No, you pay them for the finished product. The STYLE is independent. Lots of artists have similar styles. They don't all pay each other for copying their styles.
Every artist has their own style, because it's their way of creating the product.
Pixar, Disney and Dreamworks have different styles, same for actors, writers, and designers, too. You can generally tell who made what by reading, looking, listening, etc.
I can recognize a song by Deep Purple or John Mayer or Metallica, just by their guitar tone, or their mastering profile (yes, your ear can recognize that), in a couple of seconds.
If style was that easy, we could have 50 Picassos, 200 John Mayers, 45 Ara Gulers (A photographer) which you can't tell them apart, but it doesn't work that way.
XKCD took a couple of guest artists because of personal reasons. It was very evident, even if the drawing style was the same.
People, art, and hand made things are much more complex than it looks. Many programmers forget because everything is rendered with their favorite font, but no two hand-made thing is ever the same. Eat the same recipe from two different cooks, even if you measure the ingredients independently and give them beforehand, you'll have different tastes.
Style is a reflection of who you are. You can maybe imitate it, but you can't be it.
Heck, even two people implementing the same algorithm in the same programming language doesn't write the same thing.
> Style is a reflection of who you are. You can maybe imitate it, but you can't be it.
Isn't this an argument that AI-generated artwork will never be more than a lesser facsimile? That'd suggest that human-made works will always be more sought-after, because they're authentic.
It'll be, and human made things will always be better and more sought-after, however capitalism doesn't work that way.
When the replacements become "good enough", it'll push the better things because of being cheaper and 90% being there. I have some hand-made items and they're a treat to hold and use. They perform way better than their mass produced ones, they last longer, they feel human, and no, they're not inferior in quality. In fact it's the opposite, but most of them are not cheap, and when you want to maximize profits, you need to reduce your costs, ideally to zero.
