Gata-Kun: creating illustrations with an own artistic style and a generative AI

Since ancient times, drawing and painting have been an art related to the artist's ability to express their ideas.

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I was very fortunate to be a good artist from a young age. That has helped me a lot in my work as a graphic designer. Today, artificial intelligence offers new possibilities to those who don't know how to draw but want to unleash their imagination using one of the oldest tools for creating art: words. Today it's possible to develop your own artistic style without knowing how to draw or paint, as we can see with an interesting channel on threads.com.

Japanese artist Gata-Kun (@gatakun_artscape) is very sincere: "I don't know how to draw, so I draw with my feelings." This AI user, with just over 2,300 followers on that social network, claims to be "creating a "spiritual home" with generative AI and a worldview".

His images have a very defined style. Twilight landscapes are rendered with soft colors, evoking dreams and melancholic scenery, showing us Japanese cities or fantastical worlds, with watercolor strokes combined with fine ink and a certain influence of Japanese anime. His illustrations caught my attention from the first moment I saw them, and have ended up leading me to use my threads.com account to discover new artists who are currently using artificial intelligence as a paintbrush.

Obviously, some people won't see the merit in that, since after all, it's AI that creates the final illustration. However, I think this opens up a new dimension of art that we shouldn't dismiss. Many people have vivid imaginations and are very skilled with words, but they've never had the ability to draw or paint because they're not good at handling a brush or pencil.

Today, AI offers these individuals a means to translate their ideas into illustrations. In Gata-Kun's case, AI serves to create what he defines as "places that bring you back to your heart." Obviously, the work of a traditional illustrator will always have more merit, but I believe we shouldn't underestimate art created with digital tools, tools that have been used by all kinds of artists for many years. Here are some more examples of Gata-Kun's art; you can see other works of his on his threads.com channel and on his Instagram channel.