[00:01] making some artwork, or is this a situation where somebody is being very hypocritical on the points that they claim to believe in? Let's delve into the situation about this author and everything unraveling around them. And
[00:15] Don't bully people. Don't contact this person. Don't be weird. So, it was kind of like circulating around the internet a month ago on the backbone of some other controversies that happened. An example is this post where OP writes, "I
[00:28] can't believe an author who has helped an artist uncover a certain AI-generated image scam is an AI tracer themselves. The irony of that is almost funny, if not sad. I don't understand why you would open commissions with traced AI
[00:41] images and scam your fellow authors knowing how painful it is to lose were asking for who it was, and OP was just DMing people probably just because big public callout. And then, a day later, they make this post writing, "Hi
[00:56] feedback. I'm sorry about my vague threads. I thought it was going to be fault, and I will do better. I want nothing more than to protect authors and fighting all the prompters. Photos one and two. These were both uploaded the
[01:10] same month two weeks apart. It doesn't make sense. I believe the first photo is entirely drawn by her." So, here we have the first post, and this is posted to an account called Corvus and Flame. The page has now gone. The Corvus and Flame
[01:23] was the account belonging to the author, author LCB. And you can see we have two artworks here. Here is a rendering for a face. Again, it's a drawing of somebody know, they have a specific style for their shading, the way they draw their
[01:36] hair, etc. Two weeks later, they have this sort of charcoal illustration. Boy, looks different. And again, disclaimer I want to add, artists are allowed to draw Many artists do. So, just because an artist posts a work that's in like a
[01:49] different style, doesn't mean they generate images with AI or are tracing. That on its own is a really, really bold accusation to make. But we can see here 2 weeks apart, but they look like they display a different skill level. We have
[02:02] this face kind of drawn in. You know, there are some anatomical mistakes. I'm not saying it's bad by any means, but these two faces here, the pose for these is turned down, etc. The anatomy and styling of the faces look different.
[02:16] Kind of as if somebody else drew it. OP writes, "Pics 3 and 4 both have great she colored this herself, but I believe she traced these." In pic 3, you can see how thick their collar bone is. No line
[02:28] this level of anatomy, your coloring and rendering usually go hand in hand. So, here we have this piece here. We can see the very thick line weight. Again, some people do choose to draw with a very thick line weight. It is kind of like an
[02:41] artistic choice some people will choose to make. What I think is interesting is there's like oddities in this piece. And again, I will add, right, like people do make human errors all the time. People do forget things. So, that on its own is
[02:55] not a red flag. But, what I find interesting is that in the quiver on this character's shoulder, there are five arrow shafts, which is the stick part of the arrow. And we see four fletchings. Four sets of fletchings,
[03:10] right? One, two, three, and a fourth one peaking out on the bottom. There is a fifth arrow here, which means there should be a fifth set of fletchings visible, and there just isn't. So, AI has a tendency to have things disappear
[03:24] behind other things, and they don't reappear after. So, is this image AI? No, I think this is drawn. Is this traced off of AI? Now, it definitely could be possible. But, on its own, giving the benefit of the doubt, this
[03:36] these arrow shafts, and you just forgot, you know, how many you added. I do agree in that we do have a higher level of anatomy visible here, you know, with then the line work and the way the shading is a little bit more
[03:51] beginner-ish, more intermediate-ish. But again, right? People draw differently. Here we have another one. This art piece has the same sort of like line work styling that we see in the previous piece. There are some other things that
[04:04] are a little bit interesting in this piece. Again, the way that it's drawn is also like different. These two were posted the same day. So, I think it's disclaimers, right? Because like I'm pointing these out because we'll see
[04:17] more stuff down the line that look a lot more like head-scratchy, like, "Hmm, both of these pieces are posted the same day. Just because an art piece is posted that day. It typically is drawn before and then posted together. But they
[04:30] probably were drawn around the same window of time. What I think is they're drawn very differently even though they're supposed to be drawn Look at the ear for this character. The ear anatomically is incorrect. There is
[04:43] this like divot here on the side of the ear that just doesn't exist unless you have a scar. The ear for this guy is drawn really differently even though both of these two characters are supposedly drawn around the same time.
