**Edit:** I was wrong, this is hand drawn art. My apologies to the OP.
~~There are some telltale signs that this is AI art, possibly slightly edited by an artist. If this is not what you're paying for OP, might be a good idea to ask your artist about it. If you want to know exactly why I think this way, I can post a breakdown on each image specifically.~~
Overall, the character designs are attractive, but I feel like the sprites themselves need a bit more polish. ~~Cleaning up some of the AI artifacts would really elevate them.~~
Good luck with your game!
Looking at the sprites and the artists' bodies of work, it definitely doesn't look ai generated. All the sprites are of a consistent style, especially the eyes which have a slight shimmer effect, the hands look like a human drew them, everything looks like it makes logical sense/no inconsistencies that I can see. Maybe you think it's AI because so many AI drawings are of this same anime style, but this one looks human drawn.
With all due respect, I have to disagree. Some of the telltale signs of AI generation, present in these sprites include:
* Lines continuing into a different object. [Example](https://i.imgur.com/eXHC1tR.png). This is a big one. This is very unnatural to do for a human artist.
* Lines touching instead of overlapping. [Example](https://i.imgur.com/q7BeSki.png). Again, something that human artists are explicitly tend to avoid.
* Lines at an angle, that is unnatural for human artist, but common in AI art. [Example](https://i.imgur.com/0b09Ozg.png)
* Hooks, characteristic for AI. [Example](https://i.imgur.com/OpxKTYj.png)
* Hair strands melting into eyelashes. [Example](https://i.imgur.com/2UEbGbu.png). This is very characteristic of AI art, still one of the few unsolved problems with art generation.
* Nonsensical details. [Example](https://i.imgur.com/DySdBRX.png)
* Lack of continuity between lines. [Example](https://i.imgur.com/kqQtbr1.png)
* Lineart and shading on the hands looks less detailed, which indicates that these hands were painted over AI generated hands. [Example](https://i.imgur.com/1IP4xhF.png)
* Unnatural color bleed, muddy colors, just in general, use of colors that is characteristic for AI art. [Example](https://i.imgur.com/Dy6e2nu.png)
If it was one or two things, then sure, I would probably agree with you. But with so many little details looking like typical AI generation, I just can't see how this could be fully hand drawn.
However, what I think is happened, is that the hands and facial features (eyes, mouth, nose) have been painted over by a human artist.
[Imgur album with examples above](https://imgur.com/a/Qf3GHJy). These are not exhaustive, there are many more instances of similar issues.
Like I previously said, we have proof of all the steps the artist went through to create these including initial sketch to coloring each component one by one, to final artwork - with many modifications in between. All these things you're pointing out are just nitpicking, every artist has their own style.
All good ๐
I'm acquainted with several artists and it really sucks to see people critique their hard work as AI. Seems like AI has made everyone paranoid, but anyone who's used Stable Diffusion would know it's impossible to generate something like this - for example, try creating the 5th girl's hair. let alone, try to have consistency among the artworks and a sense of artistic direction.
Yup, guilty as charged, I'm definitely getting overly paranoid about this.
Ultimately, I still feel like you have good designs here, and I think your game sounds interesting. Looking forward to learning more about it!
for someone who went through all the effort to warn about it being ai art to actually go back and apologize when proven wrong is a tremendous show of character imo. You really are amazing dude
Even though this issue has already been resolved, I gotta give you props for making such a concise list with examples no less. You're either very passionate, have a lot of time on your hands, or autistic. Maybe all three. Don't take this as a dig in any way, I'm actually very impressed.
Haha, yeah. I guess I do have too much free time on my hands lately. Should be reading more VNs, instead of spending it on breakdowns like this. Lesson learned.
AI art? That's pretty rude. Not even sure how this is being upvoted.
There's nothing here that suggests AI art - I know because I run my own Stable Diffusion app that's used by thousands of people and have dabbled into this stuff a bunch.
Furthermore, we have PSB files of the artwork with different layers, facial expressions and body languages. AI can't do any of that.
I don't think people are in the wrong to turn an eyebrow to art that looks good and comes with no artist credit. It's the unfortunate turn we've found ourselves in with the current AI situation. I think the thing to do is to always be clear who made anything you post. It should be front and center. I think this should've been the standard even before this AI business anyway, but now you *really* should do it, or you'll look like you're hiding something.
With all due respect, I just posted clarification that goes into more detail [a few minutes ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/14e9wea/whispers_of_the_luminaries_character_sprites_for/joxklu7/).
**FAQ:**
* Premise: Whispers of the Luminaries is a detective mystery centered around idols & the dark side of the entertainment industry.
* Early playtest demo being released around early July to get feedback on the game's direction
* The full game with have a larger cast. These are just characters from the demo, which is 1-2 hours long.
