Fake Procreate Brush Scams — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:01] people scamming with gen AI in any way possible. And one of those ways is scamming with brushes. So, let's delve into a couple situations because it's just funny, but also sad that like this is now happening. So, we have this post

[00:16] from this account called Ethan Romano or Glip Brush writing, "This is so funny." And they're posting a video that on first glance, it looks like Ethan's character. This looks like it's Reese from Chainsaw Man. And they take a

[00:29] little meme face, shrink that meme face down, and then use it to form the lips for this character. On first glance, cute, funny. And then it ends with a little slide that says, "Discover these brushes." And Ethan writes, "Perfect

[00:42] Procreate brushes in my link in bio." This is already odd because this is already not ethical 101, taking somebody else's video. And albeit sure, Ethan gave credit. They named them as Amelia Harper. But he's advertising his brushes

[00:58] in somebody else's video. In fact, if you go to his page, that's largely what his page is about. He doesn't seem like he's Chinese, but we've got a Chinese This was a Xiaohongshu tutorial posted by another user, which is not Ethan.

[01:13] Here's another Chinese tutorial on this time how to render hair. And he says, "Oh, na-na Procreate art." Another post. This is another art video by user M. Syrian. So, his whole account is just taking other people's artwork and

[01:26] videos, posting it to Twitter, albeit with a tag. And then immediately advertising his brush packs beneath it. And people looked and noticed, "Wait a sec, his brush pack looks a little sus. It looks a little scammy." First off,

[01:39] why is the background image and stuff all looking really AI-esque? Again, can be a little bit vague, right? Especially if you are not an artist or not super familiar with art. A couple of things that make something look AI is

[01:52] typically there's kind of like a dead or soulless look to it. Secondly, things it. Most artists do not put yellow filters over their art. There are some then three, you will also find anatomical mistakes in the art piece.

[02:07] draw. If we take a look, you know, it's a little bit of an eye spy, right? Look at this cup of utensils, like pens and brushes. What is this? This is like a paintbrush with a pencil tip coming out of it. And then we have this, I guess,

[02:20] super tidy pencil. Like half the pencil is white for some reason. You don't again, a big thing you see when people advertise their brushes is you would see them using the brush in their videos,

[02:33] single video of Ethan drawing with these brushes, but somehow they've got a Gumroad with these brushes visible. He has also this post where he writes, "The available. Brushes for sketching, line art, shading, glow, textures, and

[02:46] effects made for anime artists." And if you look closely, this also looks super, super AI in a very different art style. This is the very common AI-esque art style you would find. And again, how do you tell? One really notable one is the

[03:01] got cauliflower ear and that he was punched in the ear a couple times too many. You don't often find artists drawing ears like this. And if you go to Ethan's Linktree, there's another ultimate brush pack with another woman

[03:13] that also looks really AI generated. This one has the really yellowish filter errors that look odd. She's wearing a choker and it just disappears halfway rest of the choker go? Maybe it's in the shadow, but that's kind of odd and drawn

[03:28] very interestingly. And then Ethan got clocked. This account writes, "Beware, artists' work without permission are starting to promote their scam brush kits. These are clearly AI images. Please block these accounts." And

[03:41] thankfully, as of now, Ethan's Gumroad is not available. Don't send hate to anybody, but bro is scamming beyond scamming and falsely advertising with other people's work, which is just scummy. And then we have this artist by

[03:53] the name of Yellowness. I already have a video two videos I think about them. space. They are an artist that does semi-realism and they've been around good hands, and they've been selling brushes actually since 2015. But, what

[04:06] they started doing once AI became popular, allegedly, right, is like generating works and then using the eraser method. So, they will take their brushes, they will actually use them, but they would use it as an eraser and

[04:18] erase a sketchy layer on top of their artwork to make it look like if the you things the way that they're drawing. But, what they're actually doing is erasing the layer on top. Kind of crummy example, this is like an art piece that

[04:31] I did a little while ago, but they'll do like, "Oh my god, look, if you paint with my brush, you can draw just like me. Wow, wow, look. Look, my brush can though brushes typically only paint with one color. Yeah, I have the color yellow

[04:48] selected. Ignore that. I'm drawing, guys. How how dare you say that, you know? Wow, wow, look at me. Yippee." That's what they were doing in a lot of their videos. Again, the whole thing with them actually is that they can draw

[05:00] started doing the AI stuff for some reason. Maybe just to crank out more artworks faster. Next up on the list, we have this person. Oh boy, they have this video where they're showing themselves rendering an art piece that they drew.

[05:16] And mainly, they're just putting flat colors on top of clipping layers that see them use any of the brushes they're advertising in here. They're literally are some of their brushes they have. Okay, and they put in like I guess some

[05:30] like a sparkle brush down the line. That's kind of like about it because they use the sparkle brushes, poof, all of a sudden the skin is already rendered. Bing. And we just see them use a couple of sparkles. Nice. And they're

[05:43] advertising their Procreate brushes as something you can buy on their patreon. This person, this account, oh boy, is an account that we will talk about. The videos are going to come up. These are all filmed actually on the same day. So,

[05:57] there is a massive exposé about this artist and I've recorded a video for it and it's 2 hours long pre-edit. So, I'll have the video linked down below don't know the order of it. But, this person is a notorious AI scammer tracer,

[06:12] person is a notorious AI scammer tracer, allegedly. And also very toxic and has we've already called out on this account. So, they're selling brushes and this is the scam, right? They first start AI generating images, faking speed

[06:26] paints to make it look like they drew it, and then they make a patreon, and then, you know, the patreon has all the NSFW stuff. Again, no flame if you do commissions that are really, really expensive. Again, artists are allowed to

