掲示板 Forums - 2026 Kao Coin Contest - Rule preparation

A simple solution that many digital artists have access too is asking for a speed paint to be provided. Speed paints are near impossible to fake and are relatively easy to set up and submit.

Edit: not near-impossible, but it sounds very inconvenient. I agree with the notion that making it as unappealing as possible to use AI is the best solution.

An alternative could be a vouching system? I am not sure how complicated that would be to set up and it might lead to people being excluded but if the alternative is no contest at all, I'd rather have that.

​AI image detection is unreliable at best and has a horrible false positive rate.

I've never been able to participate in the contest but I was considering it this year. That being said, I'm a digital artist with dyspraxia. So to the people who are suggesting traditional art only, or requiring a traditional art version along with a digital piece, or even the time-lapse videos - understand that those options aren't possible for everyone and starts dipping into being non-inclusive for some. My traditional art has always been absolutely awful and full of eraser smudges, misshapen lines, and other flaws that made me nearly give up art altogether, with digital art I have the ability to draw the same line 50 times before getting it right (the reason why a time-lapse video would not be ideal for me), being digital-only has actually improved my art.

just something to consider when making the new rules. I'm all for flushing out cheaters and being anti AI, and I'd gladly include progress photos or something, but some of these other suggestions basically exclude people like me with disabilities that enjoy making art.

​That would mean feeding peoples' work into ai to check for ai. Also, since ai is trained off human work, all human work will look some% like ai, especially to an ai tool. Any checking method used would have to be something more substantial than just taking a program's word for it.

​Last year's only allowed one progress checks and I would love it if we could have more options for progress checks

Hi everyone,

AI-generated work is a pervasive and quite frustrating problem I have to deal with on a daily basis, both as an artist and a teacher. There is no absolute method that will 100% identify Al-generated art, which is getting a lot harder to detect visually, especially for simpler spot illustrations such as those featured on the Kao-coins. :(

If the goal is to make it as difficult as possible to cheat by making AI submissions troublesome while still keeping participation requirements reasonable enough for legitimate artists and simple enough for Michael to review, my suggestions, which take into account existing contest requirements and echo some excellent suggestions already made on this thread, include separating the validating process into two stages as follows:

Requirements for all submissions:

1. The final Kao-coin image.

2. The kao-coin suggested name (in English and Japanese).

3. At least two sequential workflow proofs (of any planning/development/progress stages) that logically, clearly, and directly align with the final submitted image.

4. A short description of the materials, tools, techniques, and references used for the work.

5. An agreement stating that no part of the work (from idea generation to editing to formatting, etc.) was done with the use of Al, and which could be a checkbox to be marked before sending in each submission (so as to nix any possibility of alleging ignorance on the matter).

Additional requirements only for entries selected by Michael as potential finalists/winners (in order to reduce the task of having to do this for every submission), especially if flagged through the "Report Content” link:

6. Any number of additional sequential workflow proofs like those provided in requirement 3.

7. Visual proof of a random sampling (chosen at Michael's discretion) of the materials, tools, techniques, and/or references used to create the work as described in requirement 4.

8. A high-resolution (illustration or photo) file in a lossless format such as TIFF, PNG, or uncompressed JPEG.

9. The original work files (layered illustration or unedited photo) with complete metadata—for automatic elimination of any entries with conflicting, lacking or incomplete information—to compare with requirement 8.

All participants can prepare requirements 6–9 in advance in case they are selected as potential finalists/winners to avoid not being able to meet these requirements if asked to do so.

And, although I can see how valuable it would be having an extra set of eyes (as input from select trustworthy artists that have previously participated in the contest) to flag suspicious content, I'm concerned it might add an unnecessary extra step in the judging process… for something that they could simply do through the “Report Content” link if asked to by Michael?

Although no method will guarantee 100% detection of AI-generated submissions, hopefully through stricter requirements it might be possible to deter some potential cheaters from participating. :)

P. S.: On a related note, I'd like to suggest a separate category for Lifetime renshuu Pro users participating in the contest to be judged outside of the ten winners... if at all possible. I don't know how many of us might participate in the contest (it will be my first year), but I'd be sad if I won one of the top ten spots while knowing that it means I'm taking the possibility of enjoying renshuu Pro away from someone else. Just a thought...

I think having either a timelapse of the drawing or a screenshot containing the drawing’s layers could work since both of those are difficult to replicate with AI (specific details of the program the artist claims to use, logical flow of creating art/layers (ex: having colors for different elements on different layers, doing lineart all at once)). 50% or 20% etc pictures can be fabricated relatively easily with AI so I would suggest implementing another form of verification in addition to progress photos.

I want be participating because I feel scared of the Ai problem . Everyone else have fun.

私は参加ないしかし。私感じる恐るエアイ問題。皆さん楽しむ。

フィラル (09月15日, 17:05)

アルグレン・マリ (09月15日, 9:53)

P. S.: On a related note, I'd like to suggest a separate category for Lifetime renshuu Pro users participating in the contest to be judged outside of the ten winners... if at all possible. I don't know how many of us might participate in the contest (it will be my first year), but I'd be sad if I won one of the top ten spots while knowing that it means I'm taking the possibility of enjoying renshuu Pro away from someone else. Just a thought...

​Whenever I got Renshuu Pro via an event, I just send the link you recieve to a friend

​Now that the supporter point system is fully built (and you can use supporter points on yourself), I will probably just award those instead. You can use them just like a giftcode, or pass them along to other(s).