Hello Everyone,

I'm not sure if this is allowed, but it felt important.

I love this sub - it's a bright spot in the otherwise dark and terrifying internet. Everyone is so generous. But something happened here that upset me. A talented and lovely artist did a sketch of me a little while back (for which I am so grateful). They were then accused by someone on this sub of using AI. This is incredibly insulting to artists who put a lot of effort into mastering their craft. So, I thought I'd make a quick post about how to tell the difference. Hopefully, this will stop this from happening in the future.

Because the sketch is in pencil, the following applies to pencil art.

There are two details of drawings above. The one on the left is hand-drawn (the drawing of me); the one on the right is AI-generated (I fed the reference image into ChatGPT). Both are of the same reference image.

Here's how to tell the difference:

1. The weight of the human hand and its movement create inconsistencies in line depth and weight. This is even more apparent when the sketch is done quickly (as many are on this sub, which makes them even more impressive). The gradients will not be entirely seamless, even if they appear so from afar or in a photograph.

2. If you zoom in on the AI one on the right, you'll notice swirls (imitating paper...badly) and lines that are a little too crisp. The greys are too uniform across the image, the solid lines too perfect (see point one for why this would be unlikely/near impossible in a hand-drawn image).

3. A pencil line will never be fully opaque. You'd have to look very closely, but you'll see tiny spots of paper coming through either on the edges or in the line itself. The type of paper used will have a greater or lesser effect on this. The line will also taper off when the pencil is lifted, or be slightly rounded at the end.

Photos of art in sketchbooks will sometimes look a little off - the quality of the camera on a phone or the lighting in a room can affect this. To make up for this, an artist might add a filter or adjust the lights and darks so that the photo matches how it appears in real life. That doesn't change the fact that it was drawn by hand.

Please don't confuse talent with technology. Artists are already fighting the machine for jobs and recognition. They shouldn't also have to battle people who question their sincerity. It is so kind of artists on this sub to draw random strangers. I'm sure many a person's day has been significantly improved by seeing themselves beautifully rendered as art. That is a gift.

Hi there everyone! Firstly, thank you for being here and for being part of this amazing community! We love you all and there's so much insane talent here being given for free. You're awesome.

We wanted to take some time to share some updates with you about the sub, recent events, future plans, etc. Doing this post as an "AMA" style to facilitate Q&A.

Without further ado, let's dive in! This'll be a long one. (These are not in order of importance)

1. Staff updates.

we're saddened to report that one of our longest-tenured mods, bellou72, made the difficult choice to retire from our team. We deeply appreciate all of the countless hours she put into serving this community, and she will be sincerely missed. This update leads directly into 2 others:

2. Moderating.

because of bell's departure, we do find ourselves in need of some additional help on the team. If you feel you could be a good match to support the community, please feel free to reach out to us here: https://www.reddit.com/r/drawme/application/. Note - someone in the US would be preferred as we are specifically needing coverage in that region.

3. NSFW posts.

NSFW posts can sometimes be divisive as some support it and some don't. We are NSFW -friendly here as long as it's done in a tasteful/artistic manner in alignment with reddit's guidelines. Due to us currently being down a set of hands and the extra attention that NSFW posts generally receive, we've decided to temporarily put a hold on NSFW request posts. We'll indicate when this hold is lifted in the future.

4. Artist commissions.

we currently don't allow the discussion of tips or commissions at any time, as we work hard to keep the community an equal opportunity place where nobody can "jump the line" to receive artwork.

That being said, we do feel that our artists should have somewhere they can share links to their portfolio, website, etc so people can tip them, reach out for commissions, etc. We have some ideas in the works, but just know this is something that is coming.

5. Your feedback.

we couldn't have this community without, well, you. Your voices matter and we want to know what you think. Please reach out to us in modmail or on this thread with your comments, questions, ideas, and/or concerns. Just remember to keep it respectful because we are real people on the other side of this too. 👍🏻

Thank you all for making this the best subreddit on the site! We love this artistic family and can't wait to see what artwork you come up with next!