One thing I've noticed about the online art world is that people will always, ALWAYS compare. I don't know why exactly..even though I've done it myself. But it doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. As you said, people's pathways cross every now and then style-wise. It's sort of inevitable I think.. Although I haven't done it deliberately, I'm pretty damn sure a lot of other people's styles have been incorporated into mine (if you could call mine a style). Until I started looking around dA a lot, my art wasn't really progressing all that fast. Comparing it now to stuff from three or four years ago, I can see I've improved a LOT. But as I said, I'm pretty sure that's due to the amount of art I've drooled at on the internet these past few years. But yeah. Even if your art does bear a resemblance to others, you'll still always have your own style. There'll always be some kind of trait or somesuch that will distinguish it from other people's. And for the time being, I think your art has a LOT of traits that set it apart from other people's. In the past, I've seen your art appear on the front page of SA after it's been uploaded, and been like..that looks like Balaa's.. *click* oh, look at that, it is.. So nyeh :P

I've only just woken up, so..sorry if that doesn't make a whole lot of sense/stay on topic too well o__O