eBay artist selling AI art as originals? 1 1

[Tnexus]

I frequently check the latest eBay comic art listings for any hidden gems that pop up. I also find it's a good spot to find some unknown artists for cheap. Two months ago I picked up a few pieces from an unknown seller named KeyskeKara on the cheap because the art was solid. They had a decently number of pieces and claimed they were unloading some backlogs of their work. At first I didn't think much of it, but over the past two months, they posted probably close to a 800 OA items on their eBay account. (You can see the past listings here.) And the more you look at the pieces, the more you notice small choices that seem weird. Like costumes aren't quite right, or weapons that don't fit the character. For instance there's a Spider-Gwen with a gun.

So I'm curious on opinions here. I finally took a closer look at the pieces I bought, but I don't have a magnifying glass to really look in depth. There is for sure some ink, some paint, and some pencil on each piece, but it seems like more of a remark. I don't really feel indents on the page around the character borders, but as I'm a casual collector, I'm not too sure. I'm not denying this could be a real artist, but I'm wondering, could someone train an AI on their art to pump it out, then just add some minor remarks? Also to this artist's credit, it seems like I'm seeing more color in the more recent postings which I would think would be harder to fake. I just can't imagine anyone drawing this many works and selling them for this cheap.

 

Edited May 12 by Tnexus

[MyNameIsLegion]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopen

we are less than a few years away from AI being able to mechanically produce penciled and inked original art. Granted, this is totally unnecessary when it all can be done digitally, but it can be done mechanically. 3D printing, CAD drawings,  Toss in a little AI and you could create or recreate mechanically penciled and inked original art- complete with pencil underlayment with impressions and indentions and real ink.  The autopen is 200 year old technology, it' has only gotten better with computers. Program a little randomness, imperfections, incomplete lines and it can be near impossible to detect.  

So yeah, I imagine there are art farms cranking out originals faster than Ed Bene's studio. Just imagine what this could mean for the comic sketch cover market.  You could have an original cover drawing created before the comic is even produced and shipped.  Just tell the art rep what you want, and they will tell your favorite artist to plug it into the random Harley Quinn AI pin-up generator using their style and away we go. Cha Ching!

 

 

[Rick2you2]

On 5/12/2024 at 6:47 AM, MyNameIsLegion said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopen

we are less than a few years away from AI being able to mechanically produce penciled and inked original art. Granted, this is totally unnecessary when it all can be done digitally, but it can be done mechanically. 3D printing, CAD drawings,  Toss in a little AI and you could create or recreate mechanically penciled and inked original art- complete with pencil underlayment with impressions and indentions and real ink.  The autopen is 200 year old technology, it' has only gotten better with computers. Program a little randomness, imperfections, incomplete lines and it can be near impossible to detect.  

So yeah, I imagine there are art farms cranking out originals faster than Ed Bene's studio. Just imagine what this could mean for the comic sketch cover market.  You could have an original cover drawing created before the comic is even produced and shipped.  Just tell the art rep what you want, and they will tell your favorite artist to plug it into the random Harley Quinn AI pin-up generator using their style and away we go. Cha Ching!

 

 

All of which raises the disturbing philosophical question of why are we bothering with this level of detail, and pricing it to match? If a machine can draw an image in a style perfectly matching, say, Howard Chaykin, why commission him at all? The less than satisfactory answer is that if someone else does it, they have probably violated copyright law. Either way, it looks the same. What this can do to the post 2023 commission market is to kill it. Then, it becomes a question of perfectly replicating a page from, say, Action No. 1. 

[Noob19]

On 5/12/2024 at 2:24 AM, Tnexus said:

I frequently check the latest eBay comic art listings for any hidden gems that pop up. I also find it's a good spot to find some unknown artists for cheap. Two months ago I picked up a few pieces from an unknown seller named KeyskeKara on the cheap because the art was solid. They had a decently number of pieces and claimed they were unloading some backlogs of their work. At first I didn't think much of it, but over the past two months, they posted probably close to a 800 OA items on their eBay account. (You can see the past listings here.) And the more you look at the pieces, the more you notice small choices that seem weird. Like costumes aren't quite right, or weapons that don't fit the character. For instance there's a Spider-Gwen with a gun.

So I'm curious on opinions here. I finally took a closer look at the pieces I bought, but I don't have a magnifying glass to really look in depth. There is for sure some ink, some paint, and some pencil on each piece, but it seems like more of a remark. I don't really feel indents on the page around the character borders, but as I'm a casual collector, I'm not too sure. I'm not denying this could be a real artist, but I'm wondering, could someone train an AI on their art to pump it out, then just add some minor remarks? Also to this artist's credit, it seems like I'm seeing more color in the more recent postings which I would think would be harder to fake. I just can't imagine anyone drawing this many works and selling them for this cheap.

