AI Has Its Uses… But Not for My Art
George RR Martin Coverage
Coverage of an artist case vs. AI
New York Times case coverage by Harvard Law Review
(see below for Araki’s)
AI is everywhere, and while I can see its benefits, I’m not using it for my art. Maybe one day I’ll consider using AI tools to help with background work so I can publish faster, but right now? It’s just too chaotic. And very risky.
One of the biggest issues I have with AI models is how they were trained. A lot of them pulled from artists, my peers, and maybe even me too, without permission. Now, companies are using that work to generate art while also looking for artists who can use AI rather than hiring them for their traditional skills. It’s a complicated situation.
I think there’s a big difference between training a model with an artist’s permission and doing so without it.
If I ever do integrate AI into my workflow, it’ll be on my terms.
Link to Reddit Source
First, I would only use a model trained on my own work, with full consent from anyone else involved. And to be clear, I wouldn’t use AI to render entire panels of my manga, full books, complete prints, or any of my products. My merch is, and always will be, fully hand-drawn. If I ever leverage AI, it would be strictly as a tool to assist with backgrounds—trained on my own previous background work and concept art—so I can speed up the process while keeping full creative control. That way, I can focus my time and energy on the iconic scenes, characters, and impact art that make my work stand out.
That being said, even Hirohiko Araki, one of my favorite manga artists (you know him for JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure) has come out in strong opposition to it because he believes it is perpetuating a world full of “fraudsters” and is a “villain” that manga artists must face. He’s not wrong. He’s quite right. If an artist doesn’t work to protect their work it’ll be that much harder to make infringers stop replicating it or wrongfully using it. Likewise, if that isn’t a concern for an artist, by all means, upload away! It’s the consent part that is important and vital.
Pages featured are from Game Over: Level 7.
If you’d like to keep up with my creative journey (something you can’t do with AI-generated art!), I’d love for you to join me over on my Adventurer’s Guild Patreon.
Over the course of the next two weeks, there will be a ton of behind-the-scenes content going live there and here on this blog.
Additionally, I’ll be dropping new pages of Game Over: Level 8 and the entire first chapter of Game Over on May 3 in celebration of Free Comic Book Day!