[04:55] And the line weight choice is also very different where the thick line art is elements use a lot thinner line art. Notably, the collar bone uses a pretty thin line weight. Whereas for this piece, it's really heavy the way the
[05:09] collar bone is drawn in. So, I just find that interesting. Again, there can be you start drawing it, you forget what brush size you use for your previous be a little bit different. But I just think like from a stylistic standpoint,
[05:22] it's a notable choice to go to a brush and then make your brush a lot smaller versus like use a really heavy-handed brush for the collar bone specifically. So then, we have other details that are a little bit odd where maybe they didn't
[05:36] belt holes on both sides of the belt where there's belt holes here and then, right? This is the tail of the belt. It will wrap all the way around and then we have the side with the buckle. The belt holes are not on the side of the buckle.
[05:49] they're on the side of the buckle, that means you're strapping the belt around basically they're going to wrap around my crochet hook. Belts for the most it looks like that, they don't work that way. So, we ask the question a lot of
[06:03] times, right? When we look at is this AI generated or traced off of AI or is it consider. So again, just inconsistent art styles or inconsistent lightweight "Hey, that's something wrong, right?" But you ask the question, would a human
[06:16] draw this? You know? Would a human add all of these dots with the bow? They could have accidentally goofed up and forgot. That's possible. It could be, right? Would a human forget to draw these flutchings here? That also could
[06:29] characters and then get the ear completely different between character A these two characters are drawn around the same time? A little less likely for me to believe that. OP continues, "Photo six, you can see disappearing claws.
[06:43] This is the cover of one of their books. And the dragon most definitely is looking a little AI generated. Very AI generated, actually. The dragon on the tip of the wing has a talent only on one wing. There is no talent on the other
[06:57] essentially for like large animals like this like bats is like essentially it's like an arm and then the fingers are really really elongated. They become really long and these end up being the wing. Every animal works differently.
[07:10] anatomies. There are some bats where the rest of the hand is just hand. It's pretty cool. So you have the finger elongation essentially for the structure of the wing, but only for the right
[07:22] Like the dragon's right and left, sorry. Then we have the claws. The dragon's right arm has five claws. 1 2 3 4 and one. This dragon here on the left arm has 1 2 3 and the fourth one melts into
[07:38] the word. And the back foot has four. We got an inconsistent number of claws here. Now, what's interesting is there was no like mention or tag for the cover bunch of random book accounts are tagged, but none of them are like an
[07:51] artist artist. So, I don't know if it's a situation where like they hired a cover artist and then the cover artist scammed them, or they made the cover artist using Gen AI and that's why it's the dragon looks the way that it does. I
[08:03] will also add, looking at the full picture, you can see on the dragon's left wing, there actually is the little finger filaments for the wings, so that to me it looks very AI-generated. Again, incorrect number of claws and the talent
[08:15] is just notably missing on one of the dragon's wings. So, OP adds picture six. AI-generated images so far cannot make two characters look at each other. Also, means she supposedly knows what line weight it is, but there's no consistency
[08:29] throughout her art. That's this one. Where we have these two characters where they're not. He's looking at her forehead and she's looking at his nose. And again, like if you drew these characters or like you were drawing two
[08:42] longingly looking into each other's eyes, you could draw the two characters looking at each other, you know, if you drew it yourself. And that's typically this AI-generated, is it not? Again, like, you know, artists can draw
[08:55] or maybe if intentionally it looks like they're supposed to be looking not into most definitely look like they should be looking into each other's eyes. And point about this book cover, like word on the street has it a whole bunch of
[09:09] the author said they commissioned somebody to make a cover and didn't know an explanation for this one. Now, the author had made a post that is also now I remember reading it. But, they said something along the lines of explaining
[09:24] page. And essentially they said something along the lines of, "Hey, I educated on why it's bad, so now I don't use it." And that they said that they used Canva in the past as well, and that Canva has AI generated assets on there.