[06:38] charge whatever prices they want, but then half the time you get AI generated then the final group is that they start selling brushes. You know, milk as much money as possible from this whole situation. Again, there's going to be a

[06:51] 2-hour video about this person because this is a massive rabbit hole. They have so much evidence against them and there's proof of this person going on telegram bragging about how they're scamming. So, yeah. And of course, the

[07:03] final one of all, the Etsy sellers. The AI Etsy sellers that are selling AI generated stuff. This account is called Punica Designs Co. 80+ storybook illustration kit, 61 brushes, 25 palettes. This image is not a good sign

[07:18] if the artwork you're advertising your brushes with looks really AI. Again, statement. The anatomy of what's going on in this image does not make sense. There is one random star stuck to the book. We have a block with a weird stump

[07:33] coming out of it. And then we have a pillow with stars. And half the stars and then rubbed over it. Not a great start. We have images showing you how to draw and they have brushes that you can use for this. Where does again weird

[07:48] artifacting happening on the image? She's again got a pattern flower dress and the flowers just like fall apart right here. What's happening here? some reason. We have this one. You're telling me that you know how to make

[08:02] brushes so well, but somehow you can't draw her holding the lantern correctly. and the thumb is somehow like stuck under the lantern. The angle of the thumb is completely wrong. You'd hold it like this, not like that. Not to mention

[08:14] all the crisscrossing across the dress. They don't match up at all. Yeah, we got eyeball. Again, human errors are real. They do many human errors happening? We've got Santa with five fingers on one hand and

[08:28] can tell is if you go to the account that's selling it, they have no history of another social media account doing art and they have a bajillion trillion brushes. 100 hair stamps, 100 nail stamps, 100 female heads, 30 fine line

[08:42] like a bajillion different styles. Like fine line tattoo styles, plus very semi-realistic anime-esque looking characters, plus children's books styles, plus abstract art styles. You really could do it all. And yeah, if

[08:56] looking real suspicious. We've got another account. 1,000 glitter brushes on sale for only $2.30. That's another telltale sign. If it sounds way too good to be true. Some brushes can be made pretty quickly. A thousand though? For a

[09:11] thousand brushes, that would take a hell of a long time. You would sell it for way more than $2. Or if you're looking at the before sale price, still that should be way more than $9.50. Not to mention again, the really AI looking

[09:24] graphic. Well, another way you can tell, everything is like super bright and colors in it. Like what are the odds every single glitter piece is a brushes aren't going to look like this. Because when you use a brush and you

[09:38] only one color. Unless you like have a overlay layer or something, then it will modify the colors. But, it simply just like to me false advertising because they're adding effects onto the brush.

[09:52] the brush. That's the brush plus it overlay layer on top of it plus a blend mode. Plus you add a different brush to add the sparkles on top of that. You advertising something, typically you advertise the use of it. When people

[10:05] advertise a brush, they advertise one stroke to show you if you make one Cuz it's not going to look like this. This is like too many colors. And if you go to their page, the really really really AI looking banner with words

[10:17] melting into each other, thumbnails melting into each other, icons that the icons should probably be the dead giveaway. If not her hands melting into that's something I don't know. Also, why is there a hand in her head? Just just

[10:31] curious. Another one by the same account, Minty Graphics. Here's another set they have. 500 plus Procreate whimsical brushes with a really anime girl with like seven fingers octopussing around the Apple Pencil that is somehow

[10:45] double-ended with a pencil tip on either end. Oh, boy. And what in the artifacts >> This is so AI generated. >> The amount of scamming that's happening writes, "After downloading this brush bundle, I was looking at all the sets

[10:58] and I came across a set that was created by an artist I have followed for over 10 years and have already purchased their brushes. This seller didn't even bother changing the name or even look closely at the brushes. One brush has

[11:10] times. I'm frustrated as an artist that somebody stole the work from other artists and is selling it as their own. Don't buy from this seller. And the original artist is one called Cozy Cottage. Where in their brush they have

[11:24] an instruction that says these brushes with the add blend mode layer. And you can see it was stolen and credited to made by Minty Graphics. So, not only are they using AI to make these things, they're also stealing from actual

[11:38] artists who made brushes. And under another brush pack, 7,500 plus Procreate Stamps, again being sold for $2.60. Come on. No way you drew all of these and you're selling 7,000 plus artworks for only $2. There's a one-star review,

[11:52] is the same package stolen from another seller. I can't believe I spent money on stuff I already have." So, do your due diligence, guys, because these AI scams guys might be like, "Well, how do people fall for this? Like, this should be so

[12:06] draw." And if you can't draw, you just you look at it, you're like, "Well, it looks handmade to me. Bog." And then you buy it and you find out you got scammed. So, the biggest tells, again, look at

[12:18] the context clues. Way too many artworks and brushes being sold for way too cheap. They're dropping brushes really, really quickly with no past history of doing artwork. And that's the big one. No Instagram, no account, no Twitter,

[12:31] nothing with examples of their artwork, you know, to show that they have can make these brushes for you. And then also read, read, read the reviews reviews a lot of times will reveal, obviously, a scam or something with

[12:45] scammed." So, do your due diligence, stay diligent, and I'm really sorry to vigilant, guys. And with that, if you like this video, I'd appreciate it if check me out on Etsy. I have digital art there like emotes and overlays, frog

[13:00] have a coffee with free resources like a free sponsorship guide. And I stream on Twitch 3 days a week, Mondays and Saturdays at 6:00 p.m. PST and Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. PST where I do a podcast with my friend. Hope to catch you all

[13:13] there or in another one of my videos. Peace.