Thought it had that look about it.

Make no mistake, I hate AI art, and the flood of it on places like DA, but this strikes me as a perfectly legitimate use of it.

Thanks. I thought so too but people were still up in arm as soon as they see it. Pitchforks were flying.

It's gotten to the point where people are screaming "AI crap!" on anything they think looks too smooth or professional. Usually the artists that people have been training their bots on.

Speaking of DA... or god. What happened to that website now ;_;

Yeah, the site's just become plain awful.

I do hate AI art and how…horribly scary it’s becoming at blending in, but there are still clear signs thankfully. The main thing here though, and if I read right, you took an AI rendered pic THAT ALREADY EXISTED and said “I’m gonna properly render this and do it in my style” and the end result is not the AI art. I think if maybe the background work was also rendered by you, or if it was it was changed to stand out from the AI image and you shared that process too, maybe people wouldn’t have been so up in arms, but there’s nothing that can be done now about it. I get the problems of it all but you sure as hell made it clear you put your own work into the character.

You're right half of it was my fault was not being clear but it's hard to just explain it in text without showing the process (maybe post side by side in one image?)
I only fix the background a bit especially parts where I feel it's too confusing and weird (like the ceiling lights). Even the face and mane which I redo the most I still tried to match the overall style which I supposed made it feel so much like AI generation.
But anyhow FA is not allowing it even if it's fine so it's better deleted it and not using this method anymore.

Yeah, there's so much to mention to just clarify what's going on, especially with all the backstory with that image. It was nice to be able to see your art again after so long, though such a horrible shame due to its circumstances. Hope to see more of your work soon Defago, and that your big move has been all sorted out.

For what it's worth, I get what you were going for with that submission, and it's a shame everyone was taking shots at it even after you tried to explain (I recall one user's comment just outright dismissed it).

I don't mean no harm when I say this, but this makes me glad that FA has standards when it comes to AI usage. And don't even get me started on DA, which is now flooded with AI "art".