Artists use technology in all sorts of ways to make the process of creating art more efficient. Nobody bats an eye when an artist uses a paint-bucket fill instead of coloring by hand, or uses a transform tool instead of erasing and re-drawing. Such technology is now accepted as a valid time-saving tool in the artist’s toolbox.
So how far do we take that?
On the left is a rough sketch I did on paper, by hand. It’s 100% my original drawing, including my choice of colors.
As an experiment I uploaded the sketch to ChatGPT and asked it to tighten it and color it with a soft watercolor look. The results aren’t perfect but it’s decent (again, this is just an experiment). It saved me a ton of time, and theoretically I can control the final result to be precisely what I want using carefully worded prompts. AI didn’t exactly “create” the illustration. It’s still *my* original drawing, cleaned up and colored how *I* want it to look. I can also take it into Photoshop and “fix” certain areas if I need to. But the tedious ink-and-color was done quickly by AI.
Should this be an acceptable practice for an illustrator? Or not? Is this crossing a line? If so, why (or why not)?
I honestly have mixed feelings about this myself. Part of me is repulsed but another part of me is excited about how much more artwork I could create with this kind of time-saving technology.
I’m very curious what others think. Please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts. (And feel free to share this post to keep the discussion going.)
I don’t know if I would use the word “cheating.” But it’s definitely outsourcing. Like using a colorist, except instead of hiring a human you’re using a computer program. Using a digital tool for a task is not the same as asking a computer to do a task for you. People can do what they want. But is it worth getting the job done faster if you’re taking the human element out of it (or even half out of it)? I would say no. I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t hire someone to do it. And I wouldn’t knowingly buy a product, especially a book, that was made this way.
I read your article and remembered an article that I’d read yesterday. An author’s debut novel sold for $2 million. His own agents had it pulled from publication because they thought he had used AI. I thought that was an extreme action to take especially when they couldn’t prove that AI was used. I’ve read that books have been removed from competitions because their covers were made with AI. This may not be the time to use more AI.