A creative journey:
From art to content strategies, and AI exploration
What began as casual sketches for fun and small game concepts soon evolved into a deeper exploration of content creation, audience engagement, and creative strategy. By sharing art on social media, experimenting with video formats, and even integrating AI tools, I transformed a personal passion into a hands-on journey in understanding what resonates with people: blending art, content, and strategic thinking along the way.
1/ My hand sketching OCs and Game Concepts
It all began as a personal hobby, sketching and illustrating ideas for fun and for friends’ simple casual game projects with personal Ipad, Apple Pen and Procreate. I created character designs, basic UI elements, and background concepts, using these sketches to help visualise early gameplay ideas. This playful, exploratory phase sparked my interest in how visuals can shape stories and connect with audiences, the foundation for everything that followed.
2/ Developed into social media content with engagement strategies
Building on my sketches, I transformed personal drawings into social media content, developing storyboards and sharing creative ideas with a wider audience. I experimented with different post formats, video reels, and engagement strategies to understand what resonates most.
By testing both organic and paid approaches across regions, I gained hands-on insights into audience behaviour, content performance, and how creative concepts can drive community growth.
After every experiment, I always analysed the metric results and developed a better engagement and viral contents for upcoming contents.
Experimented with Paid-ads
Ran tests in different regions to compare engagement rates and follower growth, gaining practical insights into regional audience behaviour.
Compare Organic vs. Paid performance
Found that, in some cases, organic posts outperformed paid ads in both reach and follower growth over the same period, highlighting the importance of authentic content.
Understanding followers
Analysed detailed metrics to understand how gender, country, and active times influence content interaction, showing that engagement isn’t solely driven by ad spend.
Most active times metric
Tracked audience activity to optimise posting schedules for different regions, allowing content to reach specific target groups more effectively.
3/ AI Exploration
When AI tools began to emerge, I saw them not as a replacement for human creativity but as an opportunity to explore and enhance the creative process.
I believe that, while controversial, AI can help artists and creators save time, quickly develop visual references, and experiment with new ideas. I strongly oppose the misuse or stealing of original work, but see thoughtful AI adoption as inevitable in the future.
I explored multiple AI prompt tools to generate visuals based on my own drawings and to create animation concepts for my stories. This approach can be especially useful for promotional or marketing, visual design and other design-related major for concepts, allowing creators to quickly visualise ideas before full-scale execution.
"I see AI image generation as a powerful tool to support, not replace, human creativity. It helps visualise ideas quickly, but results rarely match a creator’s exact vision, and over-reliance can weaken problem-solving skills. I believe blending AI’s speed with human intuition and soft skills leads to more meaningful, innovative outcomes."
The initial goal was to create a cool, realistic image of myself standing next to a giant robot. However, the first trials did not turn out as intended.
Common challenges included incorrect positions, unrealistic scales, and awkward postures, which are normal in early AI-generated drafts.
Patiently adjusting prompts and refining each version was necessary to get closer to an accurate and satisfying result.
While over-relying on AI might seem "lazy," using it effectively actually requires strategic thinking, creativity, and careful iteration.
One of my favourite results
After multiple refinements, I shared the final images online and received widespread praise for their realistic look and accurate scale, bringing the robot and human together as if pulled from fiction into the real world. While there was some controversy among anti-AI audiences, the overwhelming majority celebrated and appreciated my experimental approach.
© Gemma Bao Tran, 2025
Email: gebao.nt@gmail.com