 

I noticed this eBay seller a few months back as well and believe the art is AI generated. I'm not knowledgeable enough to pinpoint why -- its more just my gut reaction. 

[cstojano]

On 5/11/2024 at 11:24 PM, Tnexus said:

I finally took a closer look at the pieces I bought, but I don't have a magnifying glass to really look in depth. There is for sure some ink, some paint, and some pencil on each piece, but it seems like more of a remark. I don't really feel indents on the page around the character borders, but as I'm a casual collector, I'm not too sure. I'm not denying this could be a real artist, but I'm wondering, could someone train an AI on their art to pump it out, then just add some minor remarks? Also to this artist's credit, it seems like I'm seeing more color in the more recent postings which I would think would be harder to fake. I just can't imagine anyone drawing this many works and selling them for this cheap.

 

I can't speak to these pieces but in terms of how the art looks in hand I do have a recent experience. There are several well known fantasy artists that work primairly in photo realistic black and white. I went to get a piece reframed and was pretty shocked when I examined the art out of glass. I was expecting pencils and pastels but the piece looked and felt like a print mounted to foam core. I mean, there was no texture to this at all. I was told it was due to the fixative used to avoid smudging, which does make sense. The artist and rep took the art back withouth issue after nearly a year. I felt like a jerk but this was a shocker to see. Not sure that applies to these eBay listings or not but thought I would share. I believe the art was legit but also realized I had no interest in owning an original that had the look and feel of a print. 

Edited May 12 by cstojano

[Ecclectica]

On 5/12/2024 at 3:21 PM, Noob19 said:

I noticed this eBay seller a few months back as well and believe the art is AI generated. I'm not knowledgeable enough to pinpoint why -- its more just my gut reaction. 

Me too.

I believe this couple first generates printed "blue lines" of AI produced drawings, then cover them with some pencils lines, inks and colors... They keep all the drawings the AI provide they like, and sometimes even 2 incoherent variations produced by the AI, then work on them. It explains the "it will go to the fire if unsold" slogan (they don't have a bit of attachement to the "original" AI drawing).

Clearly elaborate remarks by an organized two-person team (one for the pencils/inks remark, one for the colors remark). This way, they can have an output of seven drawings a day (see the dates at the back of the pages using the eBay back listing - each page with a same date has a small difference so we have here different pages indeed). Clearly they are basically real artists, with at least one of them that can really draw, who did the mass production gamble here. I don't think two persons would be able to conceive this whole art output at this rate, but if we add the AI in the equation, we can put in perspective that competent inkers in the comic industry can achieve this rate and even more - I remember Kyle Baker performances of the second part of the 80's, when he amazed even Joe Rubinstein.

What is the difference here with, say, artists that mass product copies of their same drawings using some "tricks" ? (I'm thinking about Neal Adams profile sketches for example - the way he produced them was not a secret. I have one in my collection and love it, even knowing this)

Both a thin and a huge frontier line between them IMHO.

Adams, with his profile sketches, was acting maybe as an human xerox machine, but of his own work... and it was still a task entirely done by a human.

Edited May 14 by Ecclectica

[PixelPusher]

I'm glad to see this ebay seller called out because it is definitely fishy. I think collectors should know the process behind the art so they can make an informed decision. I'm guessing they are lightboxing or projecting the results from Midjourney prompts. I imagine they ink first, go back in with pencil "construction" lines and then add embellishments like white out. The end result looks handmade but is essentially traced from AI image generators.

@Tnexus Are you able to share high res scans of the pieces you received? I'd love to inspect the details.

Edited May 14 by PixelPusher

[Tnexus]

On 5/14/2024 at 9:56 AM, PixelPusher said:

I'm glad to see this ebay seller called out because it is definitely fishy. I think collectors should know the process behind the art so they can make an informed decision. I'm guessing they are lightboxing or projecting the results from Midjourney prompts. I imagine they ink first, go back in with pencil "construction" lines and then add embellishments like white out. The end result looks handmade but is essentially traced from AI image generators.

@Tnexus Are you able to share high res scans of the pieces you received? I'd love to inspect the details.

I can take some photos tonight.

[grapeape]

This could destroy the Jim Davis Garfield market

[grandmoph]

I bought a piece from this artist team a month or two ago. I liked it and thought it was very good for the price. It would be quite disappointing to find that the art was AI generated.

