The Current State of AI Image Generation Through Tokyo Ghoul Fanfic Concept Art
Before I start, I should say that I’m extremely aware that most people utterly despise AI, so I’m fully prepared for the inevitable backlash I’ll receive for this post. However, I’m a big believer that the worst thing people can do is to simply bury their heads in the sand and pretend these AI tools and capabilities don’t exist. Although I would like to stress that I don’t consider AI images as “art” - they are simply cool images assembled by an AI.
Also, I will admit that this post is somewhat self-indulgent, because I was very excited to share some concepts from the Tokyo Ghoul fanfic I’ve been writing. I came up with most of the ideas for the fanfic while working the night shift in a chilled warehouse, so it feels pretty cathartic to be able to bring some of those ideas to life, even if it is through using AI.
Some Context
As mentioned, the concepts that I’ve brought to life using AI are from a Tokyo Ghoul sequel fanfic I’ve been writing for the past few years. The fanfic is called ‘Tokyo Ghoul: Requiem’ and the specific AI used was the recently released GPT Image 2, which I have found to be ridiculously impressive.
The fanfic takes place around 12 years after the events of Tokyo Ghoul/re, and it deals with a lot of the aftermath of the events of the original story. In the story, Kaneki has become a psychologist and he has set up an organisation with Hide called Bridgelight, with the aim of helping ghouls integrate into society. Kaneki provides counselling and mental health services to young, struggling ghouls, and Hide has become a lawyer to provide legal services. That’s the basic setup to the story, but there’s a lot more to it than that.
Some Pics of Kaneki
The first thing I wanted to do when testing the AI was to simply create some images of an older, more mature Kaneki. Some of these can be seen below:
The pictures aren’t completely perfect, but they are pretty damn impressive, and quite close to how I imagined Kaneki looking in my fanfic. Also, I’m not sure why it made him barefoot, but I think it’s because I specified that I wanted him to seem relaxed and comfortable. Although I’d be lying if I said I was entirely against the accidental Kaneki feet pics lmao. 🤭🤫
A Cool Concept Brought to Life
The next thing I decided to do was to try to create a slightly more complicated picture of Kaneki from my fanfic, so I attempted to create a picture of a cool (IMO) concept I included in my story, which is Kaneki using his kagune to read several books simultaneously. The result can be seen below:
As with the previous pics, it isn’t 100% perfect, but it isn’t far off from what I imagined. I think the worst thing about it is the fact that the kagune looks more liquid than it does solid, but it’s still pretty good. Also, a quick look at Kaneki’s hands will confirm that whilst these AI’s have mostly overcome the initial problems they had with generating hands, they still occasionally generate hands with extra fingers lmao. 😬
A Kaneki Character Sheet
After creating some cool pictures of Kaneki and discussing Kaneki’s role in the story with Chat GPT, I decided to ask it to create a character sheet for Kaneki, which was inspired by videos I’ve seen online of people using character sheets to achieve character consistency when using these AI’s. The result can be seen below:
To say that I was impressed by the result would be a gross understatement. There’s a couple of minor issues with it, but I’m sure I could have ironed out those issues if I’d spent time using the AI to edit the image. The Bridgelight logo with the motto “Ex Tenebris, Per Pontem, Ad Lucem” (from the darkness, across the bridge, to the light), was something I created a while ago using Chat GPT’s previous image generation model, and I asked it to incorporate the logo into the character sheet.
I think the most amazing thing about the character sheet are all of the extra details it added into the image just based on what I’d discussed with the AI about Kaneki’s role in the story. I especially like the details on his hand in the picture of his wedding ring it randomly decided to add to the character sheet. Again, some of the stuff isn’t perfect, but it’s all pretty damn impressive to the point of being kinda scary lmao. It was also pretty cool that it included factual details about Kaneki that I hadn’t even mentioned, such as his birthday.
A Couple More Kaneki Pictures
I really liked the picture of Kaneki in his psychologist outfit in the character sheet, so I asked Chat GPT to recreate it as its own picture. This lead to the following two pictures:
The first picture was actually a mistake, because Chat GPT misinterpreted my prompt when I asked it to recreate the picture of Kaneki in his psychologist outfit. I decided to include it, because I like the result, but I also noticed that it had forgot to include the marks under Kaneki’s eyes, which shows that these AI’s still have issues with longterm character consistency.
I asked it again to create Kaneki in his psychologist outfit, but this time I was more specific. I also asked it to include the marks under his eyes, and to also add shoes to the picture, because it looks silly for Kaneki to be wearing a professional outfit whilst barefoot. It didn’t recreate the eye marks perfectly, but I was mostly happy with the result.
The Final Test: An Actual Scene From My Story
After being so impressed by the capabilities that GPT Image 2 had displayed, I started to wonder if I could possibly use it to generate an actual scene from my story, so I decided to attempt to create a cute slice of life moment between Kaneki and Ichika.
I realised even before I started that the scene would require several images to properly bring to life, so I decided to input a rough draft of the scene to Chat GPT, and then asked it to split the scene up into several pages, so each page could be created as a single image. It split the scene into 3 separate pages, and I then asked it to create each page individually. This lead to the result below:
Whilst the end result is pretty damn good, I’d be lying if I said the AI created it seamlessly. It honestly must have taken at least 50 image generations before I managed to get a satisfactory result, and the main problem was that it kept creating the panels in the wrong order even though I repeatedly specified I wanted it to be read from right to left, like a manga instead of a comic book. Also, it appears to have gone from night time to the evening from the first page to the last, but I probably could have fixed that if I’d chosen to suffer through more image generations (I basically gave up lmao).
I also wasn’t completely happy with Kaneki’s appearance in the scene, because it seems to have strayed slightly from his appearance in the earlier pics, but I guess that’s just another example of the ongoing issues with longterm character consistency.
Even so, the end result is still pretty bloody amazing. I honestly think the worst thing about it is my own writing, because some of the dialogue is a bit clunky. I came up with the concept for the scene several years ago, but I didn’t fully flesh out the idea until now, so I wrote the dialogue hastily while using the AI to bring the scene to life.
Conclusion/End
I know this post will piss some people off, so I apologise for that. That certainly isn’t the intention behind the post. Regardless of what people think of the AI, I at least hope people will like some of the concepts from my fanfic and also enjoy the cute scene between Kaneki and Ichika.
In an ideal world, I would be incredibly wealthy, so I could assemble a team of artists to create my fanfic as an actual manga, but that simply isn’t the case. I’m not sure if I’ll ever release my fanfic in any form, but it’s nice to know that these AI’s have reached a point where their functionality would make it possible (albeit, difficult) to actually bring my ideas to life.
Not that anybody would read it, since it would be deemed “AI slop”, despite the fact that the story itself was written without the use of AI. It still would be possible though, but probably a pointless endeavour. 🤷♂️