[09:39] And they said that they unknowingly used AI generated assets without knowing it's will make the argument in the right field year of 2026, you should know generated imagery and stuff is bad. It harms artists, harms the environment.
[09:53] There are cases where people genuinely didn't know. At least like in this paths. You can choose the path of just like burn everything down. You shouldn't have done the da da da. Or we could choose the path of kindness, of hey, you
[10:07] know, like I would hope that you knew that it was bad, but if you didn't know, you didn't know. Now that you know that it's bad, let's not use it ever again. Yay. You know, I think there can be forgiveness given to people who just
[10:19] there's a whole nuance thing again about like you should have known this, but in many, many scenarios that I think can lead to situations where it's a little bit unfair. So, I try to give the benefit of the doubt in that truly
[10:33] potentially you genuinely had zero education and you were not on the about how bad gen AI is, which is like every day. And you genuinely just didn't that you know, let's not use it. But another user had left a comment writing,
[10:47] just really want to ask. The post that I was shown that has clearly used AI and other tracing seem to have been posted recently." And that is this post. The sale where they're selling commissions. And as you can see, as we look closer at
[11:03] the commissions, there are some interesting elements. They are older art pieces this person has made, I believe. Like this was a post that they have like 36 weeks ago featuring some of these pieces. So, we can see some here. But as
[11:16] we're scrolling, their drawings have a really, really strong AI tell. It has a lot of the styling that you would see with gen AI. And of course, I'm going to say, right? Gen AI came after artists. So, there are legit artists who draw
[11:30] like this that had their artwork stolen and AI was trained on their work and course, that's something we should keep in mind. Typically though, when that is the case, you will see that the artist drew in this style before AI existed.
[11:44] And there is no evidence of that coming from this author. Now, again, it could be possible they like this style and they started learning how to draw in this style and unfortunately it's now co-opted by AI. That definitely could be
[11:56] true, but there's a lot of tells in this that it looks like it was AI-generated images that the author then traced over. We have a lot of the same looks of the really like dead stare where they're seemingly looking away at nothing. Like
[12:10] this person is looking at some omniscient being that us viewers can't see. We have this character, another really, really solid dead stare. And again, I just want you to note the style of the way these are drawn are all
[12:23] really different. Because this character uses a lot of color blocking with a lot of black to block shadows. Like in the undercut of the hair, it's all blocked in. Same thing with like parts of the armpits and part of like her dress has a
[12:37] really long sleeve that is all like blacked out as well. That is an art style and it's a design choice that people will choose to use. And the artist doesn't draw like this. Like none of the other pieces feature this style
[12:49] and it's a pretty notable styling distinction to do this. And again, if we see here, why is every single style really different? Like somehow they look And this is what I mean, right? They look similar because I believe that this
[13:04] there's a similarity because they are choosing similar colors, like all the shades of lighter gray for the cloaks, the similar way they color in the face because they chose those colors. But where it starts looking different is the
[13:18] actual structural anatomy of the characters because I believe that it's traced. This character, this character, and this character, these three have the very stereotypical like Disney cartoon character face. Then this character, the
[13:32] underside of the hair, the shading, she's giving a lot more like Disney villain look. And then we again have another like Disney Pixar character. And then kind of more like gothic anime. And then we have some of these line work
[13:45] drawings that are in a different style as well. Like this guy looks more semi-realistic than cartoony. And again, I'm not saying people can't draw in different art styles because people do. It's just if you're an artist and you do
