Hi @happily-ever-art, I looked into this case and just so you know, the banning has nothing to do with not thinking you are who you say you are. It's that it seems pretty clear that this art was based on another piece of art.

Originally I thought, you and this artist had only painted from the same reference as that's a very popular image that I've come across plenty of times myself. But upon inspection I think it's pretty clear for all the areas of stylization that your painting is based on the painting. Hopefully without me explaining too much you can see why that's not okay.

Looking at the original reference, we can see it can be interpreted in a lot of different ways.

But yours is based off of someone else's interpretation without mentioning that it is a study of another artists work.

Seeing as how you've contributed a lot of original artwork in the past, and you're clearly a skilled artist, I'd hope that this was just something done thoughtlessly and I'd recommend letting HW know if that's the case. There is no guarantee they will un-ban you, but understand that no one can "ban" you from Hive. You've simply been added to a blacklist and UI's that honor those blacklists will show that icon next to your name. There are lots of users that are still here posting that have been added to blacklists. it's not the end of the world and all your posts won't be hit with that huge DV trail unless they commit some sort of offense.

Hope that helps.