It Looked Beautiful, but Something Felt Off: Refining an AI Illustration About Cheering Someone On

It had been a while since I last made an illustration with AI and shared it, and I felt like trying again.

The theme was cheering someone on. Inspired by a manga, I wanted to capture the feeling of putting your whole heart into supporting someone, with an almost ridiculous amount of energy. No speech bubbles or dialogue: the emotion had to come through in the expressions and gestures. That was where the conversation began.

But when I looked at the generated image, something felt off. It was beautiful, yet it did not quite match the title I had in mind. As I kept talking it through with AI, I ended up revisiting the title, the expression, the facial shading, and even the setting.

This practical note follows that process. I wrote it to give you a taste of the kinds of things you can read about here at Atelier Lab!

The first idea: applause turned up to eleven

The first composition had a person in the foreground clapping with all his might. Behind him, a glowing humanoid figure was clapping just as furiously.

All that extraordinary power, devoted entirely to cheering someone on. I wanted the sheer exaggeration to make the image a little funny.

I was also thinking about how the scene would look to someone else. Even if I intended it as encouragement, the expression or the distance between the characters might make it look as though the supporter was crowding the other person.

So I placed the supporter in the audience and the person he was cheering for onstage. The performer would wave to the audience as a whole, with other people around the supporter enjoying themselves too. The energy would be concentrated in the foreground character, while the overall scene stayed bright and welcoming.

Does a line that sounds familiar actually have a source?

Alongside the illustration, I was discussing possible titles.

The first suggestions included dramatic lines along the lines of “When it comes to cheering you on, I won’t hold baaack!!” What I wanted, though, was a playful variation that would remind people who knew the manga of the original line.

I asked whether the suggestions were actually based on particular lines. The AI explained that the earlier ideas were written to capture the sound and feel of the dialogue, rather than adapted from a specific quote.

I was glad I checked. A phrase can sound convincing without having an actual source.

After checking the source again, this was the version I liked:

ふるえるぞハート！ 燃えつきるほどエーーールッ!!

A loose English rendering of this adaptation would be: “My heart is trembling! I’ll cheer until I burn out!!” I checked the wording of the line that inspired it in an official collaboration announcement. In Japanese, the original ends with hīto, “heat.” Replacing that word with ēru, meaning encouragement or cheering someone on, keeps the rhythm while changing the meaning. The references are listed at the end.

The cheering version above was an adaptation developed during our conversation, not an original line from the manga or an official English translation.

The title was fired up. The image looked relaxed.

Here is the generated image I was looking at around that point.

An image from the work in progress. The lively stage and applause are there, but the supporter looks as though he is enjoying himself at a fairly relaxed pace.

The clothes and lighting were striking, and the overall direction was promising. Still, next to a title about cheering until you burn out, the image felt a few degrees too cool.

I asked whether the gap between the title and the illustration might make the intended meaning hard to understand.

Looking back at the original prompt, I found phrases such as “a small, confident smile” and “an elegant spirit figure.” At least some of my own instructions were steering the image toward that calmer impression.