[13:58] draw like different variations, like a realistic piece, a chibi piece, an anime through. And the art style includes color choice, brush choice, line weight choice, and design choices. And in the design choices of the way we see the
[14:13] face being structured, the face being drawn, there is no consistency across that was made by an account called Book of Scammers Referral writing, "Never thought I'd have to make this post nor do I want to, especially after receiving
[14:26] backlash for a very private callout. However, I don't like artists openly money. And please remember that even close victims of scams can scam back. the internet all the time. That's what people all be doing. It's a favorite
[14:39] hobby, okay? So, they add, "Why I think Author LCB is a tracer. Alleged AI usage contact, don't harass anybody. Don't be weird. Don't do that. So, disclaimer again, this is not a call to harassment. It's simply to warn others. And again,
[14:53] It's not a big deal, right?" Well, I think scams are a big deal at the end of the day. And this person was offering commissions and telling people that everything was handmade. They're vehemently anti-AI. They've posted AI
[15:06] callouts for other people allegedly where they're pointing out, you know, conversations about asking people if they're using AI. So, OP adds commission features many different styles. Semi-realism, cartoon, Disney, Ghibli,
[15:19] an artist of this level. As you can see, some of the style is similar because in of the color selection, the line weight it gets really, really odd is the way all the faces are drawn because all the
[15:33] different people. And OP adds, in fact, there's a big discrepancy between the and the coloring abilities. Now they add work in progress as versus final pieces. Examples of past use of AI for promotional art. 1 2 3 and then on the
[15:47] bottom, most definitely AI generated. Wow. So here we have the top. All three Wow. So here we have the top. All three of these images are drawn by author LCB. But the bottom are the AI images that she was referencing and possibly tracing
[16:00] over. In some aspects, I definitely think that tracing is used, right? This one, maybe you could argue this was a reference between this face and the guy possibly is a reference. These two on top versus the two girls on the bottom,
[16:15] this to me looks traced. The placement of the teeth especially, it's way too similar. Like way too similar the way the teeth are drawn. The nose shading, etc. It's literally as if she just turned the opacity of these down and
[16:27] then drew over it in Procreate, okay? The hair is drawn completely differently. It doesn't look as traced, it looks hand drawn as you take in the context of like the hair, the render, whatever. But then you look at elements
[16:39] off. And then we have the final piece, okay? And this one to me is the biggest giveaway that tracing was used because look at the anatomy of the face. The face anatomy is spot on. Likely because the image below was traced. And then
[16:54] they did some due diligence in drawing in the blanks in some aspects. Like the The hand, they drew in themselves, which is why the hand for the guy looks really, really off compared to the anatomy of the face. Again, hands are
[17:07] hard to draw, it's fine if you mess it up. But the confusing part is why the face anatomy is so good structurally, but the structural anatomy of the hands are so off. And then the anatomical errors were also drawn in. As you can
[17:21] see in the guy, he has a collar. AI loves to give male characters like a bajillion collars for some reason. So he's got one, two, three. Only on one his top. He has a right collar, but not three. He just has one. And the author
[17:36] drew in this AI error. They drew in the triple collar on the left and the single character. Which shows that you're just mindlessly tracing. Now, this also opens is tracing okay na na na na right? This is at least my personal take and again
[17:51] your mom. I can't tell you what to do. Like tracing to learn is fine. A lot of artists do that. Don't post it and claim it as your own. Don't post it anywhere in fact. If you traced work that isn't yours, in my opinion it shouldn't see
[18:05] the light of day. Secondly, is tracing AI okay? Generative AI images? I don't generative AI. In my opinion, you're not generative AI images because they have so many errors in it and you won't know
[18:18] why it's wrong. And in general, even the argument of tracing to learn, if you trace things without like learning off the tracing, you're not learning. For And you're like, "I'm going to trace the two faces." And you trace it one to one.
