An artist who goes by @tofu_rabbit on X says that the look of Nerf’s Ace of Spades handgun from Bungie’s Destiny games came from a commissioned artwork they drew almost a decade ago.
Nerf and Bungie unveiled its newest foam dart gun collaboration on Tuesday featuring a limited edition version of Cayde-6’s iconic “Ace of Spades” blaster from Destiny 2 that is available for purchase on Bungie’s online store. The following morning, @tofu_rabbit posted images comparing Nerf’s newest foam dart launcher to a piece of art they made in 2015 and posted on their DeviantArt page based on the same gun from the game.
Addition: Artists image (from link in article):
Companies still shouldn’t steal fanart. If a fan makes something they like, they should work with the fan to make it official in a way that satisfies both parties. The community would love seeing that, and the company would get what they want for a reasonable price, and probably still cheaper than paying their own artists.
A comment lower in the thread says Bungie has reached out to this person, and are handling it well, which sounds great!