I believe the artist @ekoshio is tracing Ai
I did post this earlier, but this is a redraft as my explanation clearly came short and was not accessible to non-artists. Admittedly, I got caught up in the moment. Ikeda Daiki is my favorite character, and seeing the VA potentially unknowingly reblogging Ai traced artwork after all that has just transpired? I found it upsetting.
That was irresponsible of me, and I am sorry.
With that said, here is a more in-depth explanation, apologies for the repost. And a reminder, DO NOT HARASS THIS PERSON. block and move on. I have them blocked, and did so before my initial post as well.
The Clothes
Looking at these examples, the creases are odd, they’re placed exceedingly randomly. The construction of the clothes suggests skill without the execution, merely the idea of the thing. They read as if the artist was following a script they couldn't fully understand.
It makes use of what I have come to call ''searching lines'' which I see throughout this artists illustrations as a whole, but is most glaring in the clothes, and is also stylistically exactly how Vonbabbit traces her own work.
There is a chance they simply referenced Vons Ai works. The shading and line weight is identical, so it is a possibility. However what catches me out is the odd perspective, the scarf for example looks as if it is both flowing out from the back side of Ikeda’s neck, and the front. As if it’s lain flat. The mothers arm, also directionally would be poking through her other arm.
Von's use of creases (Example)
Once again, you could absolutely argue this is a stylistic choice. But stylism is done on the basis of being built from something else, what are lines placed without a sense of direction built from? Someone who dose not have the experience to articulate them.
Furthermore it can be seen in the hair. A lot.
The Hair
With the first example, it could be argued they were being sloppy, but when you look at the other two...? Ikeda's hair is behind his mothers hair when it should be in front (A misstep in perspective I noticed a lot personally) and Tei's hair is a scrunched abomination. I have only seen Von do this herself. No one draws hair like this. That is not something you accidentally do.
Lastly, the lines in the middle of the white part of the under-bit of Ikeda's hair in the final example. It suggests they attempted to capture the individual strand look of whatever they were tracing, I don't see why prospectively an artist would include this otherwise.
Also the creasing in the fabric, the right side collar is bleeding into the art peace. The other sides back also has an extra crease as if it's meant to be connected to something.
Von's use of Hair (Example)
Final Thoughts
So many bits of these artwork I cannot wrap my mind around the decisions of. Ikeda's pant strap isn't connected to his pants even.
With that? If you don’t agree you don’t agree, I’m not going to chase people down who disagree its fine. I just don’t want people in this small fandom to feel isolated as they did before with Von, and how there were people who called her out, but of whom were bullied off the internet.
If I am given decent proof? I will take this down and apologize publicly, I mean that sincerely.
But until I get proper evidence this user isn't tracing Ai? We're just gonna have to agree to disagree.
oh come on.
I have them blocked, and did so before my initial post as well.
this is a lie. shio was able to reblog your post, and as poorly maintained as tumblr is, the block function actually works. she should not have been able to reblog your post, let alone see it, if you had blocked her. why are you lying? to save face? or did you attempt to reach out to her after she blocked you to ask, after the first accusation was made? unless you only blocked her on your main account, which you should've done due diligence for that there, but that still isn't an excuse for throwing these accusations around without reaching out first. this is life ruining accusations. and you don't seem to care.
this is a really weird hill to die on when shio has practically confirmed that the picture was modelled after a photo taken of her and her own mother. you demanding to see that proof is a violation of not only her privacy, but a gross overestimation of how much you're entitled to when making this accusation.
let's look at those accusations, while we're at it. because i think it only fair that the whole facts get shared.
The clothing.
you're citing the creases used in clothing as being too odd and random to be deliberately done. you make an implication that shio is incompetent with your wording, which is crass and frankly uncalled for. and before you say i'm putting words in your mouth, i'll paste the literal thing you wrote right here.
