Why use (gen)AI?
Hello!
If you are reading this page you are probably either really angry/annoyed or curious.
So, why am I using AI to draw a manga?
The reasons are actually quite simple:
- I have a story to tell.
- I don't know how to draw.
- I want to try something new.
I want to talking about these reasons, but before we go into my internal debate on this, I want to present my process.
I will also use the term AI with the term genAI interchangeably, even if I am aware that there are researchers and workers around the globe working on other types of artificial intelligence.
The process
The writing
The writing is an original story that I invented.
I didn't and won't use genAI to write the story, scenario, characters, dialog and any other text. All character concepts, who they are, what they want, what they wear, all come from my head. I don't plan on using genAI for this, simply because I enjoy the creativity of imagining all the aspects of the story, and it is something I can do. If it's good or not remains to be seen. I do use AI to keep an organizational memory of my writing through a project, but I don't use
The drawing
Yes, this is part is done by genAI, but the process is more elaborate than just write a prompt, take that image and then use it. Image generation is used in two different ways.
The first use is direct prompting. This is used to "fill" the manga panels with something. Think of it as a quick "sketch".
The second use is for the final image, but the difference is that for that image, I will do things differently. I will use ClipStudioPaint's puppet system to place a puppet in the scene and that have that as a reference pose for the AI. I will also use 3D objects and photos of real places either as backgrounds or as reference images to guide the AI. Finally, these images are touched up, a lot! Sometimes some sections are redrawn by AI, and sometimes I do it. The final touch ups, adjustements and consistency is usually done manually.
For the actual generation, I use ComfyUI with an Illustrious checkpoint variant and get my checkpoints and LORA's on CivitAI.
I won't explain what these things are. Look it up! It's pretty interesting.
I run everthing locally, meaning all of this runs on my machine, it does not run in some data center run by big tech.
Up to now, I have found that it's actually pretty difficult to get genAI to generate consistently images and/or complex scenes, so modifying and building scenes using multiple images and photos is necessary.
I would like to talk about this more, and I will post about this as the project moves forward, but I won't elaborate too much here. I am not an AI power-user, so I still have much to learn.
Building the panels and page layouts
I am not an artist, mangaka or anything remotly close to that in real life, but I have decided to do this myself, without genAI. Personally, I use ClipStudioPaint to build the layouts and panels. I admit that I didn't do a super deep search on this subject.
I read a little on the subject of manga page layouts. I downloaded and paid for CSP and started playing with it. I have a feeling this non-preparation will come bite me in the ass later, especially if this thing goes to print (hey, you never know!), but I wanted to get started and just try.
Business and promotional stuff
I guess this website falls in this category. I plan on writing posts myself and posting in different social media. Yes, I will use AI-generated images as extra context for this, but the writing and interactions will be done manually, along with all the other steps described above.
I do use AI however, for social media strategy and helping me manage the little time that I have to work on this project. The AI I use is Lumo, by Proton.
Other details
I am not using a specific artist's style, the checkpoints I picked generate a manga style that feels very generic to me, but if you disagree, please let me know what the style references.
I really do respect artists and their craft.
I look at videos from artists and I think they are amazing at what they do.
I just don't have the time to learn it like they did. And I think that this project would be more interesting and even better if I had an actual artist working on it. The simple truth is that I don't have the money to pay one. But I want to work on the story, and I want it to be a manga, so...
Also, I think that someone with an original story and/or an original drawing style can and will continue to be able to stand out, even with the existence of genAI.
There are a bunch of people out there saying artists should stop drawing, because it's not necessary anymore, and I couldn't disagree more. Innovation and originality still come from humans.
Also, I would like to point out that, regardless of the fact that genAI is used here, it's still a ton of work!
Wait, you are trying to make money off of this too?!?
Yeah, I mean, why not? The whole thing is an experiment!
Also, when you think about it, there are a bunch of things I am doing that take a lot of work. It's taken me hours to come up with a story, and I'm still not done with it. I takes hours to build the manga. Each page, each panel is placed by hand. Yeah, I'm not drawing the images, but using genAI is not a walk in the park either. It hallucinates and often makes weird errors. It cannot do complex things easily. I almost always have to make modifications to images, and often have to compose, combine and redraw section for more or less complex scenes. Also, to keep things consistent, the background is often simply a color like black or white. So these have to be built manually and then "upgraded" through genAI. Anyway, I digress, I do put in a lot of time in this, and time is money?
GenAI is bad for reason X
I do not consider myself and AI accelerationist. I am against it for lots of things. I am a reader of Ed Zitron and I think way too much money (and power) is going into models that could be (and probably already are) used to do bad things. But I'm not against the fundamental of the technology.
That is why I use models locally, on my machine or alternate AIs (like Lumo).
Obviously, I have tried other more known models, but I decided not to continue using them. Except maybe Gemini when I want to cook something.
Also, I really suggest your CivitAI. I'm not sure what the company that is behind it stands for, but the community is very free-style and random. It's basically a bunch of people trying out genAI stuff and posting their work.
And, uhh, why hentai?
Ah, an interesting question!
Because that's what you all want...
No, but seriouly, I really believe sex is an integral part of the human experience, and that, traditionally, people are afraid to use it to tell a story. Yes, this story has nudity and explicit sex, but it's still a story about humans. That are fucking.
That's my attempt here, anyway.
This page is probably too short and is just a bunch of random thoughts. I do plan on updating it as I go.