[PixelPusher]

On 5/15/2024 at 9:40 AM, grandmoph said:

I bought a piece from this artist team a month or two ago. I liked it and thought it was very good for the price. It would be quite disappointing to find that the art was AI generated.

Could you share a high res scan? I'd love to inspect the details.

This kind of process (tracing and embellishing AI output by hand) is really tough to prove. Their recent comic style artworks are just so different from their previous work that it feels fishy.

[Will_K]

Even before AI art gained prevalence in the last year or so, there was a lot of art on ebay that I assumed was just photos that were worked over in Photoshop. 

There are artists (not on ebay) whose studio output varies a lot from their convention sketches.  I'm thinking of Greg Horn, Ant Lucia, Nathan Szerdy.  I don't know anything about their work processes but the difference between  their published art and art drawn at shows is striking.  Even taking into account the terrible working conditions at conventions.

Makes you actually appreciate Greg Land using (live action) p0rn for reference.

Edited May 15 by Will_K

[Tnexus]

Took a better look tonight. One fullsize pic is with flash, the other isn't. On the Tomb Raider piece, it does feel more organic(?) and I was starting to believe it's legitimacy. The Zatanna piece though, I noticed some red flags. The wireframe pencil is clearly on top of the black as it's especially noticable on the bottom middle. You can also see it on her head. The gray tones also just look off to me, they look printed, but I'm not entirely sure.

Then I also realized that a lot of the pencil wireframe is mostly on the inside of the bodies. Like you'd think I'd see pencil outlining Zatannas head on the right side, but it's not there, and it's definitely not erased or hidden by ink.

The last observation is the eyes. Looking back at other sales, the eyes vary a lot. I feel like eye styles are a pretty consistent artist trademark.

Edited May 16 by Tnexus

[Ecclectica]

On 5/16/2024 at 8:33 AM, Tnexus said:

I feel like eye styles are a pretty consistent artist trademark.
 

I feel that way too.

[Ecclectica]

It's me or the two-characters drawings they produce show more glitches (incoherences or inconsistency in poses)?

[MyNameIsLegion]

if indeed as @Tnexus suspects, they took an inkjet print and applied pencil roughs and maybe some spot inks on top of that to make it look organic then this is a smoking gun. speaking of gun, I find it off that it is cut off in the drawing, but they would have to trim it, as any printer cannot print to the edge of the page so they would have to hand trim it to make it look real, and who draws 3/4 of a gun? I'm sure they had a full figure drawing on the computer that they could print to any size and trim or edit as they saw fit. Swap out weapons, hats, facial expressions, maybe move an arm or a leg, just like  Neal Adams would do on his variations on a theme con drawings. 

[grandmoph]

On 5/15/2024 at 1:25 PM, PixelPusher said:

Could you share a high res scan? I'd love to inspect the details.

This kind of process (tracing and embellishing AI output by hand) is really tough to prove. Their recent comic style artworks are just so different from their previous work that it feels fishy.

I will see if I can scan it tonight. It is a sketch of Elektra that has a rough look to it, with some heavy ink and red color splashes. Seems like it would be hard to confirm one way or another what the original base was.

[Noob19]

There’s already a few on CAF, with the artist duo’s names. Their style has definitely evolved dramatically over the years.

Edited May 18 by Noob19

[-m]

The hands are generally where you can pick up that it’s AI, though it’s definitely getting better. The Zatanna hands, at least the one you can see, don’t look right…

[AndyFish]

On 5/12/2024 at 12:00 PM, cstojano said:

I can't speak to these pieces but in terms of how the art looks in hand I do have a recent experience. There are several well known fantasy artists that work primairly in photo realistic black and white. I went to get a piece reframed and was pretty shocked when I examined the art out of glass. I was expecting pencils and pastels but the piece looked and felt like a print mounted to foam core. I mean, there was no texture to this at all. I was told it was due to the fixative used to avoid smudging, which does make sense. The artist and rep took the art back withouth issue after nearly a year. I felt like a jerk but this was a shocker to see. Not sure that applies to these eBay listings or not but thought I would share. I believe the art was legit but also realized I had no interest in owning an original that had the look and feel of a print. 

Spray fixative will flatten out blacks and give everything a smooth texture-- it protects the art-- even in some cases having UV properties.   I've used it in the past to prevent any damage to inked pieces, but I had a buyer once acccuse me of a piece being digital when it wasn't.    I use Deleter Ink (which is Japanese) it comes in small bottles numbered 1-8-- one of those numbers is so smooth and even when it goes down I can see why someone would doubt it-- but once you spray a fixative over it game over-- it's hyper smooth.

So it MAY not be AI just because it looks smooth, and fixative is a legit answer to the question.