A failure of gifts.

[Concrete]

Since our games had to move to roll20 for plague reasons, I decided to draw up tokens for them so that we didn't have to use the standard ones from roll20.

And since I'm a flaky bastard and wasn't sure I'd follow through with it, and because i love surprises, I decided to keep it a secret until they were done.

This last meeting, I was working on the last one, when another player surprised us with tokens she'd made in some image creator on heroforge. Which was very nice of her.

And I realized there's no way for me to present the tokens I made without looking like an absolute tit. Hell, I can't even let anyone know they exist.

Just because I wanted a dramatic reveal.

[Khedrac]

If you think hers are considerably better you could reveal yours saying "looks what I had prepared - aren't you glad that X made hers - they are so much better". I.e. make a joke out of it.

[Grey Watcher]

If you think hers are considerably better you could reveal yours saying "looks what I had prepared - aren't you glad that X made hers - they are so much better". I.e. make a joke out of it.

Even if you don't go the self-deprecation route, just admit you were working on the same thing, but she (to her credit) got there first. Maybe don't even necessarily show them until/unless asked, which should make it clear you're not trying to ride her proverbial coattails.

Or just don't say anything. Nothing wrong with keeping it private, either. Whatever you're more comfortable with.

[Anonymouswizard]

Heck, even just having the two options is nice, while I like messing around with Heroforge it's mainly because I'm hoping to be able to run in person someday, I'd take a nicely drawn token over a Heroforge one personally.

Heck, if they're high quality the effort will probably be appreciated even if they don't get used, and maybe the group can find alternate uses for them (the Heroforge tokens go on your map, your tokens are character sheet portraits for instance).

[Xervous]

Clearly there’s an evil clones arc coming up now that you think about it

[Duff]

If you're comfortable enough with your group to look like a tit, show them anyway. Nothing shows the other player how much you like her idea than that you worked on the same idea yourself.
This assumes the other artist won't feel like you're trying to steal her glory and won't be upset if some or all of the players decide they prefer your style. If you don't know the group enough to be fairly sure, better to leave it for a bit or just mention you'd been thinking of a similar idea.
Also, if the group know and are OK with you're flakiness, your reason for not making promises first will make sense, if not, that also moves you more toward keep quiet