Hello
I am Choi Sang-kyu, and I'm developing an AI that draws webtoons
We are doing a really interesting job
So I would appreciate it if you enjoy my presentation
By any chance, do you know a webtoon called 'Solo Leveling'?
This work, for example, invested 800 million won and generated about 100 billion won in sales
As high-quality webtoons are becoming popular
it is getting recognized for their potential as high-profit content like games
To seize such opportunities, many production companies are
challenging this market by introducing division of labor through collaborative group creation
However, due to the concentration of labor,
various issues such as excessive labor or
leadership problems are occurring
So we are trying to innovate the limits of traditional production through AI
But the biggest problem is that we need to be able to produce webtoons with AI
But does it work?
In fact, there are quite a few obstacle that we need to overcome
The first thing to mention is
Recently, there have been controversies about infringing on the rights of authors
and various issues such as the issue of learning rights
To avoid such controversies, it is inevitable to use AI in a form
that only uses the author's drawing style
Because we don't want to replace nearly 9,000 webtoon creators
In order to collaborate with them
We have set the business direction accordingly from the beginning
Until June, we used to take about 5 days for about 200 pages of work
Currently, for about 40 sheets we will take about two to three hours
to reproduce the author's drawing style
And secondly, it's extremely important
to have characters express in rich emotions
You can understand that becoming a webtoon artist involves
going through these processes for quite a long time
But currently AI is the capable of these aspects
As we are in our own way are webtoon creators
and experts in the webtoon field
and because we have trained extensively in these aspects
Through these efforts, we have been fine-tuning
and incorporating a lot of these so-called natural expressions,
and currently working on resolving these issues
And lastly, it is necessary to create and differentiate the production process step by step
The most common request I get with webtoon production companies is
if we could separate the layers
When considering AI technology
you can see that it is practically an impossible request
After hearing such requests
we generate the elements that can be called the foundation,
which is coloring on the sketches when producing what is commonly referred to as webtoons.
Production companies then overlay layers on top of these elements,
proposing the most satisfying approach to meet the needs of production companies
and in response, production companies have shown a great deal of enthusiasm for this approach
While overcoming various hurdles like this
And that is how we are now able to produce webtoons with AI
Now, we are contemplating on
how can we make profits with this
First, we believe that we need many production partners
and we have proposed the idea of using AI to handle some of the tasks
that production companies currently manage through outsourcing
The content we are proposing to production companies mainly involves
outsourcing the final editing and post-production aspects of the current production process,
which are usually handled by outsourcing companies
If you entrust us with your work in the future, if you provide us with the continuity,
we will generate what I mentioned earlier,
which is the so-called foundation, containing sketches and coloring that corresponds to that continuity
When the production company receives that again
They'll layer it with their desired expressions or direction
After the request, we can enhance the quality with AI
and provide you with much higher-quality results in a much shorter time
Just doing this alone should provide plenty of reasons for production companies to consider using our services
In addition to this, backgrounds are often used in 3D these days
However, there are cases where these backgrounds do not match the art style
So, we convert these backgrounds to match the art style
by adjusting using AI
Then you can have much more flexible expressions than existing works
We believe that this alone is enough to convince production companies
If we gather many production companies by doing this
These production companies actually have many works
Every year, about 3,000 to 4,000 works are created
So, we take those works and we
in a way, we enhance the quality of old works and re-release them
You may have heard a lot about revised editions
We can easily adapt such works to the latest trends
We are determine that we can transform them
For example, even with the old black and white comics
we can provide coloring or styling
or for works with unsatisfactory artwork
I believe some of you here may think of certain authors immediately
We can remake the stories of those authors' works
or if you have a one particular work
if we study that work as a whole
and if you provide us with the contents, then for the prequels, sequels, spin-offs, etc
we can create them on our side
In fact, it's a win-win situation
Because we utilize what they have
Without putting in much effort,
we can create new added value together
Lastly, as mentioned earlier, our goal is
to create high-quality webtoons
To challenge such things, we have been doing these things so far
We can say that we have been prepared for this
For now, regarding the picture you are seeing here,
Although the same artist draws it, the quality is quite different.
The reason is when artists do weekly serialization,
they are not able to fully demonstrate their drawing skills
They can only demonstrate about 50-70% of their skills
But with us
they will be able to fully demonstrate their skills to 100%
In that case, the readers of this artist will
wonder if the artist has always drawn this well
So this is what you'll experience if use our service
Also, when the continuity is first released, you can consider it as the final version
and you have no time to test such things
But when you work with us,
By testing these elements along the way,
we can introduce a process that allows for the validation of direction and stories
Through this, readers can experience
much stronger stories
Finally, by incorporating impactful scenes
using our AI-based effects,
you'll be able to have a much more immersive experience
Through this, we are confident
that the existing readers will also experience something very new
We were originally a team that created
high-quality webtoons on Watcha using Unreal Engine
And fortunately, an AI expert also joined our team
We consist of a combination of experts in both webtoons and AI
which is quite rare to have in this market
John Lasseter at Pixar once said that "The art challenges the technology,
and the technology inspires the art."
We believe that AI technology is another moment that can inspire art
and we will do our best to make significant changes in this market
Thank you for listening