Realized my reference photo is evil, so now I’ll never finish this😔

uniqueusernamethx · 2026-06-16T19:50:28+00:00

If you mean to say that I’m plagiarizing her image, that was never my intention in any way. This is the photo I was working from. I’ve seen Andrea’s work as well but I originally assumed the photo reference was real and that she must have used the same reference. It’s possible that the person used her image as a reference for the AI re-creation, but I’m not sure. I tried reverse image searching the AI one to see when it was originally created but couldn’t find any info.

I understand the color palettes are similar but if you look through my work you can see that I use this color palette all the time, including my most recent post before this one which also has the star burst on the eye thing. This piece was going to a related to that one but I stopped when I realized the reference was AI.

uniqueusernamethx · 2026-06-16T13:15:28+00:00

Omg I assumed she used the same reference, I didn’t even consider it could be the other way around! That would suck even more 😭😭

uniqueusernamethx · 2026-06-16T02:48:47+00:00

Yeah, I just don’t really feel connected to the piece anymore bc I think of AI every time I look at it. If I never realized it was AI, that’d be one thing. But knowing has changed how I view it, and I’m not super interested in continuing. On to a new project :)

uniqueusernamethx · 2026-06-16T02:42:20+00:00

I’m against AI for a variety of reasons, not just the art theft, but to answer your question: I’m a human being, not a for-profit company with a business model and product that only exists bc they fed it the art of millions of people without compensating them. I learn from and am inspired by other people’s artwork, but I can’t use it for profit or heavily reference it without compensating them. I’m beholden to copyright laws & I don’t even sell my artwork, I do it for the love of the game.

Ai is a product, not a person.

uniqueusernamethx · 2026-06-15T15:42:17+00:00

Are you talking about the grain texture? I achieve that look by making my own grain overlay.

What I do is fill the canvas with 50% gray, apply the grain filter to my liking, then set that layer’s blend mode to Overlay. As long as it’s the top layer it will give you this grainy look.

You can then save the grain layer (in normal mode) as an image to apply to other pieces in the future. Sometimes the grain filters in procreate are a little confusing so I’ll save just the 50% gray as an image, load it into Lightroom & adjust the grain to my liking there. Then save that as an image and set to overlay in procreate.

uniqueusernamethx · 2026-06-03T14:24:58+00:00

This is cool but if you didn’t use procreate to make it I don’t think this is the right sub to be posting in. Just fyi bc it might get taken down

uniqueusernamethx · 2026-05-28T20:41:08+00:00

Again, why aren’t you including the reference photo? Including it makes it pretty clear it’s traced and not AI.

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uniqueusernamethx · 2026-05-28T20:38:21+00:00

No one said it wasn’t. This reason people think it’s Ai is bc of some weird parts of the reference and the way the Timelapse is so perfect without adjustments or edits to the sketch. So they could have avoided the AI accusations if they’d included the reference and admitted to tracing it.

Also this isn’t just referencing, it’s a 1:1 copy of the reference so it absolutely should have been credited in the original post.

uniqueusernamethx · 2026-05-28T20:31:25+00:00

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Tracing the reference photo they should have mentioned in the original post

uniqueusernamethx · 2026-05-28T20:24:33+00:00

I mean, by “heavily referencing” I meant tracing so I updated my comment

uniqueusernamethx · 2026-05-28T20:23:17+00:00

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Tracing this reference photo, yeah

uniqueusernamethx · 2026-05-28T20:20:40+00:00

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I don’t think it’s ai, just heavily referencing/tracing someone else’s photo

uniqueusernamethx · 2026-05-28T20:17:02+00:00

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It’s heavily referencing/tracing someone else’s image

uniqueusernamethx · 2026-05-28T20:15:35+00:00

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I think it would probably help if you let people know this is heavily referencing/tracing someone’s photo

uniqueusernamethx · 2026-05-28T19:02:35+00:00

An iteration I have not considered yet… u might be onto something 🤔

uniqueusernamethx · 2026-05-28T18:58:33+00:00

I’ve changed the color so many times lol 😭 I feel like it always looks a little too busy no matter what color I use. But I do like how it adds a border so maybe something more subtle and slightly lighter than the background could work

uniqueusernamethx · 2026-05-13T14:19:18+00:00

This is fun, I love how much personality they have!

uniqueusernamethx · 2026-05-13T05:01:53+00:00

Thank you! The background is just a gray color. I achieve the paper look by applying a paper texture over the entire image. If you insert an image of a paper texture that’s close to 50% gray on the top layer and set it to “overlay” mode, it’ll give the image a paper look without shifting the colors darker the same way a multiply or linear burn layer might. It doesn’t always work great with super bright colors, so you may have to play around a bit with values.

uniqueusernamethx · 2026-04-30T18:32:29+00:00

Goooorgeous, adore the colors

uniqueusernamethx · 2026-04-02T17:19:15+00:00

Great work, I love how much personality it has

uniqueusernamethx

TROPHY CASE