In some contexts, "画蛇添足" can be rendered as "trying to re-invent the wheel". Of course that only applies to some limited contexts and we shall never use it at international conferences where some smart speaker may then go off on a tangent and start discussing the taxonomy of snakes: Speaking of snakes, there are southern snakes and there are northern snakes. The northern snakes tend to go into deep hibernation in winter, whereas the southern species only take short naps in that season… So, if you add legs to the northern variety in winter, they can't find much use for them; but if you do the southerners, they may decide to crawl out on their newfound limbs now and again when the sun is out. But whoever sees them will scream – look, some novel species of lizard! (Sorry if you find this article perplexing. It refers to an anecdote that you might not know.)