AI 'Artist' Posts 'One Piece' Art, Gets Owned Online By Actual 'One Piece' Artist

The internet was treated to a pristine example of a guy not knowing who he was talking to late last week, when an AI art "prompt engineer" posted an AI-generated image of Monkey D. Luffy from One Piece and got promptly bested by an actual animator of One Piece.

Here's the context: Óscar Bartolomé, a self-described AI Artist and "prompt engineer," was very upset that someone grabbed one of his AI-generated images and received many more impressions on Twitter / X than he did. This drew a crowd of people to dunk on him, as they noted he didn't draw anything and he did not own the copyright over the words needed to make Midjourney create the image.

During this kerfuffle, Bartolomé attempted to say the situation reminded him of piracy by posting a picture of One Piece's main character, the pirate Monkey D. Luffy.

In came a rabble-rousing critic, user @PandaandWolf, who pointed to a coloring flaw of the AI-generated image and wrote, "Learn how to color properly, or learn how to draw to begin with." Ready to throw this criticism on its head, Bartolomé replied, "Not even in your dreams would you be able to make an illustration like this."

Unfortunately for him, user @Pandaandwolf is Jose B. Rebolledo, and he makes illustrations like that in his dreams and his waking life, as he is an animator for One Piece.

The tweet was ultimately deleted, meaning we have lost what was almost certainly a jaw-dropping ratio, but the screenshot soared to the top of Reddit's /r/dontyouknowwhoiam and spread like wildfire on Twitter.