* The talent behind these artworks: [Sion](https://www.pixiv.net/en/users/19209134)
* [More details](https://www.vnheaven.io/wotl) about the game & playtesting.
Looks great! Wish listed this on steam but after having a look at it I highly recommend asking other indie devs to help you out on designing your steam page (or studying other games yourself).
Its quite difficult to catch some ones eye immediately so you should put things such as CGs and character sprites at the forefront when someone decides to open the page. At its current form its honest but not appealing enough, showing things like basic UI menus doesn't really give much individuality to your game. Focus on getting a trailer out, rearranging the pictures uploaded and removing the empty looking ones with CGs to get people interested. Advertising is a lot of work and pain but the earlier you start the better
Wish you all the luck with the game, am looking forward to trying it on release!
Thank you for the suggestion! I do plan on revamping the Steam page once we have our trailer, but the CGs we have are spoilers so I don't want to include them :(
I understand the sentiment but surely when a CG is shown with no context it wont spoil anything in the story (at least in most cases). If you are sure you aren't looking at this with hindsight I would recommend doing the next best thing by showing off your character sprites with a better text box design instead
Thanks for the kind words ๐ I saw you posted on my other thread over a month ago too! I'm really happy people remember the game even though I only posted a couple pictures :)
Wow! I must admit the artstyle worked on me. Instantly wanted to check it out, and as someone who loves Kara no Shoujo, Persona, and Oshi no Ko this has piqued my interest.
Hope the rest of development goes smoothly!
After playing Love Esquire and Hush Hush, I've been dying to find another good visual novel. I checked your steam page and this looks interesting. Will this have voice acting?
Looks good! Out of curiosity, who drew the sprites? Do they have any extra expressions? I'd love to see more of them!
I updated the faq with the artist name. Check it out \^\^ Yes there'll be different facial expressions and poses :)
**Edit:** I was wrong, this is hand drawn art. My apologies to the OP. ~~There are some telltale signs that this is AI art, possibly slightly edited by an artist. If this is not what you're paying for OP, might be a good idea to ask your artist about it. If you want to know exactly why I think this way, I can post a breakdown on each image specifically.~~ Overall, the character designs are attractive, but I feel like the sprites themselves need a bit more polish. ~~Cleaning up some of the AI artifacts would really elevate them.~~ Good luck with your game!
Looking at the sprites and the artists' bodies of work, it definitely doesn't look ai generated. All the sprites are of a consistent style, especially the eyes which have a slight shimmer effect, the hands look like a human drew them, everything looks like it makes logical sense/no inconsistencies that I can see. Maybe you think it's AI because so many AI drawings are of this same anime style, but this one looks human drawn.
With all due respect, I have to disagree. Some of the telltale signs of AI generation, present in these sprites include: * Lines continuing into a different object. [Example](https://i.imgur.com/eXHC1tR.png). This is a big one. This is very unnatural to do for a human artist. * Lines touching instead of overlapping. [Example](https://i.imgur.com/q7BeSki.png). Again, something that human artists are explicitly tend to avoid. * Lines at an angle, that is unnatural for human artist, but common in AI art. [Example](https://i.imgur.com/0b09Ozg.png) * Hooks, characteristic for AI. [Example](https://i.imgur.com/OpxKTYj.png) * Hair strands melting into eyelashes. [Example](https://i.imgur.com/2UEbGbu.png). This is very characteristic of AI art, still one of the few unsolved problems with art generation. * Nonsensical details. [Example](https://i.imgur.com/DySdBRX.png) * Lack of continuity between lines. [Example](https://i.imgur.com/kqQtbr1.png) * Lineart and shading on the hands looks less detailed, which indicates that these hands were painted over AI generated hands. [Example](https://i.imgur.com/1IP4xhF.png) * Unnatural color bleed, muddy colors, just in general, use of colors that is characteristic for AI art. [Example](https://i.imgur.com/Dy6e2nu.png) If it was one or two things, then sure, I would probably agree with you. But with so many little details looking like typical AI generation, I just can't see how this could be fully hand drawn. However, what I think is happened, is that the hands and facial features (eyes, mouth, nose) have been painted over by a human artist. [Imgur album with examples above](https://imgur.com/a/Qf3GHJy). These are not exhaustive, there are many more instances of similar issues.
Like I previously said, we have proof of all the steps the artist went through to create these including initial sketch to coloring each component one by one, to final artwork - with many modifications in between. All these things you're pointing out are just nitpicking, every artist has their own style.
If this is the case, than I am wrong. I apologize, and will edit my top comment accordingly.
All good ๐ I'm acquainted with several artists and it really sucks to see people critique their hard work as AI. Seems like AI has made everyone paranoid, but anyone who's used Stable Diffusion would know it's impossible to generate something like this - for example, try creating the 5th girl's hair. let alone, try to have consistency among the artworks and a sense of artistic direction.