Looking at these examples, the creases are odd, they’re placed exceedingly randomly. The construction of the clothes suggests skill without the execution, merely the idea of the thing. They read as if the artist was following a script they couldn't fully understand.
rude. but also showing you yourself don't have a full understanding, once again, of various art styles. all it takes is ten seconds of just taking in what is in the picture to understand what it is without jumping to the conclusion of AI. observe.
this thing you marked here? a fucking pocket. did you want it defined in high definition so you could see it properly? there are coats that have pockets that scrunch up like this when they're brought upwards. you'll also notice that, in real life, when people move around in coats like this, finer details are harder to make out because of the number of creases the human body makes in fabric made to move with someone's positon.
notice the number of shadows and creases in this person's coat? the art shio has posted shows several things, but the biggest of all is this: ikeda and his mother's clothes are ill-fitting, especially his mother's, and ikea has been bundled up in so many layers that it's all creasing under its own weight. more to the point, its showing movement lines in the clothing and making it look worn, not pristine or brand new. shio has taken inspiration from how real world clothing works, and you are twisting it into something malicious because.... von managed to include crease lines in clothing too? be so for real.
and then the mother's beanie. not every beanie is made to be properly compressing, and from the way the clothing has been designed, it's reasonable enough to say that this beanie is also ill-fitting. what shio has taken into account is ikeda's history and his living situation growing up, and once again you're nitpicking at crease lines that don't need to be high definition to understand what shape they're trying to be. she's let the shading fill in the gaps without it being jarring, and she's emphasised that this beanie is not being worn properly by the crease lines and how loosely it fits on mama ikeda's head. what you've circled, once again, is a nitpick. you are nitpicking a stylistic choice to not draw the exact shape of the beanie and to only emphasise the way it's worn down. do you expect it to be perfectly drawn out like an anime character like this or something?
what about the next part?
"why tho?" have you never seen a scarf irl?
snarkiness aside, this is genuinely a case of a scarf being wrapped around him multiple times. there's several scarf styles that can produce this kind of effect, especially if the focal point to fasten the scarf is behind you, not in front. take a look at some styles that can produce this layered effect if fastened behind someone.
the only big thing going on here is the obvious decision to have it be that ikeda's scarf was fastened behind him by his mother. you're not seeing the environmental storytelling in this picture. you're missing the point. the way ikeda has been dressed, and the way his mother is dressed, are meant to illustrate how much they struggle in their day to day life with clothing not meant for them, and how protective ikeda's mother is of him by layering him in more clothing than herself and fastening his scarf from the back for him. he's four in this picture. it's what a mother does.
Your examples of the clothing.
let's start with okazaki here.
you are insinuating that a less than perfectly detailed beanie is the same as vague details that are meant to be fur. you would've had better luck comparing the pom pom on the beanie than the beanie itself to the fur trimming of okazaki's coat. which, i remind you, shio did emphasise the volume of that pom pom by doing more than von did, which was colouring outside the lines to sugget layering of the yarn that made the pom pom. all von has done here is trace the outline of the fur, make it slightly messy, and then add little lines to attempt to suggest volume and texture. von was too neat with the tracing of the fur in the art. what shio has done was deliberately messy to show it's not meant to be a easy shape to replicate.
and then her sleeve. von did not even try to separate sleeve from skin with okazaki. we see with shio that there are clear lines separating clothing from skin, and at the very least clear colours also separating them. this comparison is mean-spirited and what amounts to a strawman to try and support your argument. you've compared a grape to a banana. and then there's the art of ninomiya you provided as well.
all you have done is circle creases. one could argue the knee crease is damning evidence for ninomiya, but what you've circled is not indicative of traced AI artwork. the shirt tucked into the pants? a common style of dress, and while the flatness of the shirt is shown around the waist itself, this is not indicative of shio doing the same. make no mistake, this is not me defending von -- but this is supposed to show that youhei's shirt is oversized and tucked messily into his jeans, just like how ikeda and his mother's clothing are too big for them. yes, von's is more messy and less cohesive, but that's the kicker; it's not cohesive. once again, if you took the time to properly connect the dots and fill the empty space in the lineart, you would see the clothing is clearly layered as it should be and is meant to convey it's not supposed to fit in shio's artwork.
The hair.
this one vexed me, because you've shown a lack of understanding in not only the difference between a more rough sketch and proper, more refined linearting, but also been a bit of a hypocrite yourself with the hair and how it all falls.
to start with this one. shio has clearly done her best to convey how much ikeda's hair is untamed and gets in the way by having him falling asleep with his face in his hair, but also with his hair blending with tei's the closer it gets to his own. that is why there's a layer between ikeda and tei's hair -- and it's also why ikdea and his mother have hair layered over each other. artists do this all the time. hell, i can show you artwork i've had commissioned from artists on this site that i know with my whole chest don't use AI art, and they do the same. it's not as blended because shio clearly didn't want to do that, and wanted to put more emphasis on the hair being all over the place and hard to manage. if you wanted it to all be perfectly separated and each individual strand drawn out, you'd get some very uneven hair and most importantly, it wouldn't look as cohesive on ikeda's head. you are nitpicking someone's art style. and what else did you show, as well? that you don't understand how long, voluminous hair works.
very nice of you to not show that tei is sitting on his hair. very nice of you to not reference that shio draws tei with even curlier hair than ikeda. very nice of you to not acknowledge that long hair will bunch up when it gets caught under things.
don't get me wrong. i can't speak for people with long hair because i've kept it perpetually short for almost my entire life. but it's so very easy to find people with long hair, references of people with longer hair laying down or reclining, and seeing how their hair falls in those positions. do you think hair just falls neatly around a person? do you think curly hair won't try to tangle itself when you sit down in a reclining position? tei's hair is long and it's messy, befitting his part-timer occupation and overworked disposition, and shio is showing how much he doesn't care if it gets tangled underneath him. you're once again missing minor environmental storytelling by attributing something to a character's personality or circumstances to the art itself.
and this one here? what's the evidence here? that shio... spaced his eyes a little weirdly? like all human artists tend to make the error of? that... his hair is weirdly shaped? what is your argument for this, genuinely. you can clearly see that ikeda's hair is fluffed up enough to stick out the way it does while some bunches up around the nape of his neck, and some of it is layered over the collar of his shirt. which you so helpfully "corrected" on a sketch design because you... what? didn't like the way it was drawn? didn't like that shio didn't shade the clothing like she did the hair? do you know how many WIPs get posted with that same level of shading and don't get finished because the artist never gets back to them? do you know how many animatics don't get fully ironed out before being posted?
and the circling of the ear and chin and eyes... what is the issue? that shio's anatomy is off? it's her fucking art style. do you see anyone going to your art and saying "i think you traced over AI generated images because the face structure looks off to me". do you know how condescending that sounds?
you know what, why don't we do that? i'm not being petty with this. i'm emphasising how hypocritical of you this is.
let's use your logic here
what is this strand of hair sticking upright over tei's shoulder? why are his eyes drawn in his hair? what explanation do you have other than "it's my art style"? that it's a stylistic choice?
do you see how unreasonable you are being because you're so convinced someone who just joined the fandom is as nefarious as von? do you understand how horrible that statement is? what is wrong with you?
not to mention, the hair you compared shio's art to is fucking
froot loops erina and her mobieous strip hair. at least we seen the ends of ikeda's hair in shio's art. we see reasonable styling of hair that follows the rule of following the way hair is parted and the potion of the crown of the head. i'm not even going to touch airi's hair, because shio has also shown more separation of hair in her tei and ikeda artwork in comparison to airi.
and i'm going to point out something else you have in the notes for your critique of mama ikeda and her baby.
The stupid arm.
i don't even have words for this. have some actual pictures of people holding babies instead.
wHeRe DiD hEr HaNd Go??!!??!! tRaCeD!!!!1!!!!
come on.
you want to know what i think? what i genuinely think?
i learned some things about you. i learned you harassed someone i'm not naming here for their peace of mind, but i've learned this is not your first time doing this.
I have learned that this is not the first time you've come at someone so aggressively, and with baseless accusations no less. I have learned recently that there were concerns of you spreading false rumours about people, because you have a tendency to take perfectly normal things out of context from other people and then threaten them with them.
you want my honest opinion? of course you don't. but i'm giving it anyway.
the fact that you brought up shio mentioning the VA for ikeda liking her art, and the fact that you went out of your way to justify all of this because ikeda is your blorbo?
you're jealous. you're upset it's not you directly interacting with your favourite character's voice actor, and it shows so, so blatantly with the inclusion of the tweet in the original post. which i still have on my blog, by the way. all visible.
you never planned to apologise to shio. you blocking her was proof of that, by eliminating any attempt she can have at actually getting to the root of this with you. you just wanted to form a mob to drive a new fan out of the fandom so you'd feel less threatened.
grow the fuck up.
came out of my tumblr hibernation to support my Twitter oomfs— shio is an absolute GEM who pours their soul into every work despite their health issues and attempting to ruin their reputation like this with an accusation that has no clear evidence just reads as a disgusting display of petty childishness.