[18:34] You don't really learn by doing that. You're essentially playing a really okay? If you loosely trace you like circle the head, you know, you mark where the mouth is going to be and then you use your due diligence to draw over
[18:47] whatever. You just kind of used it as like a body blocking for like initial positioning for like where like the eyes should go. You're learning, right? If whatever you want to do, bro. That's your own pictures. So next up we have
[19:00] black dragon work in progress has been used by LCB to disprove tracing lapse of her drawing this in some side by sides being like, "Oh look, like this first time I've drawn like a mythical creature, so forgive me for why it looks
[19:14] dragon is hand-drawn, it doesn't match the skill or style-wise to previous artworks that have been identified as AI tracing. Her proof shows her lack in knowledge in anatomy and serves as proof against her own claim of authenticity.
[19:28] her page that she also claims to have drawn. So, here on the left we have this. And most definitely, these two are not drawn by the same person, without a doubt. Unless something was traced for these two. These dragons are arguably,
[19:42] for the most part, right? Like dragon anatomically correct. This dragon, hey, it's got its charm, but this face and this face are not the same. It's not, Again, I hope my intention is coming across because in no way, shape, or form
[19:56] should you make fun of artists for their skill level or belittle artists for like Again, like I said, all ethically made human art is beautiful, and all point that I hope is coming across is the fact that this skill level that
[20:10] she's exhibiting is, at best, like an intermediate artist, right? Which is intermediate. These two drawings are dragons for a living, and they've been drawing dragons for like the last 2
[20:22] These two are not the same. So, next up, we have some time lapses. Here we have deleted. And it reads, "Those are two distinct videos. First, for this rough finished detailed sketch and straight into coloring and rendering. This also
[20:37] showed before in sense. Nor did the anatomy and details match the rendering and overall understanding, either. I will add, to me, it's a red flag if they're like, "Oh, I can disprove it with some speed paints." and they drop
[20:50] speed paints that have cuts in them, where you jump from like one part of the process to another. Now, again, I want to add another disclaimer, okay? There's for one reason or another, device memory low, they have no memory on their iPod,
[21:03] at 20 layers, so they keep opening brand new canvases to keep drawing. I tablet had no memory. I've been there, but I will add that if you're under suspicion of tracing and then the time
[21:15] lapse you provide has all these jump cuts, it's not going to disprove the tracing allegations because if we go from block sketch to boom now we have a applied and we don't see anything in between, how are we going to know you
[21:28] So here we have some more speed paints that look a bit suspicious. This is assume the t-shirt girl was drawn the same way this one was. So here we can see an illustration, again it's deleted as far as I know, where the author is
[21:42] immediately starts drawing in the nose and the mouth and she knows exactly have a sketch, we don't have a base layer, we don't have any body blocking, nothing. And again, every artist draws differently. Some artists don't do any
[21:56] any body blocking. Some artists, you know, they go straight into it and that would have to do some sort of modification if you draw like that. sort of resizing, some sort of undoing. You won't get everything perfect on the
[22:10] first go because it just doesn't work like that. But somehow this person can. Somehow this person is so good they can do what even professional artists can't the canvas goes exactly where it
[22:22] belongs. Here we have another time lapse sketch. They have a reference photo in the bottom and they immediately start drawing. Oh, wait. Whoa, hold on. What what? They start body blocking here. They do the head shape, the circles for
[22:35] the arms, circles for the hands. They suddenly do body blocking. And this is also red flag for people whose artwork is likely traced because the way they I said, right? Artists are allowed to change. They're allowed to decide, oh I
[22:48] want to try grayscale, I don't know. But what you find with the tracers is that speed paints for some reason starts differently. Also the head blocking, really weird. I've never seen anybody block it in like that, but maybe there's
[23:01] there's reference to another time lapse that we can't see anymore because it's everything is drawn differently because look at how this character's body is blocked out. We have circles for the shoulders, circles for the hips that are
[23:14] in like the crotch area, circles for the elbows that become this face that later become this face that becomes this Come on, man. And it reads, "We have here a {dot} that suddenly jumps to a modified version of the sketch where the liquify
[23:28] tool has been heavily used. Although a good tool, that's not how a typical perfectly clean sketch being drawn on top." Look at the way the liquify tool was used. This guy This guy became one of those like waving
[23:41] shops that are like, "Come here. Buy our car today." The end result of all her time lapses and the art she put up on her page showcase good enough anatomy, sketching process. This is making us conclude that she's tracing. Sorry, I'm
[23:55] the post adds, "Another example of inconsistency. No hand matches technique, anatomy, or the process. And somehow one hand has six fingers." Can human artists actually draw six fingers? Yes. But, how come this person somehow
[24:08] makes like all of the mistakes that are really, really indicative of AI with no time lapses that alleviates the suspicion, and time lapses with jump tool is used, and characters that can't look at each other in the eyes. So, next
[24:21] up, we have some merch. And they add, "Before LCB purged her art accounts, which was the Corvus in Flame, this is what her Instagram feed looked like. She merch." And again, the post adds, "I've
[24:33] for this specific case, and so I did. That's it for us." And somebody posted another screenshot of like the face from the time lapse. And OP writes, "Listen, it's a very good one for a beginner artist. I'll give that. But, please."
