I Made Webtoon Backgrounds with an Image-Generating AI and It Gave Me Goosebumps
I draw as a hobby, but drawing backgrounds is the hardest part, so I tried getting AI to do it.
I put in the prompt 'rainy night alley, neon signs, anime style,' and it came out exactly with the vibe I wanted. I made some detailed edits in Photoshop, but it cut the time to a quarter.
Now I'm working by having AI do backgrounds and drawing the characters myself, and I'm pretty happy with it. How far do you all go with AI art?
10 answers
Oh, I'm kind of jealous lol I always get stuck on backgrounds too.
I work similarly. I generate the backgrounds with AI, separate them into layers, and just tweak the perspective, and something that would really take half a day gets done in about an hour. That said, if you want to use the same alley across multiple cuts, the key is to lock the seed and put 'same location, different angle' in the prompt. Otherwise, the buildings look different in each cut, which makes readers feel a sense of disconnect.
Well, that’s a bit... Even if the background quality itself improves, when you put it together with the artist’s style, it feels out of place—don’t you feel that yourself?
Got a source? I'd like to see the result.
I don't agree. The moment you use AI backgrounds, that work stops being 'a drawing I made.' Readers are sharp-eyed these days, so they'll all notice. Being convenient and improving your skills are two different things, in my view.
Agreed. The person above also has a point, but if you're just at the hobby stage, I think just prioritizing efficiency is the right call. Unless you're aiming to go pro, there's no reason to stress yourself out working on backgrounds.
How much of the detail work did you do in Photoshop? For me, when I generate with AI, the lines come out smudged, so I end up redrawing everything anyway. Could you share your retouching workflow?
I'm the opposite. I intentionally draw backgrounds myself. Generating them with AI is convenient, but at some point it stopped feeling like my art and started feeling like just a prompt output, and the fun really died. Still, if it's a hobby, I guess everyone has their own way lol
Isn't that old news? The models coming out these days can keep the same location consistent across cuts and even output layers, so it takes much less manual work than before. Judging based on information from a year ago seems a bit off.
I have a question: if I use AI-generated backgrounds in a commercial webtoon, would the platform not take issue with it? I've seen that some places have an AI usage disclosure clause in their contracts, so if anyone knows about this, please let me know.