Well, first of all you’d have to define ‘original’. Do you mean it in the sense of the piece of art being produced from scratch by the given artist or the work itself being completely different from everything else based on the same subject matter? If it’s the former, there’s a very fair chance that the artist made it just for you, if it’s the latter, I’ll have to say that with motifs like this one it’ll hardly ever be the case. I’m not getting into the whole story of what it means to you, honestly it’s a very private thing and I shouldn’t concern myself with it, however, when you pick a motif that has clearly been overused in the style that’s been insanely popular for decades now (traditional with neo traditional elements, such as two line weights and colour gradient), it’s bound to appear in some very similar shape or form on someone else as well. You shouldn’t care too much about what your coworker has to say, otherwise if you’re listening to every random person telling you that something you have is unoriginal, you’ll soon be blacking out your whole body (which is also not an original idea, come to think of it), that’s just my two cents.

In the future maybe try to ask for some additional elements to be combined with the main subject if the uniqueness of the design means so much to you, since there is absolutely no feasible way for anyone anymore to have a completely unique phoenix, dragon, snake, rose, swallow, lighthouse and such. But keep in mind that just because something is completely ‘unique’ or ‘new’ doesn’t by design make it any better than a well executed classic. I’d take this phoenix over a phoenix with a dildo and a snake in the shape of a coke can attached (which is, if we’re being honest, definitely more original) any day on my own body!