[24:45] were posting about openings for commissions. This was like 9 months ago. Commissions closed for detailed. Here's examples of their detailed artwork." And again, look at the left and right. These two are not drawn by the same person
[24:59] the left has a much higher skill level at rendering than the person on the right. These two are not drawn by the same person unless there is like multiple years in between. And it says no AI. And honestly, I mean, Nita
[25:11] continue down their page, watch me draw two characters from my Romantasy, and then we look at the speed paints, and it's just blatant tracing. Like, why are rest of the head? Like, look at the way they're drawing the hair. [laughter]
[25:24] middle is empty, and then they fill in the middle with some of the extra stuff they're tracing in. We even have the hair looping back in on itself again. Beautiful. And yeah, I mean, their whole page was like rampantly full of gen AI
[25:36] stuff. And they have posts like this, you know, "I've been working on my book, obviously AI-generated image, which is statement where they said, "Oh, I didn't
[25:48] know AI was bad, but now I know it's bad, so I stopped using it." Because if you didn't know AI was bad, why weren't you just posting it and admitting to it? But here they post this image, and they claim art credit me. So they're claiming
[26:01] they drew this when they did it, which they're claiming this to try to hide the fact that it's AI-generated, which means the only reason you would hide something it's bad or that being associated with it is going to be wrong. Either you know
[26:14] gen AI is bad and you're lying about it back then, right? Or two, you are trying to get clout for being an artist, and you're maybe dissatisfied with your with AI and you're claiming that you drew it so you can get some clout. So
[26:29] So, at the end of the day, don't bully, don't harass, don't contact anybody, but just note that if you do commission this person, you may not be getting something that is fully handmade because it looks like, in my opinion, tracing was
[26:42] involved. So, at the end of the day, what are your thoughts on this? Because a lot of people were hesitant to talk about the situation, especially on support, essentially, because people kind of felt that it was like, "Oh,
[26:55] these are like some evil artists that are attacking this poor author." And the an artist, and they support artists. And like, two things can be true at once. for some reason, trace a bunch of stuff. I don't know why. Instead of just
[27:08] drawing it yourself without tracing, because this person can draw, right? So, I don't know. But, that kind of happened. So, I think nobody talked callout happened, and it was kind of
[27:21] this is the proof. This is the evidence." So, at the end of the day, comment section down below. And if you want to hear about it. So, anyways, if you like this video, I appreciate it if
[27:33] you like and subscribe. My weird sunburn is slowly healing. It's going to take a Instagram. I'm trying to get my Instagram to 100k. We're slowly growing on there. Yippee. And I also stream on Twitch 3 days a week, Mondays, Saturdays
[27:46] at 6:00 p.m. PSD, or Thursdays at 7:30, where I do a podcast with my friend. So, I'll have to catch you all there, or in another video. Peace.