it… but at the same time you shouldn’t let an extreme what-if scenario stop you from giving your clients peace of mind over arguably their MOST IMPORTANT BRAND ASSET. In OP’s case, they legit can’t get in contact with the rig artist anymore, so they’re screwed and have to start from scratch if they wanted to add even one small update. In my case, I’m my own model artist, and can make as many updates and outfits as I want… but if something were to happen to my rig artist I’d ABSOLUTELY be fucked. I’d have to start back over from 0% again…and I dont know if y’all knew this but starting over ain’t cheap. If I had the rig file on hand, I would have the ability to add new things and still preserve the original base from my rig mama in the event I can’t work with her anymore. “But if you buy a game that doesn’t mean you OWN the source code!” Sure, but you should at the very least be able to backup or modify your save file in case something happens😅 To further bring in the game analogy, if we didn’t have the source code for some games, then some of the best romhacks (aka add-ons) would never have happened.. imo multiple artists adding onto a work is really freaking cool but that’s just me I guess¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Going back to original subject, I feel like some level of mutual trust needs to happen here? Model artists by default have to trust the client / rigger not to make a template or steal from the art PSD, —which even merged / flattened does still give a look into our process. So why don’t rig artists give that same level of trust to the client? Most layman clients won’t be able to do anything with it anyway, but it gives them insurance to add onto their model in the event they can’t work with the original rigger for one reason or another (e.g artist is unavailable, client getting priced out, artist ceasing to rig more models, artist goes AWOL / passes way, etc) If it’s a matter of a lack of trust, revise your contracts to protect your work and make clear guidelines and prohibitions on redistribution / copying / modification. And perhaps encourage your clients to notify you / advise you who they send the rig file to for your own record keeping. If that’s STILL not enough and you don’t trust the client after all that… then maybe don’t work with them, hello??? 😀

This is such a nice tip!! I felt inspired to dust off the ol' graphic designer cap to freshen up my page, and I think it looks so CUTE now!! 🥰🩷