Similarties Between Popular Skin Vendors

[Murdock Firelight]

Logging in to an old avatar the other day, I noticed his skin looked a lot like some of the newer, popular skins that the very trendy fashionistas are wearing these days.  My old avatar has the Dave Gears skin from Abyss and it looks a lot like the skins offered at Fashionz!, the body co, and ~Tableau Vivant~.  The muscles and especially the face are an exact match and it is clear that these newer skins are based on Abyss' Dave Gears.

 

My question is this- where did everyone get the template?  Did they purchase it from Abyss' creator?  Is there some community of skin creators that share templates?  If so, I want in on it.  How does this work?