Hi! I’m one of the artists whose DBD Cosmetic Contest entry was suspected of using AI lol. I just want to say one last thing.
During all of this, aside from the actual human errors and missed details in my artwork, I saw several comments saying that this anime art style itself looks “AI-like.”
I grew up with Japanese anime and manga, and I’ve been drawing for over 30 years. I’m attaching an image from Look Back, a story about girls who draw and keep drawing, along with just a small part of my own old sketchbooks.
I wonder how many countless hours are in those pages. And even after all that time, I’m still not perfect. I still make mistakes.
So when the art style I have been drawing in for more than 30 years was suddenly called “AI-like,” I was genuinely shocked. And honestly, it hurt. It made me angry.
Countless artists’ works have been used to train AI images. And now, human-made art is being judged as “AI-like” because it resembles the very outputs that were created from all of those artists’ labor. That is deeply painful to me.
If you watched my PSD/process video, you probably saw that I put a lot of effort into the coloring for this piece. I wanted to make it look as polished and appealing as I could. Ironically, I think that attempt to raise the quality of the finished image may be part of what some people now read as “AI-like.”
Maybe in the future, more and more people will look at an illustration and assume first that it was made by AI, rather than by a person.
But please remember this. Illustrations are made by artists who spend their time, their hands, their eyes, and their lives drawing. Behind what you may call an “AI-looking” result, there is the labor, exploitation, and sacrifice of countless artists. I am one of those artists too.
To everyone who initially had concerns, but listened to me, looked at my process, apologized, supported me, defended me, or promised to ask an artist first before publicly accusing them of using AI: thank you so much.
That kind of conversation is something only humans can have with each other.
I know this is a very difficult issue for the organizers too, but as someone who was directly affected by it, I sincerely hope future community contests can take a form that protects participants and artists better, and does not lead to this kind of harm.