Someone on Discord tried to sell me AI art as a custom sketch
He sent over a file that was so obviously generated by an AI model that it didn't even require a second glance. The anatomy was slightly off, the line work had that weirdly smoothed-out "perfect" texture that Diffusion models love, and the composition was typical of a prompt-to-image output. When I called him out on it, he didn't even blink. He doubled down, insisting, "Nah man, it's not AI, I made it myself," and even went into some long-winded explanation about his process.
He actually tried to gaslight me. He kept pushing, asking me to commission more sketches so he could "prove" his skills were legitimate. I decided to pin him down with a specific request: I asked him to record a video of himself actually drawing the same sketch from scratch. He initially agreed, which was a huge red flag in itself, but after a long silence, he suddenly changed his tune. He told me, "I will not make it again, now if there is any real work then tell me and I will get it done."
At that point, I realized I was dealing with a complete fraud. I decided to run the image through an AI detector just to have the receipts. Once I took a screenshot of the detection results and sent it to him, his entire persona shifted. He finally admitted it, but with the most pathetic follow-up imaginable: "This time I will not use AI."
It’s getting harder to find actual human talent in these freelance corners of the internet. If you are looking for a real AI workflow or hiring artists, please be careful. This guy wasn't even trying to be subtle; he was just hoping to catch people who don't know how to spot the hallmarks of a generative model. If you're building a prompt engineering library or looking for high-quality assets, don't let these "sketch artists" waste your time with low-effort renders.
I've seen plenty of people try to pass off Midjourney or Stable Diffusion outputs as hand-drawn work, but the audacity to refuse a screen recording of the process is a new low. If an artist is legitimate, they should have no problem showing a time-lapse or a layered PSD file. If they start making excuses about "not wanting to redo the work," you already have your answer.