Is illustration surface/pain texture not allowed anymore?

Forum|Forum|6 hours ago
September 28, 2026
9 replies
40 views

Any other illustrators out there who have developed a hybrid approach, using AI as an assistant? I’ve been an illustrator professionally since the 1980s. We used to love working with very noticeable paint texture and surface texture, and the print publications loved it because it set it apart beautifully from photographs. Now the AS screeners seem to be used to seeing only clean vectors and sterile AI outputs... I guess. Since I extensively work on my art pieces in ArtRage6 and Krita, of course it has realistic art materials effects, goopy paint, crumbly chalk and pastel textures. That’s a feature, not a bug. But I keep seeing my very sharp and high resolution illustrations getting shot down for “focus, .jpg artifacts, etc.” It’s just not true. Anyone else receiving this treatment?

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Mott JordanAuthor

Participant

Yes… haloing everywhere. On purpose… not some bad AI artifact. You’ve pointed out two of my very intentional stylistic choices — haloing and exaggerated contour lines, whether it’s clothing or muscles. You’ll see the exact same thing in the other ones from this series I’ve submitted, some approved, some not. I guess some moderators like it, some don’t. If they ALL got rejected then I’d quit wasting my time submitting… The problem I had was with the reason: pixelation and blurriness. Just didn’t seem to fit, and I needed to know where to go from there. Thanks for your input and help.

daniellei4510

Community Expert

Most of my responses to rejected images are based on images I’ve myself had rejected, fixed, and then accepted. Granted, the muscle-issue is more opinion...maybe my own, or maybe that of the moderator that the image was dropped in front of. As for the list of reasons an asset was rejected, it isn’t by any means a complete list, and as such, the reason a moderator decided to reject it chose the one that came closest to their actual reason for rejection.

Adobe Community Expert | I have miles to go before I sleep, but I'm all done on this end.

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Mott JordanAuthor

Participant

Oh, that is interesting, might be worth a try. BTW, just for reference about the arbitrariness of the moderation: Here are thumbnails of eight that were approved recently. All use halos, exaggerated contours in muscles and clothing, and all were in the 30 megapixel range and stood up to zoom-ins and close examination. The moderators should probably just say something like: “Sorry bruh, I just didn’t vibe with your image.” Somehow, that would be easier, because it wouldn’t leave me scratching my head about what I should have done different.

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Mott JordanAuthor

Participant

Original is over 30 megapixels 5387 x 6000, with zero .jpg compression. Way way over their minimum. (These are both downsized for the forum). My soft chalk blends look nothing like compression artifacts or noise to me.

daniellei4510

Community Expert

I lowered the saturation a bit. There is also some haloing the subject, which moderators seem to abhor. Muscles and wrist lines seem exaggerated. Just some suggestions. Nice, though.

Adobe Community Expert | I have miles to go before I sleep, but I'm all done on this end.

daniellei4510

Community Expert

It will help if you submit a couple of the rejected images here for members to take a look. 5MB upload limit.

Adobe Community Expert | I have miles to go before I sleep, but I'm all done on this end.

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