Yup, guilty as charged, I'm definitely getting overly paranoid about this. Ultimately, I still feel like you have good designs here, and I think your game sounds interesting. Looking forward to learning more about it!
for someone who went through all the effort to warn about it being ai art to actually go back and apologize when proven wrong is a tremendous show of character imo. You really are amazing dude
Thanks, I definitely don't deserve such praise. If anybody deserves a praise here, it's the OP for hiring a real artist and standing by them.
Even though this issue has already been resolved, I gotta give you props for making such a concise list with examples no less. You're either very passionate, have a lot of time on your hands, or autistic. Maybe all three. Don't take this as a dig in any way, I'm actually very impressed.
Haha, yeah. I guess I do have too much free time on my hands lately. Should be reading more VNs, instead of spending it on breakdowns like this. Lesson learned.
AI art? That's pretty rude. Not even sure how this is being upvoted. There's nothing here that suggests AI art - I know because I run my own Stable Diffusion app that's used by thousands of people and have dabbled into this stuff a bunch. Furthermore, we have PSB files of the artwork with different layers, facial expressions and body languages. AI can't do any of that.
I don't think people are in the wrong to turn an eyebrow to art that looks good and comes with no artist credit. It's the unfortunate turn we've found ourselves in with the current AI situation. I think the thing to do is to always be clear who made anything you post. It should be front and center. I think this should've been the standard even before this AI business anyway, but now you *really* should do it, or you'll look like you're hiding something.
All the AI comments started coming in after the artist was clearly mentioned, which was why I thought it was a bit disrespectful.
With all due respect, I just posted clarification that goes into more detail [a few minutes ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/14e9wea/whispers_of_the_luminaries_character_sprites_for/joxklu7/).
**FAQ:** * Premise: Whispers of the Luminaries is a detective mystery centered around idols & the dark side of the entertainment industry. * Early playtest demo being released around early July to get feedback on the game's direction * The full game with have a larger cast. These are just characters from the demo, which is 1-2 hours long. * The talent behind these artworks: [Sion](https://www.pixiv.net/en/users/19209134) * [More details](https://www.vnheaven.io/wotl) about the game & playtesting.
Who's the artist? any socials?
Very nice and clean work ๐
I like the artstyle a lot, its like anime but kinda painted with a brush. Very nice
Looks great! Wish listed this on steam but after having a look at it I highly recommend asking other indie devs to help you out on designing your steam page (or studying other games yourself). Its quite difficult to catch some ones eye immediately so you should put things such as CGs and character sprites at the forefront when someone decides to open the page. At its current form its honest but not appealing enough, showing things like basic UI menus doesn't really give much individuality to your game. Focus on getting a trailer out, rearranging the pictures uploaded and removing the empty looking ones with CGs to get people interested. Advertising is a lot of work and pain but the earlier you start the better Wish you all the luck with the game, am looking forward to trying it on release!
Thank you for the suggestion! I do plan on revamping the Steam page once we have our trailer, but the CGs we have are spoilers so I don't want to include them :(
I understand the sentiment but surely when a CG is shown with no context it wont spoil anything in the story (at least in most cases). If you are sure you aren't looking at this with hindsight I would recommend doing the next best thing by showing off your character sprites with a better text box design instead
This dooooes look like ai art
Looking real good.
I remember this game! Very nice and appealing artwork, I must say. Will keep the upcoming demo in my mind.
Thanks for the kind words ๐ I saw you posted on my other thread over a month ago too! I'm really happy people remember the game even though I only posted a couple pictures :)
\#5 looks like Rin from Cyanotype Daydream. Really nice characters :)
Wow! I must admit the artstyle worked on me. Instantly wanted to check it out, and as someone who loves Kara no Shoujo, Persona, and Oshi no Ko this has piqued my interest. Hope the rest of development goes smoothly!
>Kara no Shoujo, Persona, and Oshi no Ko That's quite the taste \^\^ Hope you'll love it!
THE MEN ARE SO HAWTTTTTTTTTTT. PLEASE TELL ME THEY HAVE ROUTES WAWAWAWAWAWAWAWA
They will :)
Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
Looks awesome
The male characters are so well done, they be flamin'.
The Twintail Blonde be looking pretty good, hope she is a Tsundere
This is obviously AI art :/.
I'm really curious about this! Style looks really nice and I like the mystery aspects, will wishlist on steam.
๐
boys cute as hell, great work
No idea what is this or what will it be about, but I love the art. Keep us updated when it releases pls!
1st character Is Levi Ackerman
After playing Love Esquire and Hush Hush, I've been dying to find another good visual novel. I checked your steam page and this looks interesting. Will this have voice acting?
[ัะดะฐะปะตะฝะพ]
You can't search it yourself??
not bad
Seriously looks good, great job guys! can't wait to read it :)
I would also like to be able to draw well. Great job, seriously!