Google & Japan’s Government Debut AI Painter That Turns Scribbles Into Manga Art

Image via Google

It’s extremely rare to have the prowess of Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki, so if you’re one of those with two left hands when it comes to drawing, Google’s latest Arts & Culture AI could be your saving grace.

Entitled Giga Manga, the web app is designed to convert abstract doodles into manga-style ink portraits. To imbue the AI with the art of Japanese comics, the tool was trained with 140,000 high-res images.

The project is part of a new Manga Out Of The Box series launched by Google, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and a dozen Japanese cultural institutions to introduce the world into the art form of Japanese cartooning.

Image via Google

To use the feature, Google asks that you input a shape into the canvas and add some pops of color. The tool then detects those forms and does its magic, and you can thereafter fill in the gaps with its freeform drawing tool.

Giga Manga is accessible on desktop and mobile devices, and you can find it here.

Create your own manga character with a little help from machine learning.https://t.co/faJ7iC5zBr#MangaUnboxed pic.twitter.com/SQbooVvCn5

— Google Arts&Culture (@googlearts) March 25, 2022

[via Android Police and 9to5Google, images via Google]