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In introduction to HCI class.
We-toon

A Communication Support System between Writers and Artists in Collaborative Webtoon Sketch Revision

Hyung-Kwon Ko, Subin An, Gwanmo Park, Seung Kwon Kim, Daesik Kim, Bohyoung Kim, Jaemin Jo, and Jinwook Seo / 2022

PARTICIPANTS

  • Hyung-Kwon Ko*, NAVER Webtoon Corp.
  • Subin An*, Seoul Nationl University
  • Gwanmo Park, Seoul National University
  • Seung Kwon Kim, NAVER Webtoon Corp.
  • Daesik Kim, NAVER Webtoon Corp.
  • Bohyoung Kim, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
  • Jaemin Jo, Sungkyunkwan University

  • Jinwook Seo, Seoul National University

  • *Equally Contributed by Hyung-Kwon Ko and Subin An

ABSTRACT

We present a communication support system, namely We-toon, that can bridge the webtoon writers and artists during sketch revision (i.e., character design and draft revision). In the highly iterative design process between the webtoon writers and artists, writers often have difficulties in precisely articulating their feedback on sketches owing to their lack of drawing proficiency. This drawback makes the writers rely on textual descriptions and reference images found using search engines, leading to indirect and inefficient communications. Inspired by a formative study, we designed We-toon to help writers revise webtoon sketches and effectively communicate with artists. Through a GAN-based image synthesis and manipulation, We-toon can interactively generate diverse reference images and synthesize them locally on any user-provided image. Our user study with 24 professional webtoon authors demonstrated that We-toon outperforms the traditional methods in terms of communication effectiveness and the writers’ satisfaction level related to the revised image.

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  • to appear

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