D&D 5E Glory of the Giants' AI-Enhanced Art

The latest D&D sourcebook, Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants, comes out in a couple of weeks. However, those who pre-ordered it on D&D Beyond already have access, and many are speculating on the presence of possible AI art in the book.

One of the artists credited is Ilya Shkipin, who does traditional, digital, and AI art. In an interview with AI Art Weekly in December 2022, Shkipin talked at length about their AI art, including the workflow involved.

On Twitter, Shkipin talked more [edit--the tweet has since been deleted but the content is below] about the AI process used in Bigby, indicating that AI was used to enhance some of the art, showing an example of the work.

There is recent controversy on whether these illustrations I made were ai generated. AI was used in the process to generate certain details or polish and editing. To shine some light on the process I'm attaching earlier versions of the illustrations before ai had been applied to enhance details. As you can see a lot of painted elements were enhanced with ai rather than generated from ground up.

-Ilya Shkipin​

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Discussions online look at more of the art in the book, speculating on the amount of AI involvement. There doesn't appear to be any evidence that any of the art is fully AI-generated.

AI art is controversial, with many TTRPG companies publicly stating that they will not use it. DriveThruRPG has recently added new policies regarding transparency around AI-generated content and a ban on 'standalone' AI art products, and Kickstarter has added similar transparency requirements, especially regarding disclosure of the data which is used to train the AI. Many artists have taken a strong stance against AI art, indicating that their art is being 'scraped' in order to produce the content.

UPDATE- Christian Hoffer reached out to WotC and received a response:

Have a statement from Wizards over the AI enhanced artwork in Glory of the Giants. To summarize, they were unaware of the use of AI until the story broke and the artwork was turned in over a year ago. They are updating their Artist guidelines in response to this.

Wizards makes things by humans for humans and that will be reflected in Artist Guidelines moving forward.

-Christian Hoffer​

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The artist, Ilya Shkipin, has removed the initial tweet where the AI process is discussed, and has posted the following:

Deleted previous post as the future of today illustrations is being discussed.

Illustrations are going to be reworked.

-Ilya Shkipin​

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[TheSword]

It's not the artist choosing to do this. Wizards of the Coast hired freelance artists to draw concept art for Bigby's Big Book of Big Boys. Wizards then gave that concept artwork to another freelancer to "enhance" the art using algorithmic generation. The artists of the original artwork were did NOT consent to their artwork being used in algorithmic generation of content and weren't even informed that it would be done. At least one artist on Bluesky stated they found out when everyone else did after the interview with the "AI artist".

So Ilya Shkipin didn't draw the original illustrations above? They were another artists work? Is this verified or twitter-speculation?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Oh wait, the touch up was done by somebody else and not the artist themself? Okay, I can see how that could be sucky or have the original artist not happy.

If it was the artist themselves that did the touch up, then that's cool.

I'm pretty sure AI was, in this case, just a tool the artist used to save time fully rendering the piece. I'm okay with that sort of use, I think.

 

[Scribe]

Wizards put out a statement. They didn't know it was AI at the time. The commission was made well before the pushback against generative AI went mainstream.

Figured as much. Reset the counter!

 

[Nikosandros]

Oh wait, the touch up was done by somebody else and not the artist themself? Okay, I can see how that could be sucky or have the original artist not happy.

If it was the artist themselves that did the touch up, then that's cool.

I think two different things are being conflated here. The artist we'be been talking about has used AI themsleves to touch up some drawings. In the meantime, there is a claim that a dinosaur that was submitted as a concept art, was elaborated by an AI.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The Monsters Know What They're Doing won't be creating any content for this book, based on the AI issue.

To everyone who’s bought hardcover copies of The Monsters Know What They’re Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters and MOAR! Monsters Know What They’re Doing, first of all, thank you! You’ve turned this blog into something I’ve been able to support my family with.

Second, check out all those cool black-and-white interior illustrations! Awesome, aren’t they? Those are the work of my wife, Jen. Thanks to the success of The Monsters Know, Jen was able to leave a negative work environment and pursue a career in art.

That career, like the career of every other artist, is threatened by the adoption of generative “AI.”

We don’t hold with “AI” in this house. I’ve been a writer and editor for the past 30 years, and every idea I put on paper, every choice I make about how to organize them, every word I choose because I believe it to be the most precise, rich and fitting expression of my meaning, every sentence I construct, every punctuation mark I place, and every rule I break intentionally for effect is the product of those 30 years of disciplined practice. Jen has been developing her artistic skills for almost as long. Work matters. Practice matters. Discipline matters. Personal style matters. People matter. No software can substitute for any of that.

We care about protecting creative professions against the encroachment of “AI” not just for our own sakes but for others’ as well. Our landlord, whom we actually like (!), is a member of SAG-AFTRA. We have friends who belong to the Writers’ Guild of America. And, of course, we belong to a broader community of creative professionals whose livelihoods are threatened with replacement by inexpensive “AI” as relentless corporate cost-cutting degrades the quality of everything we buy, and whose creative output is misappropriated by technology companies to train their “AI” products without compensating the original creators.

That’s why, in light of the recent revelation that Wizards of the Coast chose to include artwork that was at least partially “AI”-generated in the upcoming Dungeons & Dragons book Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants, I will not buy that book or examine any creature in it in this blog unless and until the art in question is replaced with entirely original art by a human artist.

This wasn’t my plan. I was actually looking forward to moving on to Glory of the Giants after finishing up with Spelljammer, since giant content in fifth edition D&D has heretofore been somewhat thin. The past year has already been a rough one in terms of moral dilemmas for creators in and around the tabletop roleplaying game industry, and we’ve each had to make our way through a bewildering barrage of challenges and choices. I’m not going to condemn anyone else for the choices they’ve made; we all have different bright lines and degrees of freedom to walk away from compromising situations. Some of those choices are extremely difficult. For me, though, this decision is a no-brainer. No Glory of the Giants as long as there’s “AI” art on the pages.

 

[Scribe]

We care about protecting creative professions against the encroachment of “AI” not just for our own sakes but for others’ as well. Our landlord, whom we actually like (!), is a member of SAG-AFTRA. We have friends who belong to the Writers’ Guild of America. And, of course, we belong to a broader community of creative professionals whose livelihoods are threatened with replacement by inexpensive “AI” as relentless corporate cost-cutting degrades the quality of everything we buy, and whose creative output is misappropriated by technology companies to train their “AI” products without compensating the original creators.

This is what its about. People can waffle about it however they like, but this is always the bottom line in our present timeline.

 

[Parmandur]

The Monsters Know What They're Doing won't be creating any content for this book, based on the AI issue.

It doesn't eem that WotC did anything here other than not catch what was a new technique when the art was submitted...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It doesn't eem that WotC did anything here other than not catch what was a new technique when the art was submitted...

The artist explicitly talks about doing AI on their Twitter profile. If the art director didn't catch it, that's a major screw-up. And if they let it pass, knowing it was probably going to happen, that's also an issue worth being aware of. If they told the artist not to use AI and didn't check, that's also an issue.

This is something that can and should have been caught.

 

[mamba]

1) Yes, I do. The terms of service for every major generative algorithm software includes a clause that all work submitted to the algorithm is also added to the database. That's why there's been a big dust-up in the fanfiction community as people have fed incomplete fanfics into ChatGPT to "create" an ending.

you do not know what was used, nothing needed generating here the way those do

2) Legal is not the same as ethical. Just because you're legally allowed to do something doesn't make it right to do that thing.

but it makes it legal, and I still do not see you explaining how cutting the artist out altogether would improve things

 

[Parmandur]

The artist explicitly talks about doing AI on their Twitter profile. If the art director didn't catch it, that's a major screw-up. And if they let it pass, knowing it was probably going to happen, that's also an issue worth being aware of. If they told the artist not to use AI and didn't check, that's also an issue.

This is something that can and should have been caught.

They talk about AI art in their Twitter profile now, but did they have that in their profile a year ago when they would have submitted the art in question? This very well could have been the first time they tried using it, and Emu Tanji might have never thought to have to look for that before that point without being a bad actor.

WotC has officially released a statement that they were unaware that AI was used, and are issuing new guidelines for future work. I see nonreaaon to believe they were aware, when ignorance and overwork